Under Pressure!

I love that song, especially the Queen and David Bowie mix; in fact I’m listening to it as I write this.

But, that’s not why I titled this blog – Under Pressure.

You see we have started the Hot Seat initiative at our chapter, Elmbridge, and as part of the Leadership Team (and VP) you could even say it was my idea. And, as I believe in leading from the front, I put myself top of the Hot Seat inviting list.

Now for those of you who have never heard of the Hot Seat, in simple terms, it’s about inviting visitors. In our case three members are given the job of finding a visitor in a given number of weeks, with the knowledge that should they fail….well there will be some form of consequence!

Now of course not many members like this concept and many in fact hate it. So why are we running the Hot Seat?

Well, the answer is two-fold: first, to replace members lost by natural attrition, and second, more business for our members. By far the most important of these is losses. On average a chapter will lose 12 members every year through no fault of their own. It just happens. Members move, retire, change jobs, have children and just about every other reason you can think of to leave. So unless these members are replaced the chapter gets smaller and smaller and smaller. I have even seen chapters completely disappear because nothing was done to keep the visitors coming. It happened to one of my chapters once and I never want to witness that again. It still saddens me to this day.

So I totally understand why members feel under pressure, because I feel it as well. In total I have five weeks to find a visitor and one of those weeks has gone already. I’ve tried my best possibilities so now I’m really Under Pressure and I have to say I’m feeling it a bit!

However, I also know that it is essential that I find a visitor for the well-being of my chapter (to do my bit) and so whatever it takes I will find one. I hope very soon.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t believe in leading from the front because then I would be further down the inviting list, have extra time to find a visitor and feel a lot less pressure. But, as they say, someone’s got to be first and it may as well be me. At least I have two friends with me (well they were!).

Do you like your Power Team?

The BNI definition of a Power Team is this:

‘A power team is a group of professionals in BNI who work in non-competing, related fields and have developed relationships so they can refer customers to each other.’

Many BNI Power Teams don’t work and I think the reason for this is very simple and the answer as to why this is the case can be found in the definition above.

You see most members hear (or read) ‘group of professionals in BNI who work in related fields’ and think the ‘non-competing’ is unnecessary, for example, an electrician doesn’t compete with a plasterer. So they think things will just work.

But, and this is the really important part, they have missed out ‘have developed relationships with'. You see a Power Team will never work to its maximum potential unless relationships are built between its members and, I would even say, unless they truly like one another.

Because as you build a relationship, you want to help one another, you’re working with one another and you’re finding out about one another; you are getting to like one another. Only then will the best referrals come - but first you must build the relationships.

So, if your Power Team doesn’t seem to be working take a moment and think about these questions. Have you built good relationships with the members of your Power Team? When did you last have a 1-2-1 with someone in your Power Team? When was the last time you met for a social event? And, the big one – do you like them? And, more important, do they like you?

If you work on the relationships the referrals will follow.

Gone fishing

David Moore (Novaglass) our double-glazing expert stands up for his 60 Seconds; he has a fishing rod in his hands. It seems that David likes to cast a line for a little relaxation in his spare time. I also discover that Matt Phils (A-Plan), our insurance broker, likes nothing better than to coax a monster carp into his landing net from a beautiful lake as often as he can. Although with two small children it’s not happened for a while.

Back row: Simon Harris, Mike Daly, Steve Cole, David Moore, David Wimblett
Front row: Nevill Godwin, Chris Denny

So why is this all going on at BNI Elmbridge? Well our 60 Seconds are all about our hobbies (with props of course). Now some of you might be thinking ‘but what’s that got to do with business?’ and the answer is, it’s about relationship building. Getting to know one another better. Finding something we have in common, a connection, because it really can make a big difference in how well people work together.

A great example of this happened to me a few years ago now. There was a member in my chapter that I seldom talked to and he didn’t go out of his way to talk to me either. Don’t know why, we just didn’t gel. Then he did his 10 Minutes and everything changed.

For his 10 Minutes he changed into his motorcycle racing leathers and he told us all about the racing he did around Europe. Now I was a big Barry Sheene fan and this got us talking. Cutting a long story short, the result was me referring him to one of my best friends, something that other than finding out about his hobby would never have happened.

So, I highly recommend that you have a Hobbies 60 Second at your chapter very soon if you haven't had one already.

And, obviously it’s not just about building business relationships, as I have now been clay pigeon shooting with Steve Cole (S. J. Cole & Co), our master builder, and I’m going pike fishing with David in the autumn. Just brilliant!

NOTE: Photograph by Andrew Boschier

Wish You Were Here!

We are running a visitor inviting campaign at BNI Elmbridge at the moment which involves every member bringing in five postcards. For our chapter of 36 members, 180 postcards will be sent out inviting business people to our meeting. That just has to be good.

Now there’s a poor way of doing postcards and a good way of doing them but what I like about the ‘five postcards’ is that every member can take part and, even with the little extra time needed to do them correctly, they will only take about 30 minutes to put together.

So, I guess what you are thinking is, how do you do them correctly?

The answer to that is simple – they need to be addressed to a named person; so not ‘The Manager’ or similar, not just the company name, but, for example, to ‘Steve Smith’. The other thing that needs to be done is to record their phone number and/or their email address so that the postcards can be followed up. By simply contacting the person invited a few days after your postcards are delivered will massively increase the results of the campaign.

Another great thing about postcard inviting is that BNI supply the postcards and your chapter will even stick the stamps on for you. How good is that!

Okay, now we get to the big one. Who to invite?

This is something that really stresses a lot of members but I can never understand why. Ask me to find a referral or someone to invite to Elmbridge and I would go for the visitor every single time. Why? Because I can control who I invite but I can’t always find a referral.

So, who do I invite? Well, I guess they fall into three groups; people I know (a good place to look for these people are in your mobile - these will give you your best success rate), names from business cards that I have collected in my travels and, if all else fails, Google.

Google is the least successful but can get you some great visitors (and members). Remember you need to find a name, so here are a few tips to help make things easier for you.

First, choose a category to invite; a good starting point is a business you would like in your Power Team. Then search whatever that business is and your chapter’s location. For example in my case it might be – bookkeeper Hersham.

The contact details, address, phone and email are usually pretty simple to find, as most sites have a ‘Contact Us’ page. But if I can’t find this information in a couple of clicks I move on to the next possible business.

A name can be more difficult to find, and this is where you will spend the most time, but can usually be found in either the ‘About Us’, ‘History’, ‘Staff’, ‘Testimonial’ pages or of course in the name of the company. Another place to check is in the blog if they write one.

Some types of business, as a whole, seem to hide the names of their people while others are very open. So, if you have chosen a category where after a few different sites you’ve not found a person’s name move on to another category.

The other great thing about Google is that you can search for people to invite, anytime, anyplace, anywhere. I once put together a list of people to invite when I had a few minutes spare on a trip in Japan.

In all you shouldn’t have to spend more than about 30 minutes writing your five postcards and it’s a great contribution to your chapter.

The main thing is not to see inviting as a chore but more a way of increasing your business.