Wednesday 25 July 2012

Am I bovvered?

25/7/12

I’m sure that we all know Catherine Tate’s character, Lauren, that coined the phrase “Am I bovvered” and almost died laughing at her sketch with Tony Blair for Red Nose Day. But it’s a serious question, “Are you bothered?”

What am I talking about? Well let me explain.

I was with a chapter recently discussing their conversion rate - it was pretty low - and discovered that they didn’t like to be too ‘pushy’. Didn’t want to do what they considered a ‘hard sell’. They suggested that visitors looked around and came back for a second visit. Well I have to say that it just plain crazy! They thought that they were being nice, but were they?

I have a business, I've been running it since I was 21 years old, I'm now a business mentor, and I don’t suggest to my clients, having presented to them, that they go and check out the competition, and, if they feel like it, come back to me later. And I doubt that I’m alone in that. We all fight very hard to find clients; we don’t then give them away.

But, there’s far more to it that that, as I discovered recently. Two chapters were involved: the first didn’t ‘push’, didn’t follow up; the second was keen to get the visitor to apply and did follow up. As it turned out the same visitor went along to both chapters. Both chapters ran good meetings; both were of a similar size. When asked why he had chosen one chapter over the other, he said that the first chapter didn’t seem to be particularly bothered if he joined them or not. So, he joined the second!

So, just a thought. If you are being ‘kind’ to your visitors, could you actually be losing potential members because they think that you are saying “Are we bovvered”?

Thursday 12 July 2012

How many times have you been invited?

12/7/12
I’ve mentioned this before but one thing that I’m often given as a reason for not having visitors is that everyone has been invited; there is an over-saturation of chapters so there is no one left to invite.

First let me put on record that we are far, very far, from over-saturation, and I can prove it. And, it’s not just because three out of the four visitors at my chapter this morning had never heard of BNI.

But, before I prove it, how about a reason for why some people hold this view. It’s because they don’t really think. Google any category in your town and there will be dozens of results (obviously less if you are in the middle of the moors). I Googled a category recently and there were 287 companies in the area. Chapters? Two! That meant there were 287 people to invite and 285 of them couldn’t get in to BNI even if they wanted to.

However, we don’t even need to go that far for a reason, because every member should be using their own personal database. And no two members will have the same database – it’s impossible. In fact I would go further. I would be surprised if more than a couple of percent were the same contacts, even if you live close to another member. Assuming you take out your fellow BNI members of course!

But, here’s the killer. If you live in what you consider to be an over-saturated area, you must have been invited dozens of times to visit another chapter. Again I would be surprised if you have been. And please don’t think that’s because other members know you’re a BNI member already. They don’t! I’ve been a member for nine years now, and I’m pretty well known in BNI circles, but only last week I visited a nearby chapter for the first time and met someone I knew (only the third person that I have ever met in BNI that I already knew) and neither of us knew the other was in BNI!

So, please never use over-saturation as an excuse for not inviting anyone. Instead, think, and invite those closest to you.

Friday 6 July 2012

Will it make the boat go faster?

6/7/12

This week I met Ben Hunt-Davis; he was in the Eight (rowing) that won gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. I’m almost 6 foot 2 inches but he made me look small. He was talking at an Entrepreneur’s Circle event about his crazy goal of winning Olympic Gold at 10.30am on the 24th September 2000 and the fact that he had to do it in less than five and a half minutes. That’s some goal!

But two years earlier the crew had a history of being also-rans: sixth in the Barcelona Olympics and they didn’t even make the final in Atlanta. But all that changed when they decided on a common policy for everything they did – ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’ They also decided that if they could still stand after the race, but had not won gold, that they would never speak to one another again.

Now this is extreme; winning gold is. But what can we learn from this goal, and this crew, that would help us in our BNI chapters?

Well, for me, two things stood out from Ben’s talk.

First, ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’ Was what they were doing going to make the boat go faster? Fighting, letting personalities get in the way, not doing their absolute best in every training session, turning up for training sessions. The answer is blindingly obvious; but they were doing it. As do we all. So, in your chapter, is everything you do ‘going to make your chapter more successful?’

And second, ‘What can I do to make today better than yesterday?’ They had in earlier years put in pretty much the same effort every day, maybe working harder, but without even thinking, like most of us do. But they changed that, so that every day they tried to improve on the last in some way - however small. It didn’t always work, but every day they tried to get better. So again, how can we transfer this to our chapters?

Well, today maybe you only invited one person to your meeting next week, tomorrow you could invite two people. Perhaps your inviting technique could be improved. How could you change it tomorrow? Maybe this week you didn’t put too much effort into your 60 Seconds, well next week you can craft a really useful 60 Seconds, and then next week, improve on it again. Maybe in the last month you have only had two One2Ones, well next month you could have three.

Continuous improvement, like continuous inviting, brings big rewards. It might not win you a gold medal, but how much better would your chapter be?