Collaboration | Dr. Ivan Misner®

17Aug2017

Competition into collaborationstring(30) "Competition into collaboration"

August 17, 2017

Collaboration, Competition Collaboration, Competition, Guest Blog, Guest Video, Tiffanie Kellog

You can turn your competition into your best potential referral source. In this video, Tiffanie Kellog and Jason Avery share how he accomplished this in his construction business. There is plenty of business out there if you do it right.

About Tiffanie Kellog

For more information on Tiffanie Kellog, please visit her website at tiffaniekellog.com/

Tiffanie Kellog is a professional speaker and trainer with Asentiv, and is co-owner of a business with her husband. Therefore, Tiffanie has helped entrepreneurs over the years make more money while saving time. Thus, they can have more fun. She is dedicated to helping others make more money in less time.

To contact Tiffanie, call her at 813-263-9690 or email at referrals@tiffaniekellog.com

23Jan2017

What is Your Verb?string(18) "What is Your Verb?"

January 23, 2017

Ivan Misner

Alex Mandossian, Inspire, verb Alex Mandossian, Brand Building, Collaboration, INSPIRE, Motivation 23

I just spent the five days at my semi-annual TLC (Transformational Leadership Council) event in Mexico. I come away from each of these conferences with nuggets of great information.

At this conference, one of the presentations that gave me a lot of great nuggets was from my friend, Alex Mandossian. His talk was called “Discover Your Verb.” OK, I thought it sounded a bit weird but his content is always so great, so I didn’t care – I had to be there. I’m glad I was. It was in fact, amazing.

In his talk he said, the “biggest lesson I’ve learned over the years is the one thing that makes a great business person and leader is: movement!”

Albert Einstein once said that “nothing happens until something moves.” This is true in business and in leadership because without movement, change is not possible.

Alex told the story of a legendary ad man, Leo Burnett from Chicago. He said that “Burnett once put his staff to the task of analyzing 62 ads that failed to move merchandise. Why did they fail? Burnett said it was due to too many adjectives because adjectives (like “extremely”) don’t move people, instead they spark skepticism and doubt in our minds. In fact, of the 12,758 words of those failed ads, 24.1% were adjectives! Translation: more adjectives means less movement.”

Alex said that in comparison, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address contains only 13.1% adjective-to-total-word ratio and Churchill’s “Blood, Sweat and Tears” speech has 12.3%.

If adjectives are the problem, then what is the solution? Alex said that it’s not nouns – it’s about verbs or action words.

Verbs increase persuasion power and move people according to Alex. The greatest thought leaders in history lived their lives as verbs.

For example, Alex said: “Rene Descartes is “Father of Western philosophy.” His verb was: THINK! (“Cogito ergo sum”) “I THINK, therefore I am!”

Einstein believed if you stop learning you start dying. His verb was: LEARN! “I LEARN, therefore I am!”
Maria Montessori believed in teaching philosophy that bears her name today. Her verb was: TEACH! I TEACH therefore I am.
Walt Disney believed in dreaming. His verb won him 22 Academy Awards! “I DREAM, therefore I am!”

Alex said, “it’s a one-word language that moves people and causes permanent and positive change!”

So – what’s your verb? Alex asked us to pick our verb and put it on a sticky note. I chose “collaborate” but my wife, Beth, told me that she didn’t think that was my verb! I said, “what do you mean, my business is all about collaboration.” She said yes that is how I operate but that is not the big picture of what I do. I asked her what she thought I did and she said – “you inspire.” She said that Alex told us that our verb had to be something BIG. It had to be the big movement that we have with the people we work with. Beth said that my role is to inspire people to collaborate. I’d like to think she was right so – my verb is “INSPIRE.”

What is your verb? Think BIG. It’s the big movement that you make in your community and your world. What is your verb and why? Share it here. I want to know.

10Nov2016

How To Deal With Your Competitorsstring(33) "How To Deal With Your Competitors"

November 10, 2016

Ivan Misner

competitor Collaboration, Video Blog

Misner’s solution on how to deal with competitors is simple: Don’t pay attention to competitors. Success in business is about constantly improving your product or service, team, and culture. If you focus on these aspects, you’ll improve your position in the marketplace.

Focusing on the fundamentals of your business, keeping up with metrics and constantly sharing your core values as an organization are a few ways that you can improve your business. But whatever you do, don’t obsess over what competitors are saying about you. If you keep bettering your own business, you’ll have no need to fear your competitors, Misner says.

“The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.” – Henry Ford

In this video, Ivan Misner discusses how to deal with competition in business.

4Apr2016

Introducing Garage to Globalstring(28) "Introducing Garage to Global"

What does it take to start a home-based business and turn it into a global organization? I am sharing the many lessons I’ve learned to do just that.

In 1985, I started a small business from my home in Southern California. Today, BNI has ov BNI Member Growth Through 2014 er 7,400 locations in more than 65 countries around the world (see the member growth chart to the right).

From business networking to management, scaling a business, and surrounding yourself with good people, I will be sharing with you the secrets for building a global brand.

Go here and subscribe to my new Garage to Global Channel (part of the Entrepreneur Network) on YouTube: http://tinyurl.com/garagetoglobal.

Share with me below what you think it takes to go from “garage to global” (but don’t forget to subscribe to my new channel. 🙂

18Feb2016

Why We Need to Stop Reinventing the Wheelstring(41) "Why We Need to Stop Reinventing the Wheel"

February 18, 2016

Ivan Misner

Networking, reinvent the wheel Business, Collaboration, Customer Service, Recommendation 1

As business people and networkers, and even in our personal lives, we are often trying to make things harder than they need to be. There is an abundance of techniques, for sales, communicating, and general business practices, that are tried and true, so much so that they seem too simple to truly be effective. We re-evaluate them, we “improve” upon them, and we overcomplicate them. Possibly worse, we sometimes just scrap the old way and try to start over from scratch.

Often, we think we are smarter than those who came before us. Our egos prevent us from listening to those who have more history. The danger here with reinventing the wheel is that it puts us in danger of history repeating itself.

Here are three common warning signs that you may be falling into the danger zone of repeating work, and what to do about them.

Instead of solving a problem, you come up with new features to cover it up. First and foremost, this is poor customer service to add features to try to distract from a known issue with a good or service. Instead of wasting your time coming up with new features on an old issue, spend time diving into the old issue and make minor changes on existing features to elevate the whole product.
When something with history doesn’t work perfectly, you think it might be easier to start over. Without a doubt, there was a reason things got to where they are. Instead of erasing all of the work of those before you, do a little research. Take time to talk with your predecessors and learn what the motivation behind choices were. Chances are you will discover the core problem, and be able to instead make moves to target that issue, instead of starting over.
The wheel you’re looking at reinventing is a common wheel that many business people are faced with. Is your wheel unique to you, or is it something that many in your profession are faced with? If the latter, it is highly possible that there are many people also working to reinvent that wheel right now. Perhaps it is a standard business practice in your field that simply doesn’t work. Instead of putting forth resources (including time and money) to tackle it on your own, see if there is a group in your field working on this issue. If you are working to forge new paths at the same time others are trying to do the same thing, you’re all wasting resources and could likely work more effectively as a team.

Have you ever tried to reinvent the wheel? What happened?

8Feb2016

Can You Quantify How You Strengthen Your Network?string(49) "Can You Quantify How You Strengthen Your Network?"

February 8, 2016

Ivan Misner

growth Collaboration, Connections, Follow up 3

How are you tracking your business success? You’re probably not, which is fine, but can make it extremely difficult to not only expect, but quantify, growth and success. You’d be surprised the number of businesspeople I talk to from all industries who say they want to grow their business, but when I ask by how much, they simply stare at me. Even worse are the stares I get when I ask what they have actively done to grow your business.

You cannot expect change and growth without actively working to strength your network and business. It simply won’t happen.

Most people can name specific things they do to improve their skill at a hobby they are passionate about, but so rarely is that passion carried over into their own business. Below is a list of quantifiable things you can do to strength your network, improve relationships with referral partners, and ultimately help foster the growth of your business.

How many can you check off? Let me know in the comments!

Send a Thank You card – but make sure it is handwritten!
Call to check in
Arrange a 1-to-1
Offer a referral to someone without them having to ask for one
Include them in a regular newsletter for your company
Send an article of interest to your contact
Set up a group activity to bring together your networks
Attend a networking event (and bring someone with you!)
Display your partner’s brochure or flyer at your business

You should aim to do one to two of these things a week to consistently be developing your relationships with your network. And, of course, there are plenty of things you could do that aren’t on this list. What could you add?

4Jan2016

How Many Referrals Do You Expect Per Month?string(43) "How Many Referrals Do You Expect Per Month?"

January 4, 2016

Ivan Misner

Networking, Referrals, relationships Collaboration, Referrals, Relationships

The number of referrals you should expect to receive is dependent on the type of business you’re in and the effort you exert to develop your network. Some professions receive more referrals than others.

For example, a florist is going to get many more than a real estate agent. However, the florist will have to sell a lot of flowers to make up for one real estate sale. Hence, the type of profession can somewhat determine a range in the quantity of referrals.

Having said that, however, the actual number that someone in a specific profession can get varies dramatically depending on their efforts to develop those referrals. This variation depends on how they “work” their networks. You remember the old computer adage “garbage in, garbage out”? It means that if you put bad information into the system, you’re going to get bad information out of the system. Well, one’s networking efforts are very much the same.

The results you can expect to get out of your efforts will be based on the quality of people you put into it. I recently conducted an Internet survey of business professionals in which I asked, “What percentage of your business comes from word-of-mouth or referrals?” Even I was surprised by the results. More than two-thirds of the respondents said they received 70 percent or more of their business from word-of-mouth. Only 14 percent said that referrals accounted for less than 30 percent of their business, and only 2 percent said they got no business from word-of-mouth!

Clearly, word-of-mouth and referrals are critical to the success of many businesses today. The question is, how do you increase it? First, consider professions that are part of your contact sphere. These are businesses that have a symbiotic relationship to yours. Contact spheres are the building blocks of your referral business because they help to build a solid base of repetitive referrals for you. Read “Developing a Networking Contact Sphere” for a more thorough explanation.

Next, you should diversify your networks. That is, you should participate in different kinds of networking groups so that you may have a diverse cross section of businesses and professionals as part of your center of influence. It’s important for you to understand that you must first build the foundation I speak of above before you can have high expectations for developing referrals. Based on research that I conducted at the University of Southern California a number of years ago, I found that the average participant in a strong contact network or a business development network (groups that meet weekly and allow only one person per profession, and whose primary purpose is to pass business referrals) generated, on average, 4.2 referrals per member, per month, or roughly 50 referrals per person, per year.

See Chapter 8 of my book The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret for additional information about the payoffs of networking. Please note that there are many intervening variables to this number. In my study, these variables included such things as length of membership, the profession they represented, the years of experience, the level of participation and more. One thing that didn’t seem to make a difference was gender. Both men and women generated substantially similar numbers of referrals throughout their participation.

To summarize, the number of referrals you can expect will vary depending on your profession and your efforts in the networking process. However, on average, I’ve found that many businesspeople can generate more than 50 referrals per year via their participation in a single networking organization. What makes this number truly significant is that most people would agree that a referred contact is much easier to close into business than other types of contacts. I believe this is the reason that so many businesses say they generate most of their business through referrals and word-of-mouth.

9Jul2015

5 Ways Your Network Can Promote Youstring(35) "5 Ways Your Network Can Promote You"

July 9, 2015

Ivan Misner

5 Ways, Business by Referral, Five Ways Advertising, BNI, Collaboration, Entrepreneurial Enterprise, Marketing/Sales, Networking, Networking Prep, Networking Tactics, Public Speaking, Referrals, Strategy, Video Blog, Word of Mouth 2

I’m currently in Asia doing a number of speaking engagements and yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at the BNI Japan National Conference. Today, I’d like to share with you an excerpt from the speech I gave where I explain the following five ways in which your network can promote you:

Display your literature and products
Make announcements for you about your business
Endorse your products and services
Provide you with referrals
Introduce you to people / arrange meetings on your behalf

This is content straight from my book Business by Referral and if you’d like to learn about the additional ten ways your network can promote you (which I share in the book but not in this video), click here for an article I wrote specifically on this topic.

If you have any favorite tactics which you’ve personally found to be highly effective when it comes to putting your networking circle to work for you, please share them in the comment forum below. Thanks!

30Mar2015

Who Cares about Your Business?string(30) "Who Cares about Your Business?"

Do you know who really cares about your business and wants to help you? Realistically, there are only a few basic ways of motivating people to care about and help build your business. Basically, it comes down to relationships and rewards.

Photo courtesy of graur codrin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Some folks, usually friends or family, will simply want to help because they like you and want you to do well. These people will be motivated by the relationship itself.

But in most other cases, the long term motivation to build your business is not based primarily on whether or not the other person likes you. Business partnerships, including referral relationships, almost always include some form of mutual reward; typically in the form of social or financial gain. Both you and your networking partner have something to gain, and you are both eager to help each other achieve it.

Some people are motivated by the potential for business referrals you can send, while others are motivated by the prestige and opportunities created by having a relationship with you. Regardless of the underlying motivation behind them, relationships can take time to prove profitable in a substantial way, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth cultivating. Ultimately, strong relationships will steer back opportunities because of the nature of networking itself and of the endless variety of products and services to which it can lead.

I firmly believe that most relationships will probably prove rewarding in the long term, even in cases where you don’t receive referrals in return. There are a few super successful people to whom we send referrals who’ve never reciprocated with a referral back. We’re motivated to continue helping them in any way we can simply because they will work with people we refer to them. That makes us look good, because it’s very difficult for the average person to start a working relationship with these very successful, very busy people.

If we refer someone, it opens a door that might never have otherwise opened. The new person that we are referring to our very busy friends or associates is the one who now goes out of his way to reciprocate. That’s our motivation; helping our networking partners achieve their goals. And, of course, in one form or another, it winds up coming back in some way.

What are some experiences you’ve had in which you’ve benefitted in some way or another as a result of truly caring about others’ businesses and helping them to grow and achieve their goals? I’d love to hear your story/stories so please share your experiences in the comment forum below. Thanks!

16Mar2015

Follow the Money Trailstring(22) "Follow the Money Trail"

March 16, 2015

Ivan Misner

Law of Reciprocity, Money Trail Advertising, Business, Collaboration, Conversation, Marketing/Sales, Networking, Networking Prep, Networking Tactics, Referrals, Strategic Planning, Strategy 1

How many businesses would you say you’ve supported over the years by being a loyal customer? Think about it, you could have been solely responsible for the new wing your veterinarian added to her office last year, just from all the money you’ve invested in your pet’s care over the last ten years. For some businesses, not only may you have been a customer–you may also have recommended them to other people. When was the last time those businesses returned the favor and helped your business succeed? There’s a strategy I like to call “following the money trail” which shows you how to leverage the law of reciprocity with the businesses you have financially supported.

Before you read on and get deep into this strategy, go find your checkbooks–both personal and business. I’ll wait . . . There, now that you have your checkbook(s) in front of you, it’s time to follow the money trail. Scan your checkbooks for local businesses that you have paid. You may notice regular expenditures, such as your hair stylist, veterinarian, physician, lawn care service, housecleaning service, dry cleaners, day care, pet resort, or grocery store.

First, let’s put this money trail into perspective. Start by analyzing just how much you have invested in these businesses. Get out a piece of paper and draw a table like the one shown below.

Reviewing these figures will help you realize just how much you’ve invested toward the success of some of your favorite businesses. Staggering, isn’t it? Now, what can you do with this information?

The law of reciprocity states that if I help you, you will, in time, help me in return. I would venture to guess that most of these establishments have never been approached by their customers with a request of reciprocity. What would you say to them? How would they react? Why bother? You might wonder: What could a hairstylist do for me–or for a financial planner–other than style hair?

Seeking reciprocity begins with your willingness to ask the question. Your request needs to be specific and needs to be supported by how much you have invested in their business over the last year or so. Are you willing to approach your favorite businesses and ask them to support your business in some way? If yes, let’s start with the example below and then consider what you could do for your business.

Example: Financial Planner Seeks Reciprocity from Hairstylist

First, the financial planner needs to take the hairstylist–let’s call her Joan–to lunch or coffee and engage her in conversation.

Financial planner: Thank you for joining me for lunch. I wanted to get some time with you away from the salon so I could talk with you about your business–and to ask for some help with my own business. I’ve enjoyed being your client for the last five years, and I’m glad I was able to refer four other people to your salon who have become clients. I wanted to ask if you might be willing to help support my business as well.

Joan: I have very much enjoyed you as a client, and I really do appreciate your referrals. What do you have in mind?

F.P.: As a client, I receive your quarterly newsletter. I see that you often have advertisements from community businesses. Would you give me space in your newsletter for an ad for one year?

J: Sure, but that would cost about $500 for the year.

F.P.: I was hoping that you would give me the space for no charge in return for my past referrals and for being such a loyal customer, even after moving twenty miles away.

J: I see your point. No one has ever asked me to do anything like this before. But it makes sense to me since you are actively supporting my business. The least I could do is give you ad space. Sure. I’d be happy to help you. Is there anything else you’d like me to do?

F.P.: As a matter of fact, there is. Could you leave one of my newsletters in your waiting area for your patrons to read while they wait?

J: Of course–that would be no problem.

In this example, Joan was willing and able to help the financial planner expand her visibility. Most people, once it’s pointed out to them, understand that the law of reciprocity goes both ways. If they seem reluctant to help you, it’s time to reconsider your loyalty. Should you continue to support someone else’s business when he or she flatly refuses to help your business in return?

As a client, you’re giving a lot to someone else’s business. It’s not unreasonable to ask for something that supports your business in return. Now think about your business and the businesses you support. What can you ask of them? Can you contribute to their newsletter? Will they display your pamphlet? Will they post your business announcements? Can you leave a stack of business cards on their coffee table? Will they pass out your business’ coupons to their customers at the register? Will they sponsor your next event?

Make it a point this week to approach at least one establishment for help with promoting your business. After all, when you follow the money you’ve spent on other people’s establishments, isn’t it about time some of it came back around to you? Also, I’d love to hear about your experiences with this so please come back and share your thoughts and experiences in the comment forum below. Thanks!

1Dec2014

Make a Good Living While Serving a Greater Goodstring(47) "Make a Good Living While Serving a Greater Good"

December 1, 2014

Ivan Misner

BNI, Business, Collaboration, Community, Connections, Culture, Economy, Entrepreneurial Enterprise, Givers Gain, Giving, Global Business, Goals, Growth, Social Responsibility, Strategy, Success 6

All of us are in business to make a profit. But if that’s the primary driving force in business, we become mercenaries to that process. I believe that I should serve a greater need than simply to make a profit. I believe that business can be honorable. It can make a difference in individual lives as well as communities.

Small business is the engine that drives many of the economies around the world. Small business doesn’t have the resources of large corporations. However, if they network together – the sum of the whole becomes greater than the individual parts. Well-designed collaboration based on an effective system and strategy can lead to small business success.

However, in the final analysis, the true foundation for success rests in an organization’s culture. In fact, I believe that culture eats strategy for breakfast. An organization needs a sound strategy to succeed but, it needs a great culture to excel. For me, that approach has been about creating core values around a culture of collaboration.

Core values establish culture. It’s never too late or too early to think about your core values in business and in life. Here are my core values:

The Philosophy of Givers Gain^®(What goes around comes around).
Building Meaningful Relationships
Lifelong Learning
Traditions + Innovation
Positive Attitude
Accountability

I believe that it is possible to make a good living while serving a greater good. The core values I have tried to apply in my life and in my business have helped to create a culture of collaboration within the context of building a business. This approach is not only a great way to get business, I believe it is an even better way to do business.

Business can be honorable. It can be something that improves people’s lives as well as supports and helps local communities. It can do so, by not only helping to generate more business for one another, but by giving back to the community, mentoring others, immersing in a culture of shared learning, and by collaborating with others.

I have a big hairy audacious goal (a BHAG) for businesses around the world. I believe we can “Change the Way the World Does Business” and we can do that by incorporating core values into our business that support collaboration and positive meaningful relationships.

We are coming up on the 30^th anniversary for my company (BNI) and I believe that our focus on these core values, philosophy, and vision are responsible for our 30 years of consecutive growth. Through strong economies and serious recessions – my organization has grown year in and year out for 30 years without exception. Few organizations can say that. I think that is a testament to our approach to doing business.

Have you given thought to your organization’s core values? If so, share your company’s core values here. I’d love to hear your comments.

15Sep2014

What Makes Someone Referrable?string(30) "What Makes Someone Referrable?"

September 15, 2014

Ivan Misner

Referral Process, Referrals Business, Collaboration, Connections, Credibility, Networking, Networking Prep, Networking Tactics, Referral Institute, Referrals, VCP Process, Word of Mouth 2

I had a great conversation a while back with my business partner in the Referral Institute, Mike Macedonio (pictured to the right). He was explaining why he feels there are only a few criteria that must be met to make people referrable by him.

The first criterion is that the individual must be an expert at what he or she does. He looks for people who have invested in learning their trade and continue to invest to master their trade. Do they specialize in a certain area? What achievements have they attained in their area of expertise?

Another one of Mike’s requirements is that the person is passionate about what he or she does. This especially makes a lot of sense to me because if you’re not passionate about what you do, how can you expect other people to get excited about working on your behalf?

Mike’s last criterion stipulates that the person he is referring understands and honors the referral process. More specifically, Mike wants to ensure that the person receiving the referral understands his or her number-one responsibility. To quote Mike, “The number-one responsibility when you receive a referral is to make the person who gave you the referral look great.” As long as the people Mike gives referrals to are doing this for him, Mike can remain confident that his reputation will be protected. It also compels him to continue giving these people referrals.

Mike’s list of qualifications that make a person referrable is short, yet very powerful. After discussing it, we both agreed that we should expect others to evaluate our referrability by these same criteria. Are we invested experts, and do we continue to invest in our trade? Are we passionate about what we do? Are we practicing what we preach? Do we make our referral sources look great? I’m glad to say that I’m confident we both do all of these things.

So what makes people referrable by you? I’m sure many of you have some great ideas in response to this. I’d love to hear them, so please feel free to leave a comment.

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