Feature Presentation is a bit of a Lottery!

Sometimes it can be hard to think of a topic for your Feature Presentation; sometimes the thought of doing one can be just plain scary. So how about this for an idea?

I saw this presentation some time ago but was reminded of it while attending a recent Member Success workshop. It’s clever, easy to put together and requires no special presentation skills. But what I like best about this presentation is that you are totally in control.

It’s a variation on the ‘Any Questions?’ presentation where you just spend 10 minutes answering questions and of course giving the answers. The problem is, and I’ve seen it, with this type of presentation is that often members can’t think of any (or enough) questions to ask. And there are worrying silences. Then, of course, you have the pressure of having to ‘think on your feet’ to give good answers, added to which the questions asked might not be the ones you really wanted to answer.

So how was this presentation different?

Firstly, it got every member involved and so was very interactive. As I’ve already said it was fun, there were more than enough questions, but the best part was that the only questions asked were the ones that demonstrated exactly what the presenter did and how he could help them.

He gave one member a bingo machine to operate (with 49 balls in) and every other member a folded piece of paper with a number on (1 to 49). Some members were given two numbers.

The bingo machine was spun, a number popped out, and the ‘caller’ gave the number. Then the member with that number, unfolded their paper, read out the question and the practiced answer given.

It was the perfect answer, to the perfect question. Just brilliant!

Just one thing to note; you do need to prepare 49 questions in advance.

So, if you are ever stuck for an idea, or nervous about giving a Feature Presentation, then why not give this a go?

I’ll see you at the match…

Imagine the scene the Real Madrid team are getting off the team coach, having just beaten Barcelona 4 – 0, Cristiano Ronaldo having scored a hat-trick turns to his team mates and says, “I’ll see you at the match next week”, smiles and walks away.

 Now of course this would never happen, even for the best player in the world (some say second best), because he would report for training along with the rest of the team the next day. He may be the best, done it all before, scored more goals than any other player, won more awards, but like every other member of the team he will attend training. I’ve also read that often he is the first player to arrive and the last to leave.

So why does he put in all of this effort when he is already one of the very best? I’m sure there are many reasons but three instantly come to mind. He wants to stay one of the very best, he is part of a team and he is a leader. Thought of a fourth. He wants his name to be the first on the team sheet for every game.

Now what has Cristiano Ronaldo got to do with BNI you are probably thinking?

Well that’s easy!

Very soon the new team to run your chapter will be picked and after that team training will be held.

Over the years I’ve heard many excuses for not attending this training, with the most common reason being ‘I’ve done it before.’ Well don’t you think Cristiano Ronaldo has been to training before?

However good a member you are, however many times you have done the training before, you will always learn something. And even if you don’t you will be meeting new people (networking), but even more important than that is that you are part of a team and a team works best when they train together.

I said earlier that Cristiano Ronaldo wants to be the first name on the team sheet. Have you ever wondered what it says about you if you aren’t asked to be part of your chapter team? I know members that breathe a sigh of relief when they aren’t asked but what they don’t consider is that maybe they weren’t thought good enough to help run their chapter.

So, teams are currently being put together and I hope that your name is on the ‘Team Sheet’ and that you already have your chapter training date in your diary just in case.

I’ve not got a referral yet!

It’s not something you want to ever hear from a member, unless of course they have only been a member for few weeks, but I have to say that I was stunned this week when I heard the words.

You see I was visiting a chapter and sitting in on the Visitor Orientation. So was one of the substitutes that day, and it was the substitute who chipped in with ‘Well, I’ve not got a referral yet’.

It soon became clear that out of the five people sitting around the table only one was a true visitor. There were two ‘visitors’ who had been a number of times before and were never going to apply to join (I asked them), and two substitutes, one an ex-member, and one, the person without a referral, who subbed so often that they were in effect getting free membership.

There are a couple of important lessons that can be learnt here:

1) A visitor may attend a meeting up to two times but obviously if it is clear that they are not going to apply on their first visit then there is no second visit.

Personally I don’t have a problem with a visitor attending for a third time as long as they are coming with a completed application form.

But have you ever wondered why we have this policy? There are in fact a number of reasons and two that are key, which would have avoided the situation at Visitor Orientation, are first that they are not going to see or hear anything different the third or fourth time but can be a negative influence and second, are most likely only attending in the hope of getting some business. Neither of these things benefit the chapter or its members.

2) Likewise the Substitutes. A substitute really shouldn’t come to a meeting more than twice and certainly not more than twice within a six month period. And to be attending so regularly that they expect referrals is a definite sign that something is very wrong.

Again I can see why you might think differently about this; in fact in my own chapter we had a police officer who came along a few times for a member.

But there were a couple of important factors here which you could argue make it different. He didn’t become the ‘chapter's sub’ and also he didn’t have his own business to promote.

A substitute who is eligible to apply (and doesn’t) and attends so often that they are getting, in effect, free membership (not even paying for their own breakfast), is totally different and again of little benefit to the chapter and again can be a negative influence, as this one was.

Substitutes on occasion can be hard to find but if you put in the effort to find them you will see the rewards and your chapter will be the better for it.

This blog might help you - http://bnigivers.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/death-and-taxes-only-certainties.html

A Service Manager

The following happened at my own chapter some time ago, but I recently told the story as a mini-education slot and it occurred to me that the lesson would make a great blog.

For nine weeks in a row one of our members asked for an introduction to a service manager at a garage. He changed around what he said each week but at the end he always asked for the same thing: a service manager at a garage. I would write this on our ‘Referral to look for’ sheet, racking my brain for a Service Manager, while making sure I didn’t miss the start of the next 60 Seconds. No one ever came to mind.

Between meetings nine and ten the member went to a Referral Skills workshop. At the next meeting once again he did pretty much the same 60 Seconds but at the end he changed it. He asked for the Service Manager at Vauxhall in Chiswick. He was very specific. This time I instantly thought "I don’t know that person" (it was easy) but, my next thought was, I did know the Service Manager at my local Alfa garage. Because that’s the make of car I drove at the time.

After the meeting I spoke to the member and asked if this contact would help him. And of course it would; he said he had been asking for just such a contact for 10 weeks. Obviously I contacted the service manager and was able to pass the referral later that same week.

Now you might be thinking I’m a little, or maybe rather, stupid, and that might be so, but by being specific the member made it easy for me, and it led to a referral.

So my message is to be as specific as you can be. Don't think by trying to cover everyone it will give you a better chance of getting someone. If you can make connections easy for people you will get more referrals.

Sharpen your Axe

I was taking a tree root out of my garden recently; you can certainly wear yourself out swinging an axe. And what I discovered is that the job is so much easier and more effectively done if you use a sharp axe. Strangely, I would never think to prepare food in my kitchen without first sharpening my kitchen knives.

So what’s my tree root cutting skills (or lack of), and my cooking skills, got to do with you and your BNI chapter? Well, as it turns out, a fair amount. You see, I purchased my axe some years ago and have been using it, off and on, ever since. I swing it at mostly tree roots, now working up a good healthy sweat, as I’m having to use more and more effort, all because my axe was blunt.

And, I’ve noticed that, this is a lot like many BNI members. They attended the Member Success workshop as a new member and then maybe another skills workshop or two and that is it, they never go again. Done that!

But, like my axe, our business skills and our networking skills get ‘blunt’. We forget some of the things we know; while others we just stop doing and we don’t actually even know why.

So if you haven’t attended a workshop recently, say in the past three months, certainly if not in the past six months, I highly recommend that you attended a workshop soon. Doesn’t matter how many times you have completed the workshop before, just go along and sharpen your skills.

Because if you hone your skills, your results will improve, seemingly, without any extra effort.

Have you done it today?

No, I don’t mean what some of you might be thinking, but I do mean the most important thing that you can do for your chapter and yourself.

The answer, of course, is invited someone to your chapter meeting.

Visitors, and in turn new members, are the life blood of every chapter because without them a chapter will at some point die. That may seem overly dramatic, but it’s true.

Many members invite, at best, occasionally. Or maybe when their chapter has a visitor drive on. But I believe, as members, we should invite someone every single day. I’ve always done this for two reasons; one, I’m a bit lazy (don’t like hard work) and two, every visitor is a potential customer for me whatever happens.

Now you might be thinking that inviting someone every day sounds like a lot of hard work but, I promise, it really isn’t.

Think about it this way. Your chapter has a visitor drive on and you need to bring a visitor for a particular date. Firstly, you are under pressure from the start. Then you have to build a list of people to invite and then you have to invite them. Plus, of course, you are not practiced at inviting people. I’m sure this is why many people don’t like inviting people; they don’t do it often enough.

Then think about what I call ‘continuous inviting’. Invite someone every day. There’s no pressure. The person can come to any meeting. And, it can take just seconds to do – in fact at times I hardly notice that I’m inviting people.

The best part is that if you do this, after a while, you will have a continuous ‘pipe-line’ of visitors coming to your chapter.

So where do you find these people to invite? Simple answer – everywhere. Doesn’t matter what you are doing or where you are. I was taking part in a kart race and found someone to invite. This very week I have someone coming to my meeting whose business card I picked up in a coffee shop last week.

How to invite? Whatever is convenient at the time. In person, on the phone, by text, letter, Linkedin, Facebook, postcard or email. Anything will do – as long as you do it.

On some days I might invite a few people, I’ve also been known to invite 20 or 30 at a time (again easy). But the most important thing is to invite one person.

Do you know that if you invited just one person a day (week days), for 46 weeks of the year, that you would invite a total of 230 people to your chapter by the year end. And the best part? Many will come along and some will become members.

So you may have not done ‘it’ today but how about getting started tomorrow? I think you will be surprised at the results.

Hawaii Five-0

The man sitting opposite me was dressed in white Chinos and a very bright bold patterned short sleeved shirt. I wasn’t in Hawaii or on the film set of Hawaii Five-0. I was at a BNI meeting, and before you ask, no there wasn’t anything special happening at the chapter that morning.

However, what I did know was that this particular member wasn’t getting many referrals. I listened to his 60 Seconds and I have to admit that it was very good; even had a great memory hook. So what might his problem be?

Now many of us spend a fair amount of time working on what we are going to say but do we spend as much time, proportionally, on how we will say those words and how we will look while presenting them? Now there have been many studies on this sort of thing (Albert Mehrabian 7% mentioned in our workshops) and I think that image is part of this member’s problem. You see he is an IFA, and, like it or not, we all have an impression of what, we think, an IFA should look like. To most an IFA should be suited and booted.

Now I know this member is great at his job but, because of the way he chooses to dress, he doesn’t get as many opportunities as he should do to prove it. An IFA should be serious - not a fun, relaxed type of guy!

So, how much time to you spend thinking about how you look? Do you even think about how you look?

Think of your BNI chapter as your biggest client. How would you look if you were meeting your best client (it should be the same for all of your clients)? This is how you should look at every chapter meeting.

Okay now you have some great words to say and you look the part. Now – how are you going to say them?

Should I stay?

I was asked for a 1-2-1 this week and of course I said yes.

As soon as we had met, coffee arranged, and sat down, the member concerned opened with, 'I need to renew my membership this month and I’m thinking of leaving.’

Well, I guess it cut out the small talk! To be fair I know the member well so I suppose ten minutes rapport building wasn’t really necessary.

My reply was a simple question, ‘Why?’

It turned out that over the past seven months or so he hadn’t got any work from being a member of his chapter and he was asking if it was worth him staying a member. I told him that I couldn’t make that decision for him but that he should consider a number of things about his membership and then, with luck, his answer would be clear to him.

First, what was the real reason that he was a member? Lots of members don’t actually know this.

Second, what did he expect to get out of being a member? Because without a goal he would never know if he had achieved it or not.

Third, if his goal was a financial one, on average, how many pieces of work would he need to achieve it? We then discussed the life-time value of a customer.

In his case it was pretty good, as his clients often worked with him monthly, for a year or more. This knowledge can have a massive difference as to how you view a referral. For example: as a ‘one-off’ appointment you might be looking at £100 but over the life-time of a client the amount could easily be in the thousands.

Fourth, we talked about his 60 Seconds and how it might be improved.

And finally, we discussed what he talked about in his 1-2-1s (and how many he was having) with people and what he chatted about with his fellow members before and after the meeting. Was everything he was doing consistent with his marketing message? Was it helping people to find him referrals?

By the time we had finished our 1-2-1 he had a great deal to think about and we parted with him going to give some serious thought to his renewal.

I’m happy to report that a few days later I learnt that his renewal had been received.

So, how can my 1-2-1 help you?

I think however well you are doing as a member, it pays to, every so often, consider the questions I asked this member. As you never know it may just mean you avoid the ‘shall I stay’ question or, better still, improve the number and quality of the referrals you are given.