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BNI & The Power of One
BNI 855: BNI New Year - Setting Goals - Strategies - Expectations
00:27:03
With a lot of questions coming in around getting members more engaged, seeing fewer subs, and chapter culture, we discuss the opportunity and strategy to use at this pivotal time of year.
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Sam, welcome back to BNI and the Power of One back finally with some new episodes. Apologize to everybody for kind of the gap there. We talked about it in the last podcast, the Business Matters podcast. I've heard from quite a few people just reaching out, making sure everything's okay, which I really, really do appreciate. And everything's great. It's just things have been which I kind of predicted, which is a little bit hectic and crazy right now. I think that's the case for a lot of regions, just with leadership team trainings and leadership team transitions happening here in two weeks, we've got multiple award banquets, things going on, just a litany of excuses. But really what it is, and we talked about this and the last one I encourage you to listen to is a little bit of prioritizing time. And so sometimes this unfortunately might have to take the back seat when there, you know, just isn't enough time to get everything done. But we are back and we are in an exciting time of year. It's basically the BNI New Year coming up here in two weeks with the new leadership teams across most regions taking over. And because of that there's, there tends to be a little bit of a theme across multiple questions that I've received. So I want to read those questions and kind of COVID them all in one because I do think it really does go to one thing, even though the questions might sound different. So one is from Colorado says, I'm wondering if you could discuss excessive subs at the meeting. We've got one that talks about during our weekly meeting, there's an increase in chit chat, small conversations taking place at tables. We've tried the president doing the reminder to be quiet so everyone can be can hear. There's also an increase in a few members being on laptops and being in their cell phones. I recently watched a lady draw on her tablet during the meeting. Any tips on training that you've done? So that was one I think fits under the same thing. Here's another one that says do you have any advice for chapters with lots of longtime members, but some of the quote unquote OGs are kind of coasting. Incoming senior leader want everyone to be engaged. Don't want to boot anyone, but I feel like we're missing opportunities for new engaged members in those seats. Please keep a anonymous which we will do for anybody again that wants to talk about, you know, as a question but doesn't want to be identified. Perfectly fine. So. And we've had other ones on substitutes et CETERA So let's talk about all three of them. What do they really come down to? And what it is is complacency. And it's about losing focus of why we're there, which is why it's an opportunity with new leadership teams to kind of address these things. And it's all three of them should be and can be addressed. But I would start with education chapter discussion on why we're there. Again, I think a lot of people get into BNI like any other networking organization, event membership that they might find themselves in because you know, they're looking to grow their business. And that's just kind of the main focus is I'm doing this cause I got to grow my business. What they lose sight of or never think about or have never been trained on is what's the actual challenge they're facing in growing their business and how is BNI the potential solution for that and for it to be the solution what needs to happen. So what people are really joining for is they desire more consistency in generating high quality referrals for their business. The challenge most of us face when it comes to that is not knowing or being misled even on how those referrals actually happen. There are two major myths around networking that we train on that are that people that know you, like you and trust you will pass you good, consistent referrals and that doing a good job and offering great customer service will equal more referrals. Those really are not true. Okay, if it was just about knowing, liking and trusting you, you wouldn't need to network. You have enough people in your life that fall into that category, friends, family members, colleagues, etc. That you should in theory get all the referrals, if not more referrals than you could handle because they know like and trust you. And doing a good job and offering great customer service keeps us from losing referrals. It doesn't actually proactively generate referrals for us. And we've done podcasts on that. I'll do some more because each one of those is a topic that we could talk about in depth. But the reality of the situation is this is what we're led to believe when we enter business. I go to any event and I ask people, let's make sure we're on the same page with how referrals work and ask them to raise their hand if they believe those to be true. And every hand goes up and it's because of just a misunderstanding around word of mouth marketing. The know like and trust is important in order to refer you, I need to know you, like you and trust you. But it's not enough. There has to be a business relationship, a foundation set that's reciprocal, that is built on developing that trust factor. Because trust has different definitions and different meanings or importance depending on the situation I've shared on the podcast. Right. Like my best friend in the world I trust with my kid's life, probably wouldn't refer him, though, because I trust he'd show up late to everything, because that's what he does. So we have to have a business foundation. Why we don't get referrals from our friends and family very much is we don't have a foundation of business. It's a different type of relationship. And the doing a good job, offering good customer service. Sure. If somebody calls me and says, hey, do you know somebody does this? I'm gonna refer somebody who did a good job for me and tell them they did a good job for me. But I didn't go out and create that referral for you. Right. You just didn't lose it because you did a good job for me. And that referral really was nothing more than a matter of luck, because you were lucky my friend called me and not a different friend, et cetera, et cetera. So it's this invisible problem that we all face with generating referrals. If we need and want more consistency in referral generation, we need a solution to those two things. We need a solution to help us develop what actually needs to happen to create them. So what are the things that need to happen? Number one is we have to be able to build relationships with people on a foundation of business to the point where they're willing to risk their reputations on us. That's the big deal. That's the first part, is I got to earn the trust factor to the point where you're willing to risk your reputation on me, because that's what a referral is. That's a really big deal. We don't trust most people with our reputations. In fact, we trust strangers with our safety more than we do our reputations. So I need to understand that, you know, just going to a networking meeting and passing a bunch of business cards isn't really relationship development, is it? I need to understand, like, what is it required to build a relationship? Well, the first requirement is going to be time. I have to invest time in these people. So I need a system in my business that's going to allow me to not only meet new people, but then meet with them. On a consistent enough basis to develop this relationship. Because this relationship isn't unlike any other relationship in my life. It takes time to develop. Now, with the right foundation, the right focus, the right consistency, it could take less time because we generally understand business and we become a little bit more trusting because we're asking the person to trust us a little bit quicker as well. But it's still time element and depending on your profession, depending on your product, that time element's different. For some of you, it's a long time. But that's the first thing I need to build a system in my business that's going to allow me to do that and have the right meetings with the right focus and, you know, not do what a lot of people do, which is I'll meet some new people at a chamber and then I'm going to go prospect them and try to sell them. That's not networking. The second thing I need to do is as I'm developing that relationship and as I get to that point of where they trust me is I actually have to teach them how to actually find me referrals on an ongoing basis. And depending on their profession and their focus and their context fears, that training is going to be slightly different for each person. Because I can become more strategic, more in depth with those who are looking for the same type of people I'm looking for work in areas that complement my business, AKA your contacts for your members. Then I can those who are not in that context or I've got to be a little bit more broad and vague, or not that I want to be vague in my ask, but I can't be as strategic, right? So again, I could talk about each of these for days. But if somebody's looking and going for the same clients I am, and they work in an area that compliment me, my strategy could be as deep as asking specific questions at every meeting to open the door for them and vice versa. I can't do that with somebody whose business doesn't compliment mine, but I need to be trained on those ones, on just general triggers. What am I looking for, what am I listening for in my day to day and as it happens, what do I say to them? So both need training. I gotta train people on how to do those things. The biggest mistake we make when networking is assuming people know how to find us referrals because we know how to find ourselves referrals and they don't. But again, I need to know, you know, how deep does that training go, how deep does the strategy go and Am I implementing the right time with the right people to do that? AKA my BNI meetings in my chapters. Those are my contexts where I need to invest more time in after. Right? I need to be doing more one to ones with them, maybe developing a potential power team with them to have those strategy sessions than everybody else. That doesn't mean I'm not doing one to. I'm doing one to ones. I'm just investing more time where there's more strategic opportunity. So that's what you need to do. And that's what we are doing in bni. BNI is the system, okay? BNI is the system in place that allows you to do those two things. Everything from the meeting agenda and how it's designed to the one to ones, to the philosophy of givers gain, to the one person per profession, to our attendance policies, to our sub policies, to the training that's available to you in your region both online and live, to the coaching that's available to you in your region through your directors, ambassadors, managing directors, executive directors and so forth. It's around maximizing the opportunity and fully utilizing that system that you now have in your business. That's what we're doing now that requires active participation from everybody in that system. That means if I'm in a chapter, in order for this system to fully work, everybody needs to be active in participating because we do only have one person per profession. And when we have somebody in there who's not actively participating at the same level, it negatively affects the results of everybody. And this is where complacency will kill a chapter. And this is where complacency hurts more people than we think. See, oftentimes the member who is getting enough results where they're comfortable, they are the ones who tend to get a little bit complacent because why put in more effort? I'm good with what I'm getting. And they might think about it in terms of, well, you know, I know if I don't put in as much time in my one to ones and weekly presentations, et cetera, et cetera, I'm hurting myself, but I'm good with where I'm at. And that's not the truth. The truth is you're hurting everybody because when you're not actively prepared for your weekly presentation, you're not listening to everybody else's. If you are quite actively not listening in the example of people being on the computers, chit chatting, etc. You're not helping anybody else. If you're not actively investing time in one to ones that means you're not allowing others to develop that relationship as well. You're showing no interest in the giving part of givers game. That seems to me, to me is the theme across all those questions. When you have attendance issues, when you have excessive subs, when you have people not paying attention, and when you have, you know, quote unquote OGs of the chapter not fully engaged, that is, they are all of the same problem and it's the complacency factor of it. So how do we address all of them? I would start with the new leadership teams, new excitement, new first meeting or two, having a general 10 minute discussion. Maybe don't do a featured presentation that week around. Here are our goals, Here are our strategies to achieve the goals. Here are our expectations that we need of each other in order to do those two things. Right. So in order to achieve the goal, we have to have the layout of strategy. The strategy for us is going to be, you know, we're going to grow the chapter. We're going to do that through two visitor days, you know, one in the fall, one in the spring. We're going to grow the effectiveness of the chapter. We're going to do that through trainings and a focus on our power of one scores. Right. So you're setting like these are the strategies. If we increase our power of one score, meaning increase our activity or increase the effectiveness of that activity, and we increase the number of people doing that activity, our thank you for closed business number will be X, you know, X amount. That's the strategy. Okay, well in order to execute that strategy, here's what we need everybody to do. We need everybody to be paying attention to your attendance percentage and realizing that substitutes not only hurt your attendance percentage, but they negatively impact the opportunity we have to be effective because you're not here and you're the one who's supposed to be here each and every week. Constantly replacing yourself with somebody else makes that time ineffective. So we really want to be paying attention to how many subs are we using. We also want to be paying attention to if we're going to use a sub, what's the value of the sub? And that's a training thing and we've done podcasts on that. We're going to be paying attention to our one to ones. How many are we averaging? This is our current average as a chapter. We want to increase that to X number. This is the expectation of each of us. One a week, two a week, whatever it is for that chapter. We're going to increase our skill sets. So we're going to be paying attention to our CEUs and this is our expectation of every member and what you're going to be able to do in your CEU section. We're going to increase we're expectation of growth. What it's going to take for us to grow. Everybody's going to have to sponsor a member this year. And if you sponsor a member this year, this is how many visitors you're probably going to need to get. And here's two strategic times. But blah, blah, blah, you lay it all out once you've set the expectations. The key then is everybody's getting a fresh start. It's a new year. What happened last month, last six months, last year doesn't matter anymore. It's done. This is where we're going, this is how we're going to do it and everybody's got the opportunity to do it. Then it's about holding people accountable. And that part. This is where again, stages where chapters fail. Stage 1. Some chapters don't even set a goal at all. They just kind of keep going through the motions. And we are, you know, we're habitually meeting with each other, but it's not highly productive. It's not really entertaining or fun because it's not productive. That's where we just kind of. We show up when we want to show up. We have maybe. We have massive attendance issues, we have really big engagement issues. Nobody's doing one to ones, nobody's going to training, nobody's doing any regional things, Nobody's doing any of that kind of stuff. We're just kind of showing up and yeah, some of us renew because if I don't, I know somebody else will take the seat. So I'm just going to keep renewing. But there's really no expectations. It's kind of clubby. Then you get the ones who come out of the gate and they set these goals, but they don't set the strategy. And they just kind of say, we're going to double our chapter and we're going to make, you know, $5 million this year and we're going to do all these things. And everybody's like, yeah, that's awesome, but nothing changes. And thus neither do the results. And by January 1st, kind of forgot about those goals. Not really progressing towards those goals. If anything, we're probably further behind than we should be towards those goals because we didn't come out of the gate with any kind of strategy at all. We didn't plan any kind of early win. I can't articulate this enough. What this, the time of year we're in right now, right now to December 1, is a massive market opportunity for your chapter to take advantage of really in growth and engagement. Kids are back in school, holidays haven't happened yet, weather is beautiful everywhere. There's, you know, yes, people have distractions at night, kids, activities, sports, blah, blah, blah. But people are re engaged in their business. Summer distractions are over. Fourth quarter starts in two weeks. So they're looking at, how am I going to end the year? And starting to think about hopefully their goals and their budgets and everything else for next year. This is a massive opportunity. Time for your chapter to really reengage, expand, start building its foundation for a massive success in 2026. And it is most often missed because it's, well, I don't really take over for two weeks and then I'm going to take over, but then I'm going to use the excuse of, well, I don't really know what I'm doing yet. So it's going to take me a while to get my feet under me. Instead of these leadership teams having the right conversations right now, goals, strategy, expectations. So that on October 1st, they're like, boom, boom, boom. Here's where we are, here's how we're doing it and we're already off and running. So some don't set the goals. Some set goals, but they really aren't goals. Their wishes, their hopes, their dreams, they don't really come to reality. Some set the goals and they set the strategy, but they don't implement the accountability. They tell everybody, this is what we expect. And when people still are doing what they're doing, they don't change it and they just give up. Because they go, well, we told everybody, listen, like, we expect people to show up and we're still having the same attendance issue. So we just throw our hands up. That's the problem. You need to instill the accountability and you need to be brave enough to do it. And there will be, there will be a member or two who are going to test you right out of the gate. And that's okay. Expect it, because you're asking for them to change habits that they've established. And that's not easy for a lot of people to do. And it's a lot easier to blame you than blame internally and say, you know, you're the problem, you're coming in and setting these expectations. And this is, you know, this is in my business, this is my networking and I'VE got other bob all excuses. They just don't want to do it, which is perfectly fine. That makes. That doesn't make them a bad person. It does make them a bad fit though. It does make them a bad fit for that team and where that team is going. And so you have to be able to instill the accountability again. Fresh start. Everybody's starting fresh. We're good. That's where we're going. But if they don't want to engage, you need to get them out. And it's a coach em up, a coach em out type of thing. And most you'll be able to coach up. Most of them will, you know, they might bitch and moan a little bit. They might, you know, test the water until they get their hands left a little bit. But they'll get in line. And you know why they're gonna get in line? Because they're gonna realize that as everybody's doing more, the engagement's going up. And when the engagement goes up, the excitement goes up, the chapter becomes a little bit more fun to be at because we're seeing new results and we're celebrating new results and that's a big deal. As new leadership teams celebrate the wins. Celebrate them, you got a new attendance percentage record for the month. Celebrate it, you hit a new high of 1 to ones per member for the month. Celebrate it, you hit a new hive ceus for everybody. Celebrate, you got a record. Thank you for close business thing. Celebrate it, your chapter average power of one score went up a point. Celebrate it. Do keep it fun in that Recognize what's winning. Okay, Publicly praise reprimand in private. But you got to hold them accountable. And there's going to be somebody you're going to have to say maybe this isn't the right fit for you anymore. And that's the only way you can change these things. Okay? It's give everybody a fresh start. Educate on the why, educate on the goal, educate on the strategy, educate on the expectations and then hold them to it. And that will clutch. Will change the culture. Will you have some tough days early on? Yeah, maybe. Maybe because somebody again is going to test it. And will you have to let somebody go? Yeah, maybe. Maybe because somebody's going to test it. But I'm a big fan of public execution. I just think that there's a good way to shape people up real fast is to prove that you're serious about it, that we love you, we want nothing but the best for you. But if you can't play with what we need, you're not the right fit for this team because we need everybody to do it to maximize the results for everybody. It is not a selfish. I'm not going to do it because I don't want to do it. And I know that's going to hurt my results. No, you're not just hurting your results. You're hurting everybody's results. And thus you can't play. You know, I'm a big Patriots fan. I think that we should be benching our great running back because he fumbled the ball three times or whatever it was like, if you can't be accountable, you can't play. The rest of it doesn't matter. You hurt the rest of the team. You can't just say, oh, well, look at the good things they did and ignore the bad. It is everybody's all encompassing. So, you know, across whether again, it's substitutes, whether it's attendance, whether it's paying attention, whether it's just general engagement, this is the strategy. It's not easy necessarily because again, we are peers. I go back to the podcast we did a while with somebody's like, you know, is B and I created a culture or an issue because aren't. Isn't everybody just an adult? Shouldn't they be doing this? And in theory you would think like, yeah, they're all adults, they should be doing what they should be doing. But that's just not how the world works. And you do want internal leadership to do. You don't want outside leadership to do it because then that really cause some fights and everything else. I don't think you come in with like a negative approach to it. I don't think you come in going, we suck. We this, we that. We're going to fix it. I think it, it has to be around an environment of excitement, of a new year, new goals, new possibilities. By reminding everybody it's a team sport, okay? It's. Everybody needs to be playing the role for everybody's success. So even if you're getting what you want to get out of it, we need you fully engaged so others can achieve that same thing. It can't be like, well, I'm making enough money, so I'm good, so I'm, you know, I don't have to do these things. No, you need to for the other people. That's the givers game philosophy. You can't live half of it. And I'm excited about this new year because it gives every chapter this opportunity. But it's also a sad time of year for me in a lot of ways because I just see so many drop that ball now because here's, here's the what I'll end up with. I can say all these things to you, and we say all these things to our chapters, and your directors and managing. Whoever is working with your chapter can say all of these things to you. And we can guide you through those things and we can give you the advice and we can tell you what kind of conversations to have and how to handle situations as they pop up. But at the end of the day, the leadership team needs to be the one to do it. You need to want to do it. You need to seek the information on how to do it effectively, but you need to do it. Okay, so that's the heartbreaking part, is I see just too many people who are afraid of, I don't know, retaliation, retribution, whatever. They're just, you know, I don't want to hold them accountable because then they won't pass me referrals. Right? Maybe. And that doesn't happen as much as you think it's going to happen. But what is happening is they're probably not passing as many referrals as they should be already. And if they did leave and you replaced them, that person will probably way out, produce what they were doing for you. Don't be afraid of losing, you know, the, the unproductive, ineffective member, because maybe they pass your referral before, maybe they're passing you a few when the reality is you can be getting so much more if they re. If either they re engage or you get somebody who is engaged. And that's going to be the biggest challenge for a lot of people. Is that. That part of it. But your, your leadership in your organization, in your region is there to help you do these things because ultimately you're creating a more successful team, a more successful, more productive chapter. And that's when everybody's winning. And that's. That's what we want for you and we're willing and able and here to help you have those difficult conversations if needed. Have a great day. Sam.