BNI 839: It May Just Be Too Early - BNI & The Power of One

Summary

Summary of BNI 839: It May Just Be Too Early

BNI & The Power of One Episode 839, titled "It May Just Be Too Early," hosted by Tim Roberts, delves into the challenges faced by personal trainers in generating referrals within the BNI (Business Network International) framework. Released on July 21, 2025, this episode provides valuable insights, strategies, and encouragement for fitness professionals striving to enhance their referral networks.

1. Introduction to the Challenge

The episode begins with an anonymous submission from a seasoned personal trainer seeking advice on improving referral generation within their BNI chapter. The trainer, boasting over 13 years of professional experience and steadfast commitment to BNI since May 1st, shares their frustrations:

[00:39] Trainer: "I've maintained 100% attendance with an average of 2 to 3 one-to-ones a week... However, I found it surprisingly difficult to generate referrals in B, and I believe it has to do with the nature of my profession."

The trainer explains that fitness is a deeply personal topic, making it socially uncomfortable for others to recommend their services compared to more straightforward professions like plumbing or mortgage brokerage.

2. Understanding the Personal Nature of Fitness Referrals

Tim Roberts acknowledges that the difficulty in generating referrals isn't unique to personal training but is prevalent among professions that deal with personal and sensitive aspects of clients' lives. He emphasizes the importance of time investment in building trust within the BNI community:

[02:15] Tim Roberts: "You're in this plateau of latent potential... it takes time of them training before the body really starts adapting and changing. Similarly, with BNI, trust isn't built overnight."

Roberts compares the gradual progress seen in fitness training to the slow but steady growth of referrals in BNI, underscoring that persistence is key.

3. Strategies for Building Trust and Generating Referrals

Roberts offers actionable strategies to help personal trainers enhance their referral generation:

a. Enhance One-to-One Interactions

Roberts advises reviewing the effectiveness of one-to-one meetings:

[04:00] Tim Roberts: "Review your approach in the one-to-ones and your weekly presentations. Are you making it comfortable and natural for others to bring you up?"

He suggests focusing on how trainers present their services and ensuring that discussions around fitness come organically from identifiable client needs or triggers.

b. Educate Chapter Members on Recognizing Referral Opportunities

To facilitate natural referrals, Roberts recommends training chapter members to recognize specific cues that might indicate someone could benefit from personal training:

[06:30] Tim Roberts: "Teach people how to pick up on the clues. For example, if someone mentions they're considering GLP1s for weight management, steer the conversation towards the benefits of combining medication with physical training."

By equipping members with targeted questions and conversation starters, trainers can create seamless opportunities for referrals without imposing judgments.

c. Leverage Weekly Presentations for Focused Messaging

Roberts highlights the importance of specificity in weekly presentations:

[08:20] Tim Roberts: "Don’t be vague. Be very specific in your approach and your ask. For instance, address different weight loss journeys separately, such as those struggling to lose the last few pounds versus those significantly overweight."

This tailored approach ensures that chapter members understand the unique value propositions of the trainer, making it easier for them to identify appropriate referral opportunities.

4. Emphasizing Patience and Consistent Effort

A recurring theme in the episode is the virtue of patience. Roberts encourages the trainer to stay persistent and maintain their current efforts, assuring them that their commitment will eventually lead to increased referrals:

[09:45] Tim Roberts: "Patience, patience, patience. You're so early in this journey, so keep up the activity. Don't get disheartened. You're going to hit that tipping point."

He reassures the trainer that consistent effort in building relationships and refining their approach will lead to a snowball effect, where testimonials and success stories naturally attract more referrals.

5. Conclusion and Final Encouragement

Roberts concludes by reiterating the importance of patience and strategic communication:

[11:30] Tim Roberts: "First and foremost, patience. And secondly, review your approach. Make sure you're painting a very comfortable, natural picture for referrals to occur seamlessly."

He leaves the listener with a message of encouragement, emphasizing that with time, dedication, and the right strategies, personal trainers can overcome the initial hurdles and thrive within their BNI chapters.

Key Takeaways

Time Investment is Crucial: Building trust within BNI requires consistent participation and relationship-building over time.
Specificity Enhances Referrals: Tailored messaging and focused weekly presentations help chapter members understand how and when to refer fitness professionals.
Educate and Empower Members: Training BNI members to recognize and act on specific cues can lead to more natural and comfortable referrals.
Patience Pays Off: Persistent effort and a positive attitude are essential in overcoming the initial challenges of generating referrals in personal and sensitive professions.

This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for personal trainers and similar professionals within BNI, offering both strategic advice and motivational support to enhance their referral networks effectively.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Sam Foreign.

B (0:39)

Welcome back to BNI and the Power of One. We're back with your show. Submissions, Topics etc submitted@bnipowerofone.com if you ever have one you can go to the website. Leave it there and we will make sure to get to it. And as always you can leave it anonymous if you subscribe so desire this one has been asked that we do leave it anonymous so we will do that. Says this person's a trainer personal trainer over 13 years of professional experience been in BNI member since May 1st. I've maintained 100% attendance to average 2 to 31 to ones a week with members in and out of the chapter. Completed two plus hours of CEUs each week. I'm fully bought into the BNI system, doing all I can to build relationships and to give to others. That said, I found it surprisingly difficult to generate referrals in B and I I believe it has to do with the nature of my profession. Fitness is deeply personal topic. It's not easy or socially comfortable for someone to bring up another person's body, health or appearance. Unlike referring a plumber or mortgage broker. Telling someone they should meet your personal trainer can feel like an implied judgment even when it's well intentioned. I'd love to hear your take on how personal trainers and others in similar roles can equip their chapter members to bring them up in a natural, appropriate way. Some questions that come to mind what makes referring a fitness professional more challenging in a BNI setting? How can we as trainers reframe our messaging to make it easier for members to refer to us? How can we help members recognize and bring up health and fitness without making others feel uncomfortable or judged in the current economic climate? How can we clearly communicate the long term value of investing in health and wellness? This has been humbling and insight humbling and insightful start to my BNI journey. I believe this conversation could help both fitness professionals and chapter members become more effective referral partners. Okay, so a really good question and not entirely unique to your profession because there's a lot of professions that will have the challenge of the referral being very personal in nature, maybe as you said, uncomfortable for people to bring up, etc. Now, before I even get into some of those, let me just tell you one thing that stands out to me. You've only been a member for about three months, so a big part of that is just going to be more time investment. You're doing the right activities, so you're you're attending, you're doing CEUs you're doing the one to ones, there's still an element of time requirement needed to really build up, not just the trust level that's going to be required in you. So just doing one to ones with people doesn't instantly build up trust. It's the repetitiveness of it, it's the investment of time in each other that will build that up, but also then the understanding of how to bring you up and how to find referrals for you. So one, I think you're just so early in the journey, part of what you're seeing is you're in this plateau of latent potential and you, you work in the industry that will get this right. If somebody's going to a personal trainer and they're not and they go to a training with you and they go home and look in the mirror, they're not going to see a change. They go the next week and they look in the mirror, they're probably still not going to really see a change. It takes time of them training before the body really starts adapting and changing. And then even with that it's did they change their eating habits, did they change all those things? How effectively and efficiently are they doing those things will all play in that time. Everybody's body's different, so that's going to play in the time where they hold weight, it's going to play in the time. It's going to be the same thing with bni. It does not mean that you've wasted any time doing these one to ones. Just like it wouldn't be the case that somebody wasted time training with you if they didn't see a result instantaneously. And so you're, you're in that. That's a part of it. The second question that comes up then is in the activity that you're doing, how are we doing that? Are we doing it effectively? Are we saying the right things, the wrong things? Are we making it comfortable for people? One great way to figure that out would be to submit your weekly presentation for review. And they, you may or may not have done that, but, and hopefully if you did, we'll come up to it. But that'll be a good way to hear it and get some feedback directly because it's very hard for me to say you're saying the right thing, you're saying the wrong thing, you're doing the right thing, you're doing the wrong thing without really being there. So the general advice on what do we need to do? We need to train people. First of all, I Think even in today's economic climate that you brought up your industry and by that I mean the health and wellness and longevity industry is booming and becoming far easier to talk about than it was years ago. And just so much in like, you know, and maybe it's because I, I have a personal trainer, maybe it's because I go to a, to a gym that has personal training and all that, maybe I just see a lot more. But it just seems like everybody's talking about all of these things from training to how they're eating to taking things like TRT or peptides or the GLP1s or there's like just a million longevity like these med spas and these longevity businesses are just popping up everywhere. So I do think it is becoming an easier topic because more and more people are doing things and discussing them. So the that's going to come in to help you but you still got to teach people really how to pay attention to what people are saying because then they're not just all walking around the sign around their neck saying I need a personal trainer and what kind of questions to ask based off those triggers to really carry a conversation that they could bring you up in. Because what's not going to happen is I'm not going to see a friend of mine and be like hey man you're really overweight. Have you thought of getting a personal trainer? Like I'm not going to do that. But if my friend is complaining about something, whether it be weight, whether it be hey we're having a discussion around and each one of these by the way could be, it's like own training opportunity for you meaning its own weekly presentation, its own line of communication in a one to one parts of a featured presentation. But maybe you gotta you teach. One part is hey, when you hear people discussing the GLP1s and those like ozempic type of things, you're gonna hear em discuss it, good, bad or ugly, whatever they're gonna say about it. Here's some questions you can ask and in that conversation you can ask em, hey, have you ever thought of working with a trainer? Cause even in like that case like let's say oh my doctor's saying I need to go on a GLP one thing. Did your doctor you say why did they say that? You know what they talk about? Just normal conversation around it. Ask them like did your doctor recommend physical training alongside it? Yes or no? Yes. What's your plan there? Oh, I might go join Planet Fitness. Have you ever considered or I have somebody I'D really like to introduce you before you make that decision, who I think might be able to help you. No, they didn't mention it. Okay. That's a whole nother thing. They didn't mention physical training. Well, one of the side effects I hear from these things is that you can lose muscle mass. Have you considered. I'd love to introduce you to a friend of mine who helps people who are taking these types of things make sure that doesn't happen. Would you be interested? Maybe it's. They're just talking about weight gain. What have you been doing, what have you tried, what hasn't worked? Have you ever. You know, I got somebody I think you should really be introduced in, want to meet. So you. You just gotta teach people how to pick up on the clues. Some of them are gonna be very obvious. Some of them are gonna be a little bit more subtle. It could be people compl of. I just been having a lot of pain lately. Okay, what does that mean? Where. You know, where's it coming from? What have you tried? People talking about it's uncomfortable. I should join a gym, but I'm really uncomfortable. Have you thought about personal training instead of just joining, you know, Planet Fitness and being on your own? It just. It's a matter of consistency. It's a matter of your approach needs to be. How is this conversation going to take place when I'm not in the room? And it's a matter of time. I do just think the biggest factor for you right now is you're just so early in the. In the journey with this, and what's going to end up happening is your better you get at. And I've said this on so many podcasts, but the better you get at telling the story about your brother who's dealing with this kind of thing, the more your fellow members will eventually start coming to you. And then when that starts happening, and then they start giving testimonials because you're changing how they feel and look and all these kind of things, that's. It'll start having a real snowball effect for you. So that would be kind of. I would preach patience more than anything else right now. And the second thing I would preach is really review. What's your approach been in the one to ones? What's been your approach in your weekly presentations? Are you being really effective in making it comfortable? Hey, here are the things you're going to hear. You don't want to be like, hey, when you see somebody who's overweight, it's more about hey, when your friend is complaining about this specific thing, ask them these specific questions. And in that conversation you can bring me up, hey, when your friend is talking about this specific new thing they're going to take, ask them these specific questions. And in that conversation you can bring me up, hey, when your sister's complaining about this specific thing. And so what I've seen the mistake is a lot of people will try to cover all of those things at once. Anybody who's on a weight loss journey, well, most of us are, but for different reasons, with different goals, with different approaches. Right. So each one has a different kind of trigger to you. Is it somebody who's struggling just to lose the last few pounds? Is it somebody who's significantly overweight and needs to start fresh? Is it somebody who's been doing a certain thing and it's kind of plateaued? Is it somebody who's taking a new weight loss drug? Is it somebody who is into the new longevity stuff and looking at peptides and trt, which probably aren't going to help you without training? Like all of those things are specific moments and specific topics that would require their own specific weekly presentations. Again, you can talk about more of them and in greater depth in one to ones which is you're doing and you can talk about a few more of them and more in depth in a feature presentation and a weekly presentation. But don't be vague. Be very specific in your approach and your ask and ask yourself, am I painting a very comfortable, natural picture? Like this is a natural conversation. Now you're going to hear somebody talking about these, these things. Here's what to listen for. Here's a couple questions you can ask that will get you into the conversation. And you know, just tell them that you know somebody who's working with a lot of people in that situation. Just see if they're open for an introduction and, and that will, I think, start making way. But again, first and foremost, patience, patience, patience, patience, patience, patience. You're so early in this journey, so keep up the activity. Don't get disheartened. Don't get discouraged. You're going to hit that tipping point. Have a great day.