Ignorance Archives - Dr. Ivan Misner®

35 years ago, I started BNI literally in my garage and in a small room above my garage. I am truly an example of taking a business from a garage to global company. I am sharing this month twelve lessons that I’ve learned from scaling my company and making it grow globally. These are things that I did not necessarily learn in college to take my business literally from my garage to a global enterprise.

Here are another four lessons on how to scale your business.

Know your numbers to go from Garage to Global.

You must get really good with your numbers and you got to have those kinds of numbers. I’d recommend weekly reports that you want to make sure to generate so that you can eyeball how you’re doing. You cannot hit a future goal if you do not know how you’re doing today. The key numbers that will determine whether you’re going in the right direction or in the wrong direction.

Do six things a thousand times, not a thousand things six times.

If you want to be successful in business, focus on doing six things 1000 times. In BNI, it’s what we call “three plus one.” It is adding members, adding chapters, filling chapters and telling stories. Those are the key performance indicators for chapters. New BNI members should work on their networking education by reading books, watching YouTube videos, and having 121 meetings with people you really trust. Be a dog with a bone because persistence is a superpower.

Surround yourself with great people.

Look for the people who have values that are congruent with the values that you have. I’d recommend my book, “Who’s in Your Room?” It’s all about understanding your values and surrounding yourself in your room with the right people. If you have someone working for you who is not the right fit for you and your business, you’ve got to be able to let them go quickly.

Ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice.

As a new business, hire people with a great attitude and teach them. I prefer to hire somebody who is coachable and excited to be working for me. It’s okay to find ignorance on fire and coach them on how to do their job. When you do that, they will become very loyal to you because you’ve spent the time, mentoring and coaching them.

So these are another four lessons in how to take your business from “Garage to Global”. If you missed it, here is the link to the first blog in this series. This is all part of the garage the global material from a recent BNIpodcast that I’m working on right now for a future book. There’s more to come next week.

Networking is simple; it’s just not easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it and do it well… and people don’t! This is not a blog piece about the step-by-step process you need to employ to network effectively. No, this is more meant to get you to stop and think about all the articles, books, blogs, podcasts and audios that you have read or listened to yet aren’t following through on in regard to what you learned. This is a post aimed at helping you to discover what you should be doing rather than focusing on what you know (or should know).

I do presentations around the world talking about how to apply networking to your everyday life. Sometimes I have someone come up to me and say, “I’ve heard people talk about some of those things before.” Hearing it for a year versus doing it for a year are completely different things. Success is about the “doing,” not just the “knowing.” In fact, I believe that ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice! The only thing more powerful is knowledge on fire.

There are so many things in life that look simple but are, in fact, not easy. Cooking is one of those for me. It always looks so simple. My wife can go into the kitchen and put a gourmet meal together in 30 to 40 minutes. Then I get into the kitchen and burn water.

Small repairs around the house–these things look so simple. Then I pick up a hammer and, well, it’s just not pretty. That’s when I’m reminded that I’m missing the “handyman gene.” It skips a generation in my family. My dad can fix anything. He’s incredibly capable with a toolbox. I’m not. When I was 17 he brought me into the garage and solemnly said to me, “Son, you’d better go to college, because you’re never going to make a living with your hands!” Good advice, Dad—thanks.

Golf. Looks simple, right? I’m not talking about professional competition, I mean just going out and smacking the ball around some grass. Looks simple. I’ve learned however, that it’s not easy.

There are so many things in our lives that look simple but are not easy. Networking is one of them. It’s a skill; a skill that takes commitment and effort to learn and apply consistently.

So I’m giving you an assignment (sorry, my inner professor is coming out). Your assignment after reading this blog today is to think of one idea in a book, article, recording–anything–that you’ve read or heard over the past year or so that you wanted to apply to your life but never got around to doing. Your assignment is to find that article, locate that “something” you wanted to do and do it within the next seven days. If it’s something you do on an ongoing basis, then find a way to incorporate it into your life and/or your business. All excuses are equal – just do it. Also, please feel free to share the knowledge source (e.g., book, article, etc.) you chose to focus on in the comment forum below. The only thing better than applying knowledge is sharing it.

Success is the uncommon application of common knowledge. You have the knowledge. Now apply it with uncommon commitment. It won’t be easy. But I assure you it’s simple.