We need to know what the final product is but we need to focus on the process more than the final product. What is the final product in BNI? If we ask a hundred members we might get a hundred answers. We should all be on the same page, especially on messaging.
Some may say creating large chapters, others might say passing referrals and still others might say building relationships. All of these are great but they are a means to an end not the end product. What is the final product? It is found in our mission statement. “… Help members increase their business…” Matter of fact every business or organization should find their final product in their mission statement.
Before we look at the process let’s look at 5 reasons we should not focus on end product but instead, the process.
What is the process in BNI? My process is to follow up with all my contacts on a regular basis and focus on the following 5 objectives.
Here are 5 reasons you should focus on the process of BNI instead of the final product.
When you focus on the process, you will create more relationships, give more referrals, create more closed business for your members, increase and grow your own business, have more visitors and have larger chapters. Your chapter will grow to the extent that you and your members grow.
Robert Allen Mitchell Sr
Word of mouth will spread like wildfire at successfully damaging the lazy networker’s credibility and trust factor. You probably already know this and was appalled at my title. I know this because a lazy networker would never take the time to read an article.
Lazy networkers think that referrals will fall in their lap like ripe cherries off a tree, they won’t. The one key word in networker is the word WORK! It takes work, hard work to be a successful networker and I would like to share some of this hard work with you.
In this article, I want you to imagin with me a volleyball player. The volleyball player must position their bodies’ just right on the court to effectively return the ball. There are three key positions a player can take that a referral marketer can learn from.
Before we look at these three placement strategies notice we are talking about the players and not the spectators. Referral marketing is for players and doers not spectators. The first thing a player must do before positioning themselves to return the ball is to decide what balls they should return and which ones they should let another player return.
After the player decides that another player is to return the ball they then will positon their body to support the player that is returning the ball. In referral marketing it is paramount to know which referrals you want. You need to teach your referral partners what a good referral for you is verses what a bad referral is. You should not and cannot take every referral that is hit over the net. If you don’t have a referral partner on your team that can service the referral you should seek one out. When you double your referral partners you can triple the referrals you receive and give.
I heard Dr. Ivan Misner, founder of BNI say that “a company’s vision should be audacious.
And BNI’s vision is just that; “changing the way the world does business!” What is interesting about this vision and this statement is the fact that BNI is changing the way the world does business back to the way the world use to do business.
Just a couple of hundred years ago the world did business the way BNI’s vision suggest and that is doing business with people you know and trust or at least with someone that you were referred to by someone that you know and trust to someone they know and trust.
A lot of knowing and trusting is the key to the way people really want to do business. People are forced to do business with someone they do not know and trust because they do not know someone in that field of expertise.
People hire more companies through Google than they do through referrals. A lot more! It is so much more it would appear that referral marketing could soon be a thing of the past. People go do Google in the droves and the reason for it; people don’t know enough professions. Consumers are forced to go to Google and hire a total stranger that they do not know nor do they trust because they do not know someone personally in that field of expertise.
The reason referral marketing will always be around is the same reason it has always been around, people want to do business with people they know and trust or they at least want to be referred to someone that is known and trusted by someone they know and trust. (Key words; know and trust)
I had a customer that attended my BNI meeting for the sole purpose of meeting contractors. She was a property manager for the State and had a waiting list of customers a mile long. She did not need referrals to customers she need referrals to business professionals that could meet her needs.