Episode 942: Engaging Long-Time Members

Summary

The Official BNI Podcast — Episode 942: Engaging Long-Time Members

Host: Dr. Ivan Misner
Guest: Tim Roberts, BNI Director (New Hampshire, Central & Northeast Florida)
Date: January 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode addresses the ongoing challenge of keeping long-time or "seasoned" BNI members actively engaged in their chapters. Dr. Ivan Misner, founder of BNI, with guest Tim Roberts — a veteran director and host of the "BNI Power of One" podcast — discusses why seasoned members risk becoming complacent and how chapters can reignite their involvement, benefit from their institutional knowledge, and ensure sustained chapter vitality.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge of Complacency in Seasoned Members

[03:00]

• Tim Roberts: Notes that long-term members often develop comfortable habits, sometimes becoming complacent because of their established relationships and satisfaction with current results.
• Newer members are often highly motivated, creating a disconnect with seasoned members who may seem less engaged.
• Insight: Complacency doesn’t just affect the long-term member but also impacts others’ opportunities for receiving referrals.

Quote:
"The longer people are in BNI, ... they get, as you said, complacent. They might be comfortable with the results they're producing ... and often lose sight of the impact they have on other people's results."
— Tim Roberts [03:10]

2. The Importance of Institutional Memory

[04:31]

• Dr. Ivan Misner: Highlights that seasoned members bring valuable history and stability to a chapter—what he calls "institutional memory".
• However, this same experience can sometimes lead to a reluctance to engage in new activities.

Quote:
"These long-term members ... bring to a chapter a sense of institutional memory. They remember things that have happened in the group ... But they also sometimes bring a complacency."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [04:34]

3. Strategic Roles for Seasoned Members

[05:10 - 08:08]

• Dr. Ivan Misner: Suggests engaging long-time members in roles like Education Coordinator, Visitor Host, or Mentor—positions that utilize experience without overburdening them.
• Avoid reassigning heavy leadership roles such as President or Vice President.

Quote:
"Bring them in to be the education coordinator, the visitor host, a chapter mentor, a member mentor. ... These are easy roles that long-term members can be really, really good at because of their experience in the organization."
— Dr. Ivan Misner [05:54]

• Tim Roberts: Mentoring is especially impactful. By mentoring, seasoned members often reengage with foundational practices (like 1-to-1s) and remember the behaviors that led to their own success.

Quote:
"They will teach new members everything they did to get to the level of success that they're having ... and it almost kind of forces them to re-engage."
— Tim Roberts [06:13]

4. The Power of Teaching and Education

[08:08]

• Tim Roberts: Shares that being Education Coordinator forces learning and engagement; teaching requires ongoing learning.
• Education around measurable activity (like BNI's Power of One reports) helps members realize the broader impact of their engagement or lack thereof on the chapter.

Quote:
"People who were in the red in their activity actually passed eight times less than people in the green. ... Even if you have been a standing member ... the newer members haven't done it with you, and it requires a new level of activity."
— Tim Roberts [08:35]

5. Inspiration vs. Motivation

[09:45]

• Tim Roberts: Emphasizes you can't motivate others directly; you can only inspire and educate them, recognizing past contributions and challenging them to reengage.

Quote:
"You really can't motivate other people ... You got to inspire them, teach them and show them what the impact that they're having, recognize the impact they've made and then challenge them to re-engage with the chapter."
— Tim Roberts [09:26]

• Dr. Ivan Misner: Clarifies the distinction: "Someone can inspire you to motivate yourself, but nobody can motivate you. Only you can motivate you." [09:45]

6. Setting Clear Goals and Expectations

[10:03]

• Precise, well-defined chapter goals (especially at the start of the year) can prompt seasoned members to decide if they wish to recommit or step back.
• Complacency thrives when expectations are unclear.

Quote:
"Set really precise chapter goals with really precise strategies to achieve them ... Oftentimes you will see seasoned members step up to those."
— Tim Roberts [10:04]

7. The Role of Appreciation

[11:21]

• Recognize and honor the long-term commitment of seasoned members — always begin with appreciation.
• Appreciation fosters buy-in and makes discussions about future engagement more productive.

Quote:
"Start with appreciation. Recognize the fact that they have been there for a long period of time and what they've given to the chapter over those years. You'll get more buy-in when you start there."
— Tim Roberts [11:22]

• Dr. Ivan Misner: Reinforces this approach, adding, "Even if they're not doing a really good job at the moment, appreciate what they did do, remind them of what they did do, and talk to them about what they can do again. The place to always start is appreciation." [11:53]

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Notable Quotes

• "Complacency is something people may not even notice. But when those who've been around a long time step up in roles like mentor or education coordinator, they often rediscover what made BNI work for them."
  — Ivan Misner [05:35]

• "You can’t just motivate them. You got to inspire them, teach them ... show them the impact they're having; recognize, then challenge."
  — Tim Roberts [09:26]

• "Only you can motivate you."
  — Ivan Misner [09:55]

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Memorable Moments & Timestamps

• [06:42–08:08]: Ivan's personal story about coaching his son's chess club, illustrating how teaching others can redevelop one's own skills and enthusiasm.
  • "When I started mentoring 10-year-olds on how to play chess, my game improved ... it's exactly what you just described." (Ivan Misner)
• [11:21]: Final advice to always begin with appreciation when re-engaging seasoned members.

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Actionable Takeaways

• Engage experienced members in roles that use their expertise but do not overtax their time.
• Mentoring and education roles are key: They help seasoned members revisit successful behaviors.
• Continually educate about the ripple effect of engagement (e.g., how activity stats impact chapter health).
• Clearly set chapter expectations and goals—particularly important at annual transitions.
• Always start difficult conversations with appreciation to foster respect and openness.

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Summary

This episode highlights the unique value and challenges of long-time BNI members, offering actionable strategies for keeping them—and, by extension, whole chapters—vibrant and effective. The emphasis is on appreciation, appropriate engagement, and setting a clear vision, underpinned by inspiring, not merely motivating, participation.

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Transcript

[A]

Episode number 942. Engaging longtime members.

[B]

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.

[A]

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the official B and 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?

[B]

Hello, Priscilla. I am doing great. I just got back from a little bit of vacation time with my wife. Our wedding anniversary is actually New Year's Eve, so we spent it doing a little vacation time. And we're back, back and ready to go.

[A]

Oh, that sounds great. And who do you have today?

[B]

I have someone who's been on B and I Podcast more than anyone else, and that is Tim Roberts. Tim is the director of BNI New Hampshire Florida Central Florida Northeast, and he's got 104 active chapters. In 2024, he was B and I Franchisee of the Year. He's also host of the B and I Power of One podcast. He's been a guest host eight times on BNI podcast since August of 2024. And previous to that, he was a guest with me three times in 2019, 2020 and 2024. One of the reasons that I wanted to do another podcast with you, Tim, as a guest, is to personally thank you for being the first guest host I've ever had and to also thank you for your many years of service to the company. As of right now, it's 24, almost 25 years in BNI. And I want to thank you, my friend, for everything you do.

[C]

Wow. I really appreciate that and continue to be humbled every time you ask and willing to help in any way I can.

[B]

Well, I appreciate it and I'm going to ask you again, I promise, because you do a great job and a lot of people love to listen in when you're the guest host. Today we're talking about engaging seasoned members, mature members. We talked about what title you know, we talked about old members, people have been in a long time, but I feel like I'm really old and so sometimes it feels that way. But we're talking about really seasoned members, people who've been in the organization a long time and there's a challenge of complacency with seasoned members, long term members. Talk about that a little bit, if you don't mind, Tim.

[C]

Yeah, I think it's pretty natural. This is a question that I get asked a lot on, on my podcast. Most of my episodes are users send in different topics and this seems to be a repeat one. So I thought it'd be great to talk to you about it. But you know, the longer people are in bni, the more established relationships they have. They have, they create some certain habits. They get, as you said, complacent. They might be comfortable with the results they're producing because they have such a investment of time that they're pretty comfortable and often lose sight of the impact they have on other people's results. I think in BNI we tend to think a lot of ourselves. Meaning, all right, if I'm doing such and such activity, I can expect such and such results maybe. Or if I'm not doing the activity, I can expect maybe a drop in results and maybe I'm okay with that. Where we lose sight of our activity doesn't just drive our results in referrals we're receiving, but directly drives the results of the referrals we're producing. And so it can be a struggle for newer members into our chapter who are, you know, gung ho ready, they want to commit, they're, they're trying to grow their business. And it can often feel like maybe pulling teeth to get some of these seasoned members to be as engaged in one to ones or you know, even showing up early to engage during open networking. Different aspects and seems to be a challenge that is pretty common across the world from what I'm seeing.

[B]

Yeah, and it's, I think it's always been a challenge. I mean always, you know, certainly within the first five years of the organization I started to see it. These long term members are important because they bring to a chapter a sense of institutional memory. They remember things that have happened in the group and so they bring a history to the group and that's important. They also sometimes can bring a complacency to the group, which is what, what you're referring to, right? I, I think one of the best things that we can do as directors and what chapters can do, the current leadership teams of chapters can do with those long term members is to bring them into a leadership role that doesn't necessarily require a lot of work. In other words, don't, don't ask them to be president or heaven forbid, Vice president again, because that's a lot of work and they may not be ready for it, but instead bring them in to be the education coordinator, the visitor host, a chapter mentor, a member mentor. I wrote a book called the Networking Mentor, which is a really short book. It's available on Amazon in most countries. I mean you can read it in like an hour. And to be a mentor for members of the chapter, mentor, education coordinator, visitor host, these are easy roles that long term members can be really, really good at because of their experience in the organization, I think. What do you think?

[C]

Yeah. So one of my responses is very similar to that around the mentor position in particular because what I've found in working with these members over the years is they will teach new members everything they did to get to the level of success that they're having and why they've been a part of their BNI chapter for so long. And it often can remind them of what they stopped doing and it almost kind of forces them to re engage right when they take on the mentoring now they're doing one to one and they're kind of re engaging in the process. So I think that's a great one. The other one is around education before.

[B]

You go to education because I think that's important. Let me just talk about the mentor thing. I discovered what you're talking about when I was asked to coach my son's chess club. And this story is actually in the book the Networking Mentor but I don't say it's me. So if you read the book and you read this story, I'm talking about myself. When I started mentoring 10 year olds on how to play chess, coaching 10 year olds on how to play chess, my game improved and I, you know, I was in my 40s when I was, you know, coaching my son's chess club and, and I, we both know someone who is a past CEO who I would play chess with every week and, and one week he said, what are you doing with your game? I'm like, what do you mean? He said, your game has gotten really better. I'm like, oh, I'm coaching 10 year olds. And he's like, no, seriously, what are you doing with your game? I'm coaching 10 year olds. And it is exactly what you just described. I had to go back and relearn things that I knew and it made me better at playing the game because I was coaching children. And so if you coach members, adults, you're going to get better at what you do within BNI wouldn't, wouldn't you agree?

[C]

100 so education coordinator was my always my favorite role when I was a member because it was a forced way of learning. You had to learn what you were going to talk about. So I think it's very much similar to that, the education pieces because I often think people are blind to the fact or blind to how much their activity, whether even a lack of is impacting other people. So we do a lot of education around the Power of One. The Power of One reports used I know across the United States and BNI is working on different versions around the world. And this is old, old stats from when we created this report, you know, 15 years ago, whatever it was that showed that people who were in the red in their activity actually passed eight times less than people in the green. Wow. Just to kind of educate on the importance of why your members need you to be active too. So even if you have been standing member and you've been here for a long time and you've probably done, you know, tremendous amount of one to ones over the years, the newer members haven't done it with you and you're kind of it's a new relationship and requires a new level of activity with each one just to try to educate on it. Because one thing I do believe that you've always said and I teach on this, is that you really can't motivate other people. Right. And that's what they're usually looking for. That's usually the way the question comes in is how do we motivate the seasoned members to re engage? And I'm often answering it, you can't. You can't just motivate them. You got to inspire them, teach them and show them what the impact that they're having, recognize the impact they've made and then challenge them to, to re engage with the chapter.

[B]

And there's a difference between inspiring and motivating. Someone can inspire you to motivate yourself, but nobody can motivate you. Only you can motivate you. And I think that's what you're talking about. And that definitely is true in a BNI chapter and definitely true with seasoned members.

[C]

Yeah. So the last thing I give and I know we're this when this is coming out, it's kind of the new year. So it's good timing for it is to set really precise chapter goals with really precise strategies to achieve them with well defined expectations. And oftentimes you will see season members step up to those. It can be a lack of just general expectation setting. It allows that complacency to come in and they can get away with the excuse of, well, I've been here forever. You do that, then it allows everybody to either step up or if necessary, and unfortunately, that is the case of time, step out. And yeah, and you're not, again, just trying to push or motivate. You can inspire them based on the goals and the vision and the strategy and let them decide if this is still the right team for them to play on.

[B]

Yeah, I've seen seasoned members that got complacent in them with conversations. They became great members again. And I think we need to give people that opportunity. And having conversations with them about how they can participate in other ways other than, you know, being on the leadership team is important to get them to participate again. Well, we're almost out of time. Is there any last thought that you have on this topic?

[C]

Tim, I would tell everybody, start with appreciation. Recognize the fact that they have been there for a long period of time and what they've given to the chapter over those years. You'll get more buy in when you start there and, and you know, and talk to them about what is needed going forward and why, how, how important they are. If you just go in and start yelling at them and call them old or whatever, you're not going to get very far. But no, it's a common thing. It's a common thing, but the ch, the chapters that do it right can succeed through it.

[B]

Appreciation, you're right on the mark. Appreciation is the way to go. Even if they're not doing a really good job at the moment, appreciate what they did do, remind them of what they did do, and talk to them about what they can do again. The place that always start is appreciation. Tim, I appreciate you and I appreciate your contribution to the organization and your contribution to BNI podcast. And if you don't mind, I'm going to ask you to contribute again in doing some guest hosting throughout the year.

[C]

I absolutely will be humbled too. I appreciate you and the entire organization. It's been my, my entire adult life has been in this organization and will continue to do so and appreciate everything it's afforded me.

[B]

It has. And your parents have been part of this organization for many, many years and handed it over to you. It's a second generation. So you're going to bring your children in.

[C]

I don't know. I actually have an interesting conversation with you on the side about the studies around third generations.

[B]

My children aren't in either, so I get it. But listen, I'm glad you're part of it, and it was wonderful having your parents as part of it. I'll turn it back over to you.

[A]

Priscilla okay, well, I think that was great. Thank you so much. This podcast is sponsored by MeisnerAudioProGrams.com and these audio programs will provide you with the tools and the inspiration to powerfully enhance your BNI experience. So check out the great material that's available to [e-mail] 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.

[B]

Sam.