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Priscilla Rice
Episode 907 Gaines profile updated.
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Dr. Ivan Meisner
You're listening to the official BNI podcast with BNI founder and chief visionary officer, Dr. Ivan Meisner. Stay tuned for networking and referral marketing tips from the man who's been called the father of modern networking, along with suggestions and insights into getting the most from your membership in the world's largest networking organization, BNI.
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Priscilla Rice
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the official BNI B&I podcast. I'm Priscilla Rice and I'm coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. And I'm joined on the phone today by the founder and the Chief visionary officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Meisner. Hello, Ivan, how are you and where are you?
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Dr. Ivan Meisner
Oh, I get to have a few weeks here at my home office in Austin, Texas. I just love being home. People ask me where's my favorite place in the world? And I tell them it's home.
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Priscilla Rice
Oh, that's great. Yeah.
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Dr. Ivan Meisner
So today we're going to talk about the Gains Exchange. It's also known as the Gains Profile. Online on being I connect. It's called the Gains Profile. It was first. I first did it in a book that's out of print now called Business by Referral, but you can find it in a number of my networking books. And certainly it's a big part of bni. Ironically, the first time I ever talked about this on and really focused on this subject on a podcast was episode number 005. Episode number five. Yeah, that's a long time ago. I think I started these in 2007. So that would have been in 2007. And so I thought it was about time to update a couple of things with the Gains Profile. And again, it's Gaining Gain. It's originally was called the Gains Exchange because you exchange profiles. So either term is fine. But the. The profile is about that acronym and GAINS stands for Goals, Accomplishments, Interests, Networks and Skills. And if you go back to episode five, you'll see the story of when I tested it, and I tested it in a chapter to see how it would go over where I had one member, you know, share with the other member their goals, accomplishments, interests, networks and skills. And then the other member shared it with. With the first person. And it was a couple of gentlemen that really didn't want to do it. But they only got halfway through and found out they were both coaches for their son's soccer teams, which is called football in. In many countries. And that was it. They never finished the. They never finished the profile because they made such a great connection. It was the rest of their discussion was about the sport. And what's funny is they had never given each other a referral. They'd been in the group together for many months, never given each other a referral. But all of a sudden, after they made this stronger connection, they really looked out for each other, and within just a few months, they were giving each other referrals. And it hit me just how powerful this is because it's, it's, it's about finding overlapping areas of interest. And so we're going to include a PDF of the Gains Exchange profile in this podcast. But let me review with you what you want to do with each one. First, you want to start with your goals. Your goals are business or personal objectives that you want or. Or need to meet for yourself or the people who are important to you. You need to define your goals. You need to have a clear picture of those goals. And you want to talk about how you want to build relationships with people to help achieve those goals. So talk about your goals, business and personal. It's when you learn about someone's personal interests, you really are able to make a better connection with that person, particularly if you're talking about family, children, spouse, something like that. It's very powerful. The second is accomplishments. And here, you know, to some people, feels like a little bit of bragging. It's okay. These, these are, these are your friends. These are your associates. In bni, sometimes people are really shocked at, you know, certain accomplishments that someone may have Here. You want to talk about the things that you're proud of. Remember that some of your best insight into others comes from knowing what goals they've already achieved. So talking about your knowledge, your skill, your experiences, your values are really important. So when I'm talking to people who don't know me well, I talk about my interest in fine art and my interest in astronomy. Astronomy, not astrology. My interest in astronomy and wines. I studied to be a sommelier. So these are things that I love and talk about, and they overlap into interest with the accomplishments. You also want to talk about. Know the things that you've actually achieved. Your, maybe your degrees, maybe awards that you've been given a particular skill set that you may have. Interests are the next. Here you, you want to talk about, you know, if you'd like to play sports or read books, listen to music. For me, I have, I have a boat. I love to go out on my boat on, on Lake Austin. I, I have a walking trail on my, on my property. It's a quarter mile Walking trail. I go out there almost every day and I love to do that. And as I mentioned, I love wine and astronomy. So these are interests of mine. And when you find overlapping areas of interest, and this is where the two men really connected was in their overlapping areas of interest of coaching a sport, that's when you make a connection with someone. And then Networks. You want to talk about the networks that you belong to, both formal and informal. It can be an organization, an institution, a company, or some, some organization that you've been active in in the past or, or for a long, long time. Networks that you're in. And you'll be surprised to find out that certain people have also been in those organizations. For me, I was a Rotarian for 16 years. I was also, and this may surprise you a little bit, Priscilla, I was also a member of NABO for several years, which is the national association of Women Business Owners. They, I was a member. I had a partner in a business years ago who was a woman. And. But I was the member and they allowed members, men to be in the organization. And so I think I was like, I think it was like 5% of the organization showed up that were. They were men. But I, I was in nabo. And so it's always interesting when other people are in it and you have a, a talking point and then Skills. What's that?
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Priscilla Rice
No, I just was, you know, affirming. Yes.
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Dr. Ivan Meisner
Yeah, it is. It's interesting. And people are always surprised they found out I was a member of NAVO Skills. The, the more you know about the talents and abilities of the people in your network, the better equipped you are to find and refer competent, affordable products and services that need to arise. And so this is, this is the gains profile or the gains exchange. Now I used to say, and I probably said it in the podcast from Podcast five, one person should go through all five and then let the next person go through the five, let's say, just for argument's sake, meeting for an hour so you have 30 minutes each. I no longer believe that that is a bad idea. And I'll tell you why. And I think I suggested it in episode five. It's a bad idea because what tends to happen is if one person goes first through all five, they end up taking 40, 45 minutes of the allotted hour and the other person doesn't have enough time to cover their, their gains exchange, their gains profile. And that's a, that's a problem. That's a mistake. And so you, you, I now recommend that you go one At a time with each. So, Priscilla, I would talk. You would talk to me about your goals and then I would talk to you about my goals, and then you would talk to me about your accomplishments and then I would go next. And then your interests, and then I would go next. Your networks and I would go next. Your skills and I would go next. That's what I recommend now. Otherwise, what happens is one person inevitably gets the majority of time. And I heard that over and over and over again. So one of the reasons I wanted to redo this podcast was to make this suggestion because over many years we've found that that was a problem in the way it was done. Here's another point on the gains profile that I think is critical. And that's episode number 575. 70 and 570 is more one to ones equal, more referrals. And I probably talk about this. I would say it's in my top five or six topics that I talk about when I do live presentations, when people ask, when they do Q and A, how do I, how do I increase the number of referrals that I get? And this episode is probably in my top five or six topics that I address at some point when I'm doing an Ask the founder session live somewhere. Because it's so incredibly powerful. And it shows. It's a research study, a university study that was done in Europe in a region of bni. And it shows very clearly that people, it compares people who do one one to one a month, two a month, three a month, four a month. So if you look at the people who do one one to one a month versus those who do four or more one to ones a month, or basically one a week. So one a month versus one a week. The amazing thing is, and this is episode number five, seven, zero. The amazing thing is the people who do one a week instead of one a month give almost exactly 100% more referrals. That's amazing. But that's not the most amazing part. The most amazing part is they receive almost exactly 100% more referrals, almost double. So the thing I tell people when I'm doing live presentations is who wouldn't like to get twice as many referrals? We all would, right? Who wants twice as many referrals that everybody's hand would go up? And I'd say all you have to do is do one quality one to one a week. One a week. And the gains profile is a great format to do that with. Now, if you're doing A Gains profile. Let's say you've done a one to one with somebody before and now it's your second or third time. You may not have to do the Gains profile. You might just review it. Hey, this is what I had before. I would add this to it. And then what you really want to focus on is how can I, how can I help you? How can I give you referrals? Here's how you can give me referrals. It's got to be reciprocal. But one to ones are the single most powerful way to generate referrals in a chapter other than possibly doing a great weekly presentation. I would put them kind of head to head. But we have hard data on the one to ones and so check out episode 570 and take the PDF that's here on the Gains profile, the Gains Exchange, and start using it certainly with BNI members and potentially with other people as well. Any thoughts before we wrap up, Priscilla?
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Priscilla Rice
No, I think it's a great idea and people should use the gains profile as often as they can because it really, really lays everything out beautifully.
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Dr. Ivan Meisner
Yeah, it does. And you know, it does both relational topics as well as sort of transactional kinds of topics like accomplishments, very transactional. Interests though are very relational. Networks are kind of transactional. You know, you're talking about what groups are you and what groups in skills. You know, finding overlapping areas of skill and ability is also good and overlapping goals is good. So it has this really interesting mix of both transactional and relational which goes back to the gender book that I did years ago. And so to me, this, this works both very, very well with men and women who are trying to networking because it's a network, because covers both sides of that, particularly the relational piece. I think we're out of time, Priscilla. That's all I have for today.
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Priscilla Rice
Okay, that was great, Ivan. Thank you so much. That's it for this week. I just want to say this podcast is sponsored by MeisnerAudioPrograms.com these audio programs will provide you with the tools and the inspiration to powerfully enhance your B and I experience. So check out the great material that's available to you@meisneraudioprograms.com and then use the promo code IVAN5O for 50% off of everything. All of the proceeds go to the B and I Foundation. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we look forward to having you join us again next week for another exciting episode of the official BNI podcast.