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Sam Foreign, welcome back to BNI and the Power of One. Thank you for joining me again today. We're back with your show. Submissions, questions, topics submitted at bnipower of1.com as always, if you have a question, simply go to BNI Power of One and leave it there. Today comes from Alicia. She's in Florida, says, hi Tim, I was wondering if you've ever covered kickbacks in your BNI Power of One podcast. The reason I'm asking is because of my 10 years of membership, kickbacks have come up a few times. What I've noticed is that for members who are not accustomed to kickbacks being standard practice in their industry, they get very offended by a request for a kickback and most times won't talk through these feelings with a member who requested the kickback. I was hoping there may be a podcast that already covers this or if not, maybe you could talk about it in a future one. So I believe we've covered it before, but like anything, it's good to revisit. And there's only so many B and I topics anyways, and I would have no idea which one it would be in to be like, oh yeah, we did that check out episode such and such a number. So let's discuss it. Number one. There's actually a few layers to this question. Number one, kickbacks in BNI generally not expected. It's not why we're in the chapter together. So I don't think it's a general expectation people have when they join your chapter to either offer it or receive it. We don't talk about them in bni. It's not part of our program and frankly, I don't think they're needed. I think again, the idea of BNI is I'm going to give you referrals because I'm in hopes that you are going to do the same for me. I shouldn't have an additional motive to give you a referral. It's based on that this is what builds our relationship together. Right? This is giver's gain. This is what we do. We're here to learn about who you're looking for and prepare myself to see those opportunities to help you just as you are doing the same in return. Most industries, most professions don't usually do kickbacks, from my experience, anyways. Now, I believe the question's come up before where it's like, hey, if I offer kickbacks, is that okay? Yeah, I guess if it's part of your business model and you want to give a kickback to Those who refer you, who's to tell you not to do that? But I wouldn't be selling it in my BNI moments like my weekly hey, by the way, if you give me a referral, I'll give you X amount or X percentage kickback, because again, it's not expected, it's not necessary. And you do put people kind of in an uncomfortable position in the chapter who don't offer it. Right? Like, oh, am I supposed to do that or am I. Should I feel bad that I'm not doing that? That would generally not be advised to advertise it. If it's something you do and something you want to give, you know, I would do it. When somebody gives me a referral turns into thank you for closed business on the side, like, hey, by the way, thank you for this. You know, it's general practice in my business, we give X amount per referral or X percentage per referral. Also, I do believe there, there's a increased risk that when you pitch that you're going to give a kickback that you'll get a whole lot more junk. You'll. You're incentivizing people to just try to find you any referral and they'll pass you a lot of leads. They could really waste your time. It's not what you're really looking for in from your bnr, should not be what you're really looking for from your BNI membership. So my general thing is if you offer like kickback for referrals to your customers and clients, I probably still wouldn't even offer it to my BNI members because again, that's not what we're there for. Now, the extra layer on this that you absolutely should never do is request a kickback that you should never do. If somebody, if I was a B and I member in a chapter and I didn't offer kickbacks to anybody and somebody requested one for referral they were going to give me, I would be highly offended because again, not what we're here for. So you're telling me you got a referral for me, but only if I give you X amount or you gave me this referral because we're in BNI together and I'm giving you referrals or I'm learning how to give you referrals and, and I get a referral and it closes the business and then you come up to me and be like, hey, I feel like you owe me something for that. I would be highly offended because it's not what we do. That's not how we do things. So again, have kickbacks happen, do kickbacks happen? And be. I'm sure they should not be openly discussed, they should not be part of your weekly presentation, they should not be part of your Featured presentation, so forth. 1. Because again, it could lead to a whole lot more of what you don't want. It puts a lot of members in your chapter in an uncomfortable position and it's not an expectation at all of being in our group. If you're going to do it because you just want to do it, do it on the side after the fact, but not necessary at all. And even if you do it with like again customer and clients, like hey, for every referral we'll give you a gift card or blah blah, blah, blah, not necessary to do in your B and I chapter. And definitely if you do it, if you offer it, if it's something you do, do not expect that others do, do not expect that they ever have, that they'd be willing to or worst case, that they just should and be requesting them. You definitely do not want to do that. And remember, we're in a relationship business, okay? We are while we're business focused business foundation. It does come down to know like and trust. I tell everybody. You know, knowing you, liking you and trusting you is not enough to get referrals from people, but they are absolutely required to get referrals from people. And how we behave, how we act, everything that we do in our BNI chapter is going to impact that relationship in a positive or negative way. So heard the analogy once. If you kind of think of like the relationship like a bank account, you're making deposits and withdrawals constantly deposits and withdrawals. If you're making more withdrawals than you are deposits, you're not going to have a very successful account and you're not going to have a very successful relationship. So that's, you know, if you're always asking for things, asking for things, asking for things, asking for things or doing things that negatively hurt your reputation and relationship, like you know, all the little details from you're always late to the meeting would be withdrawals from that account. You're always negative at the meetings, that'd be withdrawals from the account. You're always underdressed at the meetings. That would be where these are examples of like things we can control. But if you offend somebody, that's a massive withdrawal. A massive withdrawal. And if you're not making massive deposits on the other end, I mean you will sincerely and you will make a very impactful negative action and result on your relationship. So, and I'm telling you that if I got a referral from somebody and they came up to me after and asked for a kickback, I'd be pretty offended and upset myself. And that would impact our relationship. That would impact the results we're going to have with each other until you make subsequent deposits in a positive way to that relationship that I get over that power. So be careful with them and keep in mind, again, just not a part of what we do. It's not why we're here. We're here to help each other. I don't need a kickback. The kickback is when you help me with referrals to your customers, clients, friends, etc. So I hope this answered the question. I hope it was helpful. As always. If you've got questions, go to bnipowerofone.com Leave it there. If you want it left anonymous, etc. We do that as well. If you're finding value, leave a review, let me know, that's how I see them and share it with a fellow BNI member. Let's see if we can get more people engaged. We can help more people with it. Have a great day.