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BNI & The Power of One
BNI 776: Are All BNIs the Same? Why Don't We Have That?
00:17:35
We are back with your submitted questions! This week we discuss why some regions have somethings others don't.
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Foreign welcome back to BNI and the Power of One podcast. Thank you for joining me again today. We are back with more show submissions and I know I keep saying that because once upon a time we didn't have any or they would be random and and I appreciate everybody who continues to keep bringing them in. I think just about every episode last year that was just being I related was one and I'd love to keep that going. So if you've got a question, a topic of any kind, go to bnipower of1.com leave it there. We will definitely make sure to get it. You guys are bringing in some whoppers. These are some doozies and I try not to shy away from any question I can count on one hand how many I've had to avoid talking about for different reasons. So I'm going to keep this one anonymous as well. Comes from the great state of Texas. There's a lot of franchises and regions in Texas. I won't go into exactly which one. And let's see, it says your show has dramatically changed the way I approach bni. And as I listen to your podcast and then try to find some of the great resources you mentioned for further training, I realize they aren't available in my area. Are we not paying the same price for bni? Why can I have access to. Why can't I have access to the same advanced trainings that your BNI members have access to? I'm the VP of my chapter and I would love a way to increase my knowledge in different ways than the chapter has previously used because frankly we aren't doing all that amazing. I feel, I feel super frustrated with BNI Business Builder and essentially utilize your podcast for all my extended knowledge. What exactly am I paying BNI all this extra money as opposed to previous years before my time for if I don't have access to the awesome advanced trainings that your BNI has access to, I'm feeling like I waste a lot of my time searching for information. I never find how can I be a better BNI member and vp? So I'm trying to think of the best way political way to answer this. Unfortunately and also fortunately, I guess in some ways while BNI is a franchise and a global franchise which provides tremendous amount of value, especially compared to previous years, that value proposition continues to increase through the growth of the organization, which brings in growth of information, brings in growth of tools, there's been a lot of money invested in technology, et cetera, et cetera. Not every BNI region is exactly the Same. And that is not to say that mine is the best. There are many regions out there that do amazing things and would tell you that they're better or whatever, but on but because of the local ownership or and or management, there are a lot of regions that are, that are owned directly by BNI Global. You are gaining or lack some access to certain things based on that owners or operators experience and innovations and creations, if that makes sense. So as a case in point, my chapters in my regions we do train advanced member success program trainings. These are not really new in BNI. They were developed in our regions, I mean 15 plus years ago. They've been enhanced and changed over because of 15 years is a long time. But there are many, many, many regions that have had these trainings, have these trainings. Some have been producing, have been putting on those, those trainings ever since the beginning. Some used to and maybe don't anymore. Maybe there was an ownership change, etc. Some might have just dropped them off. We continue to pursue them and push them. Some regions just never adopted them. And thus even though when ownership has changed etc. They were just never implemented, those are just the result of further investment of time, knowledge, etc. Locally into those training modules is a great benefit of BNI's conferences. I would encourage members and directors and executive directors all to go. The US One is coming up in April in Texas because that's usually where these knowledge things, these programs, those kind of things are shared are talked about and then can be adopted into regions. So yeah, from your region you don't have access to my advanced MSP program programs. That does not mean there isn't other points of value and other points of training and ways to be a better BNI member. That just is because of location. Not that if your regional team were to reach out we wouldn't be able to help and, and share some stuff. But even then it's you got to kind of go through or train the trainer to understand, you know, why is it developed that way, how to train it and all that kind of stuff. I have floated out the idea a little bit of we did it a couple years ago where I offered all of those courses via live training, via Zoom to anybody and I might revisit that again this year and I probably will, to be honest with you, because our big focus, if you've heard on earlier podcasts in 2025 so far, is training. And so I do understand that we have some great training materials that not everybody has access to. So maybe we'll do that. Even with that, not everybody pays the same price. For bni, the B and I membership is set by region. It is not standard across the entire United States for a variety of reasons. Back in the past it used to be, but now for many years now, it hasn't been. So I don't know what your membership dues are. I know what my regions are. I know that there are regions out there that are below ours. I know there are regions that are out there that are higher than mine. It's set locally and that kind of makes a lot of sense when you take in geographical situations, when you take in size, when you take in value propositions, et cetera, et cetera. There, there are some franchises that will build in price of training into membership fees. Some that might keep membership fees different and charge other. There's just, there's a lot of customization per region. So that's the answer to one point of your frustration. And just a downside of this podcast is I do speak from my experience in kind of regionally. So if you're a member of mine, you know, I've always done these with kind of that, that focus originally, that was the focus of it. It's obviously scaled now just with the scale of the show and the audience. So and maybe that's just something I have to work on myself and understanding. Having said that, there is still a plethora of opportunity and more growing each and every day. So. And your point around your frustration with Business Builder? Agreed, feel the same, don't control that, but am excited to see the update that comes out this week on it and there's a big kind of refresh going around. I think it's called Business Builder Sigma coming out tomorrow. So let's see how that changes. But it is a it's as frustrating as it may be to search because there's just too much information on there. There is a lot of information on there to be able to tap into. And you could also encourage, you know, you'd speak to those who are managing your region. Again, whether it's an executive director, speak to your director. Again, different titles, different areas, et cetera. Whoever is your support team, you know, request more training topics. Request that, hey, what can we do to get, you know, more training opportunities around these areas of focus? Like our advanced trainings are very topic specific, right? Like we do one on referral mindset. Like how do you find and how do people find referral? Like how do referrals really work? Then we go into one to one Specifically and then we go into weekly presentations and featured presentations and then power teams, etc. So if you feel like there's a focus of need, speak to those who are your support team and request it. Say, we need more training on these things. I think a lot of times there might be a lack of opportunity, not based on laziness, but just lack of insight of what the market desires or might need. And then challenge them to go out and find more trainings that are out there, that exist, that they can bring back to your region. That would be one thing. Don't sit back and don't be a victim to the circumstance. At least share where you think there might be a lack and where that frustration may be. The biggest thing right now is to figure out where do you think your skill sets are in need of the most attention, where do you want to try to improve and really search very specifically for that. So if I was in business builder and I was like, I really need help on weekly presentations, I'd be searching directly for weekly presentation material. I'd be searching for lowest common denominator material. I'd be searching for how to ask for referral material. Because otherwise there's just so much information. You can kind of get lost in the forest of it all. You need to be very direct. Same thing with podcast. You know, there's a lot of episodes out there now between this podcast to be an I podcast. There's many other great people who have started doing BNI related podcast, which I think is, is awesome. Right? So you have my, you have this one, obviously you have the official BNI podcast. There is the BNI mindset one. There's a San Diego one, there's The Australian Story 1. Now there's the Southern Tennessee podcast. There's, there's so many more just kind of popping up, which is awesome. And search through, see if there's other episodes. You know, I, I've covered a lot being I obviously Dr. Miser's covering a lot, but other ones are covering different topics as well. And it might even be this similar topic, but it's a different voice, it's a different experience, it's a different version of it that could, that could help. So I'd be just utilizing the, the access to the material you have. You got to remember when I was a member, we didn't have that, we didn't have that podcast didn't even exist. You were very, you were stuck to live in person training at a set time that you had to schedule yourself around. And you Got what you got. At least in today's world, with the. With everything being shared and with Business Builder and with podcasts, you do have access to a lot more. And it is, you know, frankly, kind of goes back to part of what you're paying for, I guess, in some ways, because part of what you're paying for is to not only be a local member in a local chapter in a local region, but to be a member and gain access to the global material of bni. And that's where Business Builder really comes in. There's a lot of stuff now being created. You would never have access to the podcast. You would never have had access to before then. I'm sure the podcasts are free, but they don't mean anything to you unless you're being I. And. But you're getting insight in training and different voices that, again, when I was a member, we didn't have. You just you got your director and that was it. So I wouldn't. I would be looking at what are the opportunities and what are the positives. I understand that, you know, my podcast may have caused some frustration by talking about stuff that maybe you don't have access to, but that does not mean you're limited in the amount of materials, really. There's so much more out there. I'd be narrowing my search. I'd be asking myself, what is the skill set I most want to approve and then be searching for that. And again, maybe I'll put it out there. And to hear from you, the listeners, you know, go to bnipowerofone.com Leave a comment if you'd be interested in taking the advanced member success programs via Zoom, and maybe if we got enough response, it'll be something that we schedule to do. Yeah, it's something I do for our members. It's part of our programs here in our regions. But there's so much other material out there. In terms of being a leader in your chapter, I would be really focusing on creating the culture around training. And again, based on the access that you have, one of the best things about podcasts is most of them are short enough that they could be played in a meeting, depending on the size of your chapter. Okay, I forget if it says in the question how many members you have, but I think you said you were struggling a little bit, so let's just say it's like 20, 25 members. There's enough time in that meeting to replace the educational moment with for at least, you know, once a month, once every other month, once a quarter. With a podcast of a certain type, so you could start sharing some of the value points that you're finding that will help not only educate the chapter as a whole, hopefully, if it's like a really great episode Dr. Miser did on a certain topic, but highlighting the value of those resources that members have access to that maybe they're not tapping into. Another thing you guys could do as a chapter is if there's a great topic is assign everybody to listen to it. Email everybody, everybody's going to listen. Please listen to this podcast this week with a link to the podcast. We're going to discuss it at next week's meeting. Will every member do it? Probably not, but you'll get more members who are listening to it than ever would have before. So as a leader, you could be sharing the resources that you're finding value in and making it easier for your members to digest that information than just hoping they're going to go out and happen to find the same stuff you're doing. Remember, training is vital for you individually to increase your own skill sets, but it's also important to you that your other members get it so that they're increasing their skill sets. Because as we become more effective in networking, it means not only should we and can we be getting more results directly from our networking, it means we can be producing more results for those in our network. So you want your fellow members to get training on how to be better at these things because it's going to help both of you pass more referrals back and forth. So as a leader, don't look at what you don't have. Start looking at what you do have access to. Where are you finding the value and find ways to share that and encourage your fellow members to engage with it inside your chapter. You don't need the advanced MSP trainings to be super successful. Are they going to help you? Yes, of course. Would they add value? Yes, of course. But they're not a necessity. And yes, to your bigger point, the BNI agenda, the BNI program, now the Power of One, which is fantastic. Those kind of things are universally across the board, at least in the United States. The Power of One in the United States. There's other similar reports globally. Those are standard. That's what you're getting. Every chapter should be running the same agenda. Every chapter should be, you know, has the same focus, has the same resources in terms of being I Connect and BNI business builder and all that kind of stuff. Some will have more on top of that. That is based on the investment of time, effort, everything else locally. And if you feel like you're missing something, speak to those who support you and request it and challenge them to to find ways to add that value in your region. Pricing is going to be different. All those kind of things will be a little bit different region to region. So I hope this answered your question and I look forward to hearing from all of you throughout this year. Again keep these questions coming in. I know the next one's a doozy as well. I was looking ahead but keep engaging. It's the only way I think to really make this as valuable as possible to you hopefully. And I really like hearing from everybody and if you are finding value and you haven't done so yet, leave us a review and whether it's Apple, podcasts, Spotify, however you may be finding us, I appreciate everybody who's done that and I will talk to you soon.