Episode 983: Passport + Mentors = Retention

Synopsis

Just stepped down from your chapter’s leadership team? Mark Graber wants you as a mentor for the BNI Passport to Success program. The Passport Program is an engagement tool for BNI members and a retention tool for BNI chapters. It brings together everything a member should be doing to get the most out of BNI.

Why Should You Mentor?

• Being a mentor keeps both you and the new member actively involved in BNI.
• Going through the Passport Program again deepens your own relationships and networking skills.
• Growing the chapter through by onboarding quality members generates more business for everyone.

Links

• Visit Mark’s region, BNI British Columbia.
• Listen to Episode 922: The Power Beneath the Surface.
• Listen to Episode 942: Engaging Longtime Members.
• Read The Networking Mentor.

The Official BNI Podcast is sponsored by Misner Audio Programs. Complete Transcript of Episode 983

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 doing great. I’m in Austin preparing for the [BNI] Global Convention in Monaco, and the [BNI] French [Conference], also in Monaco. So I’ll be there later this week. And going to Convention is always a blast.

Priscilla: Mm hmm. Sounds fun.

Ivan:
I have a good friend on. This is his first time on BNI Podcast. I’m a little surprised it’s his first time. Mark has always got great content. Mark Graber is [BNI] Executive Director for Vancouver Island, Lower Mainland Southeast, Lower Mainland West, Northern Interior — that’s a long description — in British Columbia, Canada. He was a high school mathematics teacher, which I didn’t know, for 15 years, and a lecturer at Curtin University in Perth [Australia] in the business school for 13 years. He has three children. Sophie, I can’t pronounce the next name, is it Lachlan (LATCH-lann)?

Mark:
Lachlan (LOCK-luhn).

Ivan:
Lachlan, okay, and Ellie. Mark joined BNI as a member in 2004 in Perth, and he’s developing learning management systems primarily with Moodle. [He was] on the Inaugural Innovation Task Force for BNI under Graham Weihmiller; he was 10 years on the Founder’s Circle. He helped to develop BNI TV on YouTube. He is the one who came up with the concept or the phrase “Ivan Unplugged” for my Ask Ivan stuff, which I use a lot, Mark. And I mostly refer that it came from you. He’s been in BNI for 23 years. Mark Graber, welcome to the BNI Podcast.

Mark:
Oh, it’s wonderful to be here, Ivan. Thank you so much for having me, and [thanks] Priscilla, and thanks to Dana for coordinating all of it. It’s a real pleasure.

Ivan:
Yeah, everybody needs a Dana. She’s a great assistant, and I’m lucky to have her. So you helped to develop with Hazel the Passport Program, and the topic here is Passport + Mentors = Retention. So, talk a little bit about how the Passport program began.

Mark:
So, it began really with the retention problem within our region, and we were losing first-year members. We wanted greater retention. We know that when members stay longer, they pass larger referrals, and chapters grow larger, so we knew it was a moving target. And I’d heard too many times, and still do, that you know, major reason people left was that they were too busy. So together with my business partner Hazel Walker, we started, as Hazel calls it, spitballing — brainstorming ideas and concepts of how we could onboard new members really well, and make sure they covered all the major topics and sort of the situations they would encounter, and to guarantee that each member was receiving the same level of engagement and sort of understanding.

So I took it from my academic life, a Capstone Unit in the Bachelor of Business degree, where all the schools came together from management, marketing, economics, finance, business law, and we created a passport there. They would meet each other, because they were in their own independent silos, and they were meeting for the first time. And so, I translated that concept over about onboarding. So Hazel began to create all the content, and we kept, you know, adding, taking away, thinking what was most important. You know, the usual whiteboard days and design samples and printing out hard copies, and you know, we were exchanging hard copies at conferences eventually, when it spread to different countries. So that’s how it began.

Ivan:
So you talk about the Passport Program being an engagement tool, not an educational tool. Talk about that.

Mark:
Well, we wanted it because we’ve established the [BNI] Core Value of Building Relationships and recognized that the engagement was key to a member’s length of stay in BNI. And that it was all about understanding about how much you know people care before how much people know… you know all about that. And so we knew that great customer engagement was a key, and that journey has been built upon by many people within BNI. And I stand on the shoulders of greats — Andy Hart’s great work, Rob Gorecki’s great work. Working with Hazel has been amazing, and it’s not just one person developing it. It was like a series of these really great tools about what a member should be doing to make the most out of BNI and their journey in of BNI.

Ivan:
By the way, I agree with this focus on engagement. I think the success of a chapter is the quality of members, the quantity of members, and the engagement of the members, so I couldn’t agree more. Now the Passport Program requires mentors. Talk about that.

Mark:
So the hardest part is really, I think, is filling the 10 mentor seats within the Passport Program. In the initial days, it was about you know being a Visitor host for a day, engaging with the Communications Coordinator, understanding what the VP did. But as we’ve grown, and of course, and as technology is a part of our life and our BNI life, there’s much greater emphasis on learning some of the technology. So we need mentors in roles, and we need senior members who’ve been in chapters for a while to translate and give that opportunity of building relationships and continuing that by our newest members and mentoring and standing up. So, I’ve seen it in my region, a chapter that was at 40 [members] going to 65 and managing the newest members coming up. You’re inviting 60 potential visitors every single month, and those visitors turn into members, and the numbers don’t lie. We know that in order to get great members, we need members with great character that really want to and live the Givers Gain philosophy. What we used to say, “bleed burgundy,” Ivan. You know, understand what it means to be an effective mentor, and that was so eloquently put in Stephen M. R. Covey’s book, The Speed of Trust, about what do we look at with great character.

Ivan:
Yeah, Stephen M. R. Covey, he’s a good friend. Love his book, The Speed of Trust. He’s also a member of the Transformational Leadership Council.

Mark:
Yeah, brilliant. And I think we had him.. did we have him at a conference one time?

Ivan:
Yeah, we had him at a [BNI] Conference.

Mark:
Yeah, absolutely. He was brilliant. Yeah.

Ivan:
Yeah. Now, why would someone want to be a mentor?

Mark:
Well, I think the key here is the ability to transfer your knowledge. We know that when you help other people, you’re going to help yourself.

Ivan:
Yep. 100%.

Mark:
So the key here for being the mentor is keeping people also actively involved. Sometimes when you step down from a Leadership Team, it’s like, oh, this is the end of my role of visibility. When actually, sometimes it’s more important to be a great mentor. You’ve got a chapter at 65 [members] that’s interviewing, you know, 20 potential applicants every single month. You need great mentors because the Passport Program is crucial to the onboarding of those 20 brand new members, and so we encourage mentors to continue to take a role, to continue to be involved. It’s key, and it’s the key as you grow.

Ivan:
So I think you hit the key point that being a mentor improves your own game, and I talk about that in the short book I wrote, The Networking Mentor, and I tell a story in there about coaching a bunch of 10-year-olds on chess and how my game improved when I coached 10-year-olds, and it was amazing to me that my game would improve by coaching 10-year-olds. So I think if you want to be a mentor, you not only help other people, but you can improve your own participation in BNI.

Mark:
Correct, and I’ve seen great successful chapters run as teams, and these teams of mentors on many levels really support that. You know, and it gives the newest member an opportunity to appreciate how the team works, the piece of the jigsaw puzzle, putting it all together.

Ivan:
Yeah. So, have you talked about that… I know integrity built through honesty. You want to talk about that a little bit?

Mark:
Well, I think really what we’re looking for here is mentors that are really being authentic about why they’re being in BNI. Why do they renew for 15 years in a row, 17 years in a row, understanding that BNI is a long game.

Ivan:
You know, Mark, we have members who’ve been in for over 40 years.

Mark:
I know it’s incredible, from the very first. It’s incredible. So you know that… and they’re all treated equally, and that equality is key. And you know, and Covey talks about the intent. What is the intent? The intent is to grow. What’s our motive to grow? Our motive to grow is to make you more successful. More members… we know the statistics, they don’t lie, they tell us the truth. That’s more members, more referrals, more average referral, more average receipt value, etc.

Ivan:
Yeah, so great successful chapters run as teams on a lot of levels. You want to talk about that before we wrap up?

Mark:
I want to I make it clear to people that they see might see three people at the front of a meeting one time, and think that those three people are doing everything. But there’s people and teams that lead behind the BNI Plus team, the Membership Committee team, the Visitor Host Team, the Follow-Up Team, the Greeter-Shepherd-Helper Registration Table Team, the IT Production Team. And so when new members come in and see and be a part of that team, that’s a real sense of belonging. They get to see how it works and to visualize it, to engage it, and to see what does it mean to be there at six a.m. when we’ve got a visitors day and we’ve got 40 visitors. What does it take? All of those experiences, and so the passport program was about that engagement into various experiences about being a BNI member and doing it with the right people in your first three months because that’s key and therefore getting people as mentors to help them through that journey.

Ivan:
You believe that the tools and the statistics that we have through BNI Connect have value. Do you want to talk about that briefly before we wrap?

Mark:
Sure, absolutely. I just wanted to say thank you to Dr. Caroline Irving, and thank you very much to the ELT for all the work, great work that she does. So we know that there are tools out there and utilizing… so just looking at member traffic lights, members who sponsor, members who are great in CEU points, etc. That’s really where my guide is to be able to try and find the correct mentor. So it’s continually my search. So to all of my members listening, please, if you want to take on a mentor role, please get in contact with us. We’d love it.

Ivan:
Absolutely. Mark, thanks so much for being on BNI Podcast. Mark’s website for BNI is www.bnibc.ca – for Canada. Thanks so much, Mark. It was great having you on, and come back again.

Mark:
Thank you very much, Ivan. Thank you, Priscilla. I loved it.

Ivan:
Over to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:

You’re welcome. Okay, well, I think that’s it for this week. Thank you both so much for great information.

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.