Episode 977: The Willing Conversation (Classic)

Note: This is a rebroadcast of Episode 748, first published on March 9, 2022. Some links and offers may no longer be valid.

To receive more effective referrals from the members of your BNI group, it’s really important to help them understand your business and your target market enough to identify a good referral. To do that, you need to make sure they know these four things.

1. The Needs Assessment
2. Your Unique Selling Proposition
3. Why Are You in Business?
4. What’s Your Emotionally Charged Connection?

Listen to Episode 451 and read “Why You Do What You Do Is Your Key to Success” for more about Emotionally Charged Connections.

What have you shared with your network that has helped you gain willing conversations with prospective customers? Share your answers in the comments.

The Official BNI Podcast is sponsored by Misner Audio Programs.

Priscilla:
Hello everybody and welcome back to The Official BNI 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 Misner. Hello Ivan, how are you and where are you?

Ivan: I am at home in Austin, Texas this week. And, you know, most of our podcasts, almost all of our podcasts, land a post on Wednesday morning. And many of you may not know this, but for the last couple of years, every Wednesday, I have Sam Horn come over in the morning. Sam wrote the book, “POP!” where she mentioned BNI, and that was before I knew Sam. And she also wrote the book, “Someday is Not a Day in the Week.” I talk about Sam and quote her in a number of places. She comes over every Wednesday morning after this podcast goes live. And we do what we call “Writing Wednesday.” But honestly, Priscilla, it’s oftentimes ‘talking’ Wednesday. We talk. We talk a lot about writing, but we talk a lot. And today’s topic is The Willing Conversation.

Priscilla:
Uh huh.

Ivan:
And so it’s about talking to people. Do you remember, Priscilla, when you were a kid how fun magnets were to play with?

Priscilla:
Yes.

Ivan:
Yeah, I loved magnets. And depending on which way you turn the magnet, they were either attracted or repelled by one another. And as an adult, we may find ourselves feeling six years old again when we make a phone call to a referral, who turns out to not be a referral at all. And similar to a magnet that’s turned the wrong direction, you’re not being embraced in that conversation, you’re being resisted. So the referral you were given that should have been a warm introduction quickly turns into a cold call.

We all want good referrals, people who want to talk to us. We want to give and receive referrals that are willing conversations about the products and services that we have to offer. And to receive more effective referrals from the members of your BNI group, it’s really important to help them understand your business and your target market enough to identify a good referral.

So here are four tips that you can follow that will help you with those willing conversations.

The first tip is The Needs Assessment. It’s really your responsibility to be very clear; it’s our responsibility – I’ll talk about it with me as well. It’s our responsibility to be very clear and specific with our referral partners about what constitutes a good referral. And this is a combination of an ideal prospect profile and the problems that we can solve for them. Because it’s not just about what you do, it’s about what solutions you have for the people that you’re working with. It’s about what Andy Bounds calls the AFTERs —what are things going to look like after you’ve worked with them.

So, the needs assessment really is an example of you clearly defining your target market. So for a corporate coach, as an example, you might say that a small to medium sized company with fewer than 100 employees, closely held business – family owned business, regional with locations, you know, local in a state or two, and that they as a coach provide themselves on higher than average retention, getting companies to have higher than average retention for employees. And they may be in a competitive industry and as an executive coach, you can help them gain an advantage. So, you know, you want to communicate your target market very clearly to the people in your BNI group.

Ivan:
You also want to describe your Unique Selling Proposition. So do you have dozens or hundreds of competitors in your marketplace? You probably do. And that means that your unique selling proposition, or USP, is really important because it allows you to stand out among your competition. Your USP is a brief description of the purpose of your business. It’s stated in the most concise and compelling way possible in order to help others understand the unique value of what it is that you do. So your unique selling proposition tells people the type of client you like to work with and the benefits that you can provide for them.

And what you want to say is what makes what makes you stand out and why that makes you stand out. What do you do that your competition can’t touch? At the very least, figure out what you do better than your rivals and go beyond simply saying ‘good customer service.’ That’s really part of your unique selling proposition – what it is that you have that your competition doesn’t.

The third thing is Why Are You in Business? What’s your passion? Why do you go to work? Unfortunately, one of the most popular answers to the question is ‘to make money.’ That’s the worst answer a business professional can ever give. You’ve got to be able to describe why it is that you do what it is that you do. Why are you in your profession? How do you change lives? You know, that’s what the referral partners in your business group, in your BNI chapter, that’s what they want to know. Remember, passion really is referable. You need to go deep and identify your why if you want to truly connect with people on a personal level.

The fourth thing is, what is your Emotionally Charged Connection? Your emotionally charged connection, or ECC, is a phrase leading to a story that your referral partners can recite when referring to you. So for those of you who want to know what my ECC is, what my emotionally charged connection is, go to episode number 451: Why Do You Do What You Do? And in that episode, I shared my emotionally charged connection and why that was so incredibly important to me, and why I do what it is that I do in business. It really stems from that podcast, 451, the experience that I have, from the podcast that I talk about.

We all have an ECC, it was something that happened to you, often during childhood, that lays the groundwork for who you are as a person. It can be positive; it can be negative. Many people are not consciously aware of their emotionally charged connection yet, it’s the reason that we get up in the morning and do the things that we do every day. It’s driven by the heart, not by the checkbook, or by the head; there’s a big difference. And I’m going to also include a link in here where you can read about my emotionally charged connection. I did a blog on the same topic and so I’ll have a link here for that blog as well. The bottom line is that the better you become at sharing the information in these tips that I’ve just given you with your BNI group, the more likely you are to feel like the magnet that attracts, instead of the magnet that repels. Your referral partners will be able to give you good referrals that lead to the willing conversation.

Well, I have a question for everyone when we’re done here. Priscilla, do you have any thoughts before we wrap up?

Priscilla:
No, but I haven’t heard this before and I really like what you’re talking about. I don’t remember hearing about the emotionally charged connection. Is that what it is?

Ivan:
Yeah, well, you were there for me. It was episode number 451.

Priscilla:
I just made a note. I’m gonna go back and listen to it.

Ivan:
Go back and listen to it. It was the story — you’ll remember it as soon as I give you a little heads-up. There’s a story about my teacher, Mr. Romero, and asking who wants to be on the student council.

Priscilla:
Aha, yeah, I remember that.

Ivan:
Yeah. And that was my emotionally charged connection. Because after that experience, which I’m not going to restate here on this podcast, go back and listen to 451. After that experience with this teacher, who, by the way, changed my life in many ways. After that experience, I realized many years later, that almost every business I’ve ever been drawn to and ever started was about inspiring people or providing people with an opportunity to be their best. And that’s really what BNI is, isn’t it? It’s about giving people an opportunity. You know, you joined BNI, you gotta work.

Priscilla:
Yeah.

Ivan:
And I talked about this in the podcast, you know, in 451, it’s not like it was just a gift and I walked away and became successful. It was a gift that I had to work at. It gave me an opportunity, the gift was an opportunity, and that opportunity I had to work really hard at. And from that opportunity, I achieved the level of success in high school. And from that, I realized many, many years later, not at the moment, that that experience led me to try to give other people that experience, to try to give them an opportunity to achieve success. And that’s really what BNI is about. So, go listen to episode 451 everyone.

Priscilla:
Yeah, I plan to.

Ivan:
It’s a powerful story. It’s a true story. So for those of you who are listening to this podcast, let me ask you a question. I read all of the questions that get posted here, or comments that get posted here on BNI podcast.

My question is, what have you shared with your network that has helped you gain willing conversations with prospective customers? Share them here on the BNI podcast. That’s everything I’ve got, Priscilla, over to you.

Priscilla:
That was great. Thank you so much, Ivan.

This podcast is sponsored by www.misneraudioprograms.com. These audio programs will provide you with the tools and the inspiration to powerfully enhance your BNI experience. So check out the great material available to you at www.misneraudioprograms.com and then use the promo code IVAN50 for 50% off of everything [this code is good for a limited time]. All of the proceeds go to the BNI Foundation.

Thank you 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.