“How’s business?” one attendee asked another at a networking event.

“This economy is killing me. We’ve got people canceling right and left and trying to get prospects to buy anything isn’t happening — things better turn around fast.”

The above exchange was real. Although we can probably all agree with the sentiments of the salesperson — fuel prices through the roof, unemployment creeping up and low consumer confidence — talking about these facts can make your personal economy worse. The person who asked, “How’s business?” very likely could have been a prospect. Ouch!

So what’s wrong with telling the truth? A lot! No one (I repeat no one) wants to hear doom and gloom — especially not someone who might want to do business with you.

Could there be anyone worse to share the misery with than a potential prospect? Well you might think your manager or boss tops the list, and you’re right to think they don’t want to hear this bad news (and by the way, they already know about these conditions). What they want to hear is that although times are challenging, you will prevail. They want to hear that you’re doing things to produce the results they pay you for. But the person who is most adversely impacted by this negative nay saying is you!

By even thinking negative thoughts, forget saying them, you put yourself in a mental state of failure. You subconsciously tell yourself the odds are against you, and you are doomed to fail. I’m sure you know that both positive and negative energy are contagious. Your actions reflect your thoughts and people will consciously or unconsciously detect your outlook. Ask yourself would you rather buy from someone who acts desperately to stay afloat or from someone who is convinced of the benefits of his product? From someone who complains about the economy or from someone who makes any economy work for him and his clients?

People want to do business with winners. The average person, including businesspeople, takes great security in doing business with successful businesses. If you’ve ever purchased something from a person or company that has gone out of business, you know what a pain that can be. Minimally it’s going to cost you extra time calling or physically running around to find another service agent. Worse is when you find out that the product can’t be supported at all. There are two simple yet powerful ways that you communicate that you’re a winner or not, that you’re thriving or struggling in this economy: verbally –your choice of words and nonverbally - your choice of dress.

So, better ways to answer “How’s business?”:

“Our new marketing campaign is really taking off” or “Our new marketing campaign is bringing us lots of new customers.” (You don’t have to mention that your “new marketing campaign” is you making dozens of cold calls each day.)

“We’re growing market share?”

“Even with rising costs, we’ve been able to maintain our current pricing.”

Hopefully you can also say, “Customers are raving about our new product.” If you can’t, assuming your product is a good one, solicit positive responses from your customers. This can be done early in the manufacturing process, even before your product has been officially released with a small focus group. It can also be done after your customers have enjoyed and benefited from your product. Once you have obtained these glowing kudos, share them on a regular and consistent basis with customers and prospects.

Why go through this bother? Because people are innately followers. Prospects are drawn to successful businesses and typically follow the positive experiences of others. Successful businesspeople take responsibility for obtaining positive messages and passing them along.

These positive messages will also cheer you up and help you create your own economic boom.

Power Teams?

Why would I want to be in a power team if I am already in BNI?

Why should I meet with my power team if I see them at my BNI meeting?

If you ever grasp the idea of what a power team is and how it works, you will understand the importance it to your  business. It is the heart of each BNI chapter and the source of referrals for everyone in the group.

Source? Yes SOURCE!

Let’s look at what power teams are in your chapter. Every chapter is made up of 5 different power teams;

1. Home services.
   This is real estate, mortgage, home inspections, landscaper, remodeling, HVAC, pest control, or any other category that has to do anything with a home. Most every chapter is strong with this power team.
2. Financial.
   This team includes CPA’s, Financial Advisors, Banks, estate attorney, and anyone else that has something to do with handling money.
3. Personal.
   This team is tougher to build in a chapter. This one includes cosmetics sales, body shops, mechanic shops, auto sales, apparel sales, interior designer, life coach, photographer, and so on.
4. Health and Wellness.
   This group includes most anyone that has to do with health. Chiropractor, cosmetic sales, dentist, fitness trainer, eye doctor, etc.
5. Business Services.
   This final group is the ones that do business with businesses like CPA’s, Banks, computer sales, payroll services, printers, promotional services, business coach, etc.

Now, if you look close you will notice a couple of things. First, each group is doing business with the same type, if not the same, customers. By that I mean the Realtor is doing business with the new home buyer and so can the mortgage person, the home inspector, and so on. This is how the teams are divided up. Second, each member often are in more than one power team, i.e. CPA’s are in both Financial and Business Services.

Everyone has a primary power team, which is where your focus is in business, and most have a secondary power team.

Now here is where the “Power” in power team comes in – 70% of your referrals will naturally come from within your power team! This makes sense since when a house sells, the mortgage person and the home inspector and the real estate appraiser and the closing attorney has a high potential to get a referral, but the auto mechanic and payroll service probably will not. Since this is a fact then it would be beneficial to you to not only build strong relationships within your power team, but also invite people from open categories that would be in your power team. The more in your power team, the more referrals you will get.

This is one important part of networking and building a referral base. BNI power teams are the base of any chapter. The stronger your teams, the stronger your chapter will be.

(The More YOU Give, The More YOU Get!)

1) Your business card holder: don’t leave home without it. Keep it current with cards and referral slips; place the cards of notable networkers in the first and second slots.

2) Wear your name badge one entire day a week (people will ask you about it). Share any results you receive with your chapter and encourage others to do the same.

3) Put up a card holder with each of your chapter members’ cards in your office. Spread the word.

4) Send a follow up letter to everyone that you have been able to refer, and thank everyone (also a subtle way to promote yourself).

5) Hand out your chapter roster to all people you do business with, showing them graphically the variety of services you can refer to them. Teach them that there is more than one reason they should call you.

6) Don’t be a hermit; practice the three-foot rule! In other words, start a conversation with anyone within three feet of you.

7) Get yourself an extra set of eyes and ears! Give your spouse or significant other a set of cards from your chapter.

Whenever you write up a sale, give your BNI cardholder to the client to browse through while you do the paperwork. The client will be drawn to the business cards like a magnet and will ask you about the people and services represented. This gives you a chance to brush up on giving someone else’s presentation.

9) Do a seven-minute phone call to one other member each week and concentrate on getting a referral for that member.

10) Pick one business card each week from the business card holder

11) Make other people in your office, home, and neighborhood aware of how to generate referrals, and keep them informed about members in your chapter.

12) Review your cardholder each morning before your day begins to keep members in mind when speaking to others.

13) When sitting across from clients actually remove the cards from your cardholder and lay them down. Then ask the clients to take any they may be interested in. They are more likely to take the cards if they are out of the cardholder.

14) Power Teams Unite! Team up with another member of your chapter who is in your sphere of interest and take a day off to spend going on calls with the other person. Introduce each other to your clients and offer your services as a team.

One Hour and One Lunch
One week to better business through BNI

SATURDAY
Spend ten minutes working on your tag line. Make it memorable, highlight the needs you fill, and have it recall your brand name.

SUNDAY
Spend ten minutes working on your 60-second presentation. Make sure you include your name, the location of your office, the types of business you want including your 70/20/10 percent activities, and highlight the benefits your service provides and close with your tag line.

MONDAY
Spend ten minutes thinking about which businesses or professionals could refer business to you. If those people are in your group, think about how to strengthen your relationships. If they aren’t, add them to your invite list.

TUESDAY
Pick a member of your chapter and, for ten minutes, think of what you could do to generate more referrals for her. The less you have in common with the member, the better.

WEDNESDAY
Have lunch with one member of your chapter. Meet in one of your offices, not a restaurant.

THURSDAY
Spend ten minutes talking to a non-member about your chapter of BNI—whether she is a potential new member or not. When she has a need, she’ll remember that you are a resource.

FRIDAY
Get to your BNI meeting ten minutes earlier or stay ten minutes later than you planned. If you can’t do that, pick up the phone during the day and spend ten minutes talking to another member about the meeting.

Really: The Referral Process Is Not Difficult to Measure!
By Dr. Ivan MisnerMost everyone who has ever tried to keep a truly accurate count of how many “cold calls” led to actual cash-in-your-pocket sales knows that this is not an easy task.The good news: It is actually quite easy to measure success from referrals! We know this because we’ve designed a networking scorecard for tracking referrals and the business that results from them. You might want to develop a similar one for your own use.On this card you record the nature and source of each referral, how you followed up on it, how you handled it, how you conducted your networking activities (i.e., Did you provide your referral source or contact an article of interest? A thank-you note? A phone call? Lunch? Business?) as well as the end result of these activities. It’s not that hard to analyze what you did and how successful you were in getting business from your referrals!The referral process is about committing to a series of actions designed to create a result (not only for you, but for the other people involved) and then measuring it and improving the system. As long as you track your activities, it’s not that hard to measure the results.The Tipping Point
There’s a concept we use that’s related to the “tipping point” idea for referrals. What’s the difference between 211 and 212? At first glance, you might think, Not much. But there is actually a huge difference: At 211, you just have some hot water … but at 212, you have boiling water.

What can you do with 211-degree water other than make bad coffee and warm up a hot dog? Not too much else. But with 212-degree water, you can make great coffee, sterilize dishes, and start the Industrial Revolution!

Can you feel the difference between 211-degree and 212-degree water by sticking your finger in them? Probably not. But one degree makes a world of difference.

A lot of networkers spend a lot of time “warming up” their referral sources, but since they can’t tell the difference between someone who is and is not quite ready to refer, they waste time and energy on the wrong person. This is why it is extremely important to have a system in place for measuring actions and their results.

How do you know when you’ve done enough to get a referral from a potential source? When you track the results, in many instances you will be able to tell what specific action of yours “tipped the scales” from a potential sale or client to real results. Maybe it was your last thank-you note that made a solid referral source out of your contact. Or maybe it was that tip on a special deal she could get from a new vendor.

You can’t measure feelings per se, but you can discover what made the difference between zero and success. Armed with this knowledge, you can replicate your success at other times and in other settings. In networking, of course, people are different and situations change, but if you track the results under different conditions, you’ll begin to see patterns that will show you how to handle your network.

No Tracking System, No Control
If you choose not to track your results, or perhaps do not track them consistently, you’re essentially giving up control of your referral networking—which is okay if what you’re interested in is shrugging off your own responsibility and finding other people to blame for your failures.

If you can’t connect success or failure to your own activities, it’s easy to say, “This would have worked if my referral source had prepared the prospect!” Or “The reason I failed is that nobody told me what I needed to know!” In reality, your failure to adequately train your referral partners and gather the information you needed to know is directly tied to your failure to set up a way to measure results.

Good referral networking is a lot like luck. As most people realize over time (some sooner than others), “good luck” happens to those who have worked hard to prepare for it. If something happens “by chance,” such as a good referral, go back and track it. There was probably some series of events (over which you either did or could have had control) that brought you the “good luck.”

Even though we admit that, every now and then, for reasons you can’t document, you’ll get some business out of the blue—even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes—it’s hard to write a business plan around that. (”I’ve got this great business, doing millions of dollars. How do I do it? I don’t know. Want to do business with me?”) Don’t be blind to your referral marketing; make sure to plan this part of your business.

The networking scorecard mentioned in this article is part of the Certified Networker Program offered by The Referral Institute. For more information, visit www.referralinstitute.com. For more information on “the tipping point” and the difference one degree can make, read Malcom Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point.Called the father of modern networking by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the founder and chairman of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization. His latest “New York Times” best selling book, Masters of Sales, can be viewed at www.MastersBooks.com. Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company. He can be reached at misner@bni.com.