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.

Code of Ethics 6

I wonder do you know the 6th BNI Code of Ethics without looking it up? For those of you who aren’t too sure, this is it: Number 6 - I will display a positive and supportive attitude with BNI members. It’s pretty simple but I’m always amazed at how many members fall short of this, especially when you consider that just about everything in BNI is about helping its members give and receive more referrals. And I have a couple of recent examples that illustrate what I mean.

During a 1-2-1 with a member it became clear that they were a little upset because a fellow chapter member had unsubscribed from their eNewsletter. Now I’m not suggesting that you subscribe to every eNewsletter going, although as a marketer I do because you never know where you might pick up the next great idea, but in this case it is very different.

So, what does this member unsubscribing actually mean and say? Well for openers that you are not interested in the member concerned. But it goes much deeper than that, because by reading the newsletter this member would have learnt things that would help them refer in the future. It would also have been supportive of the member concerned and certainly not upset them. In turn this may have led to getting more referrals, whereas now the likelihood is that it will lead to fewer referrals. After all, would you give referrals to someone who didn’t care about you?

My second example is of a member who wanted to be involved in what their chapter was doing but was clearly told that it was nothing to do with them. They were attempting to be supportive to the chapter but it certainly wasn’t received with any positivity. Again what does this say? Is there a clique in place? Was it just a jobsworth devoid of any common sense? That the chapter isn’t inclusive? That the chapter has so much help they don’t need anymore? (somehow I doubt this option). But again, going deeper, what is the likely outcome of this event? Again, fewer referrals being passed between the members concerned.

As if you needed any more proof, only last week I didn’t pass a referral I could have done. Why? Because the member concerned has absolutely no interest in me and little for their chapter as a whole.
So, if you would like to give and receive more referrals spend a few moments and consider how positive and supportive you are to your fellow members.

That’s my fence!

For some reason something that happened a few years ago now popped into my head today and it’s as relevant today as it was then.

It was after our normal weekly meeting and an aggrieved member caught me in the car park (I was the Membership Coordinator at the time – Vice President today).

His opening words were “You’re got to do something about (I’ll call him Mike – not his real name) Mike!”

“Why?” I asked innocently although I already had an idea of what was coming; a category clash.

“Mike was talking about fencing and that sort of work is mine. You have to do something," he insisted. “Right now!”

I explained that it wasn’t clear cut and the best thing to do in the situation was to meet the Mike and agree on a dividing line between ‘crossover’ jobs.

But he wasn’t interested. He insisted that I had to do something. That was my job. I knew that talking to Mike was the best way to solve the problem and asked the member to do me a favour and have a coffee with Mike. Eventually, if I really thought it best and as it was me, he agreed to having a coffee, but if it didn’t work I had to do something.

The next afternoon my phone rang, the member’s number on the screen, and with a certain amount of trepidation I answered it. “I did what you said. Bloody good advice”, he said.

“Great!" I replied.

Cutting a long story short, they had met and were going to do a large project together. The outcome was even better than I had hoped for, but as BT used to say, 'It’s good to talk’.

So, my advice to you, if you ever think that a fellow member is encroaching on your territory, have a coffee with them as you never know where it might lead.

I’ve got to shoot off!

I was attending a meeting recently when a member arrived and announced that they had to ‘shoot off early’, so would sit near the door.

I have to say that I was surprised that ‘early’ actually meant the member concerned leaving at 8.00am.

Now there are many reasons why leaving your chapter meeting early is not a great idea but those are not why I’m writing this particular blog.

You see the reason I’m putting fingers (or in my case finger) to keyboard is because of the upset that is bound to follow this early departure. You see at some point in the future the member is going to discover that they were marked as absent for having left the meeting early.

It may not be until they see their monthly Member Traffic Lights, but at some point their absences will come up and it will cause upset, as the member will think that they should have been marked as being present for the meeting; after all they had been there for most of the meeting.

However, the BNI Policy is very clear on attendance. Policy number (3) states: ‘The weekly meetings last for 90 minutes. Members need to arrive on time and stay for the entire meeting.’

So, if you know that you are going to have to leave your meeting early, rather than be the cause of a later upset (and put unnecessary pressure on your vice-president), it is far better to arrange a good substitute.

Watching the kettle boil!

Finding a little time for BNI is a challenge for many BNI members. I can understand that because I can remember a time when, as I was that busy, it was difficult to find even a couple of minutes to go to the loo. That may sound crazy, but it’s true. However, I soon sorted out how to prioritise and, in fact, now help a lot of my clients use their time much more effectively.

The thing is, as I’ve written before, just a few minutes a day spent on BNI activities would make a big difference to your rewards as a member. So how about this for an idea?

If you are anything like me, a couple of times a day you make myself a cup of coffee (I have tea in the afternoon) and, again if you are like me, while the kettle is boiling you sort out your cup, put in some milk and a spoon of coffee (and maybe sugar). Then you watch the kettle boil; it’s a couple of minutes when nothing much happens. Your world is in a sort of limbo.

But actually it’s the perfect time for a little BNI activity. You have time to send a few texts, maybe an email or two, even to make a quick phone call. The great thing about this idea is that you don’t need any more time to get this stuff done.
Just imagine if all you managed to do was to send was a couple of texts a day but that you did it every day. That would be 10 texts a week and 40 texts over the course of a month. Now that has to be worthwhile!

What’s that pin?

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to see a prospective new customer (a partner in an International company) and as we were talking he asked me what the pin was on my jacket. I looked at the pin, twiddled it a little, and replied that it was my BNI pin. Obviously he asked me what BNI stood for.

I explained that BNI stood for Business Network International and that we are the world’s largest referral organisation. He then asked what we did. I briefly took him through the meeting format and explained that we all supported each other and shared referrals. His next question was about the sort of businesses made up a group. He was very interested in our single category policy and surprised at the size of our chapters; I told him that chapters ranged in size from around 20 members to as many as 80 members and that we had just about every type of business as a member from Accountants and IFAs, to every type of trade, to driving instructors and tailors. He said that he was surprised that he had never heard of us.

I knew that because of his job he was not a potential visitor (never judge anyone!), but that like all successful business people he just wanted knowledge of things he didn’t know about and should.

He then surprised me by asking if I could recommend a good electrician.Of course I said I could, and he asked if I could put him in touch. I found out a little more about the work he needed doing and then texted my electrician just under an hour later and passed the referral.

The thing about this is that it would never have happened if I wasn’t wearing my BNI pin. Now, I’m not a crazy person swapping my BNI pin onto every jacket I own before I go out, but I do have a pin on just about every jacked I have; around nine I think.

The BNI pin is a conversation starter and you never know when someone might ask you what the pin you are wearing is. So if you don’t wear your BNI pin please do because it can’t harm you; whereas not wearing it certainly can. And, if you only have one pin and would like more, just ask your BNI Director for some as I’m sure they will be happy to supply you.

The lesson here is that finding referrals doesn’t have to be hard work and that doing the little things can make a big difference.

Note: In case you are wondering this is a true story and happened exactly as I have told it.