Meeting  time – According to the guidelines “The weekly meetings last for 90 minutes.  Members need to arrive on time and stay for the entire meeting.”  Our meeting starts at 11:30a.m. (you are late if you arrive at 11:31 or after) and end at 1:00pm.

Literature on the tables – Beginning this week, please place any handouts on the back table for pickup by interested parties.    You may refer to them during your 60 second presentation and after the meeting take any extra copies.  This will assure that there is sufficient space for the lunch menu, placemat and referral/dance card/bni buck/visitor slips.

60 second presentations – please stay within your allotted time; if necessary, write it out…time yourself reciting it…read it verbatim.  60 second presentations are covered at MSP training.  Also, should you have a sub, please provide them with a written script and ask them to read it verbatim.  Thus we assure they don’t inadvertently “offend” or “step on toes” of any other members.

Subs – According to the guidelines, “a member may use substitutes up to three times in a six month period”.  The best subs are individuals who are eligible to join or people who know you and your business well (client, spouse, etc.)  Absences – According to the guidelines “a member is allowed three absences every six months (April through September and October through March).   This means that during the stated six month period, a member can be absent a total of THREE times and have a sub a total of THREE times – this means a total of six meetings in six months.

Weekly Dues – are payable for the month at the first meeting of the month OR on a weekly basis.  Please see Renee at the beginning of the meeting to give her time to process them.  Also, if you are absent or have a sub YOU are still responsible for the weekly dues.

Referrals and Testimonials – the  “I have” portion of the meeting – ALL members should stand and say one of the following: “I HAVE _____ referrals today…” and elaborate on one referral.  OR “I HAVE a testimonial about business I’ve done with one member of this Chapter (and elaborate on that testimonial). OR “I HAVE a visitor”.  Each member should take only 20-30 seconds max…keep it brief…go into detail “offline”  with those to whom it pertains.

Cheryl Balintfy
Phone: 512-215-4538
Email: cherylbalintfy@yahoo.com

Vice President:

Lane Reed
Phone: 512-413-9526
Email: lanereed@sbcglobal.net

Secretary/Treasurer:

Renee Arndt
Phone: 512-850-1171
Email: renee@luvwickless.com

Education Coordinator:

Alicia Marie Fruin
Phone: 512-989-2230
Email: alicia@peoplebizinc.com

Membership Committee:

Fran Bates
Phone: 512-608-1250
Email: franbates@marykay.com

Jeannie Mutchler
Phone: 512-836-1395 x 438
Email: jeannie@acitx.com

Lindsey Tyner
Phone: 512-535-0444
Email: lindsey@alt-creative.com

Brian Walters
Phone: 512-924-3979
Email: bwalters@bwaconsultants.com

Visitor Hosts:

Ryan Abitz
Phone: 512-695-1616
Email: chefryan@cielosuterra.net

Stacey Coleman
Phone: 512-467-6060 x 301
Email: scoleman@haycompere.com

Face it: Some businesses are more difficult to refer than others.

Often times, those same businesses struggle to get clients through traditional mediums of advertising.  Word-of-mouth is the best way for almost all types of businesses to grow, and in some cases it’s the only way to grow.

Before I started BNI, I was a management consultant.  Those days–in the early 1980’s–I learned these lessons the hard way.

Working the Rubber Chicken Circuit

No one retained a consulting firm from an advertisement.  Most of my clients came from referrals. That took time, so I had to find new business to keep my company’s doors open.  Through this struggle, I landed on a technique that I have been passing on to business people and entrepreneurs for the last two decades: “working the rubber chicken circuit.”

When I did a speaking engagement, I often got new business.  The key was to land more speaking engagements while working on the long-term process of developing my word-of-mouth business. I discovered that speaking engagements lead to referrals.

Since educating my referral sources took time, speaking engagements were a great short-term approach to building my business.

An hour-appointment with someone interested in your business is important. Imagine setting that same appointment with 20-50 business people in your community!  That is, in effect, what you are doing when you are asked to speak at various clubs or organizations.

While many business people realize that joining and participating in service clubs lends them credibility in the community, they don’t often think about the referrals that can be generated by speaking at these various meetings.

Booking Your Speaking Schedule

So, how do you get on the organization’s speaking calendar?  It isn’t as hard as you might think.  With a little creativity, you can put together a presentation that will be informational, educational, and even entertaining for these groups.  Usually program chairs are scrambling to find someone different, engaging, and interesting. Your job is to help them find you.

I eventually produced a letter that I’d give to people in my extended network to make it easy to refer me for a speaking engagement.

Here is a sample letter—and it’s much more than a sales pitch for my service.

[Remember, this is a sample – you need to put in YOUR information]:

Dear Program Chair:

AIM Consulting is a management consulting firm that works with small- and medium-size businesses.  During the last two years, we have given a presentation entitled “Entrepreneuring in the 80’s” to over 60 service organizations such as yours.  The presentation deals with managing and motivating employees.  It involves participation and interaction with the audience and leaves time for questions at the end.  Here are some of the comments we’ve received:

“Fantastic, every service club must hear!”

East LA Rotary

“One of our best…Ivan kept everyone excited.”

Alhambra Optimist

“An excellent talk by an excellent speaker.”

Irwindale Rotary

“Excellent, highly recommended, got a lot of questions.”

Hermosa Kiwanis

If you are interested in this topic, we would be glad to visit your club to give this presentation.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Ivan Misner

President

I would take this letter to networking meetings and give it to people who knew me and wanted to refer me but didn’t know how.  This helped build my business while at the same time enabling me to educate my personal network on how to refer me to potential clients.  I ended up getting a lot of business this way.  In fact, many of my largest clients came from speaking engagements!

It Takes Just One

Just one acceptance can position you in front of multiple business people who might be in the market for your product or service.  Once you have the opportunity to make these types of connections, you never know where they will lead.  Business generated this way often leads to spin-off business.

It’s critical to give the audience something to take away that will bring them back to you.  I gave audiences a “behavior profile instrument” and told them they could take this back to their office, give it to any employee, and mail it back to me.  I would give them a free 4-page analysis of the behavioral characteristics of the employee so they could better understand how to manage that person.  I almost always got one or more companies to follow up after I spoke.

Don’t Sell – Educate

Take the case of a handy man.  The topic of home safety is a timely message.  Who better than a handyman to fashion a presentation on home safety and give viable tips on keeping the home environment free from danger?

Some members at that meeting might need help solving some of the problems the speaker raises.  Who do you think they are going to contact for that?  Bingo!  That week’s speaker is just the person for the job.

Another great networking result is spin-off business—the icing on the cake.  Once you begin networking with the members of the organization, doors will open for referrals.  Make sure you ask for those referrals.

The key is to go in with information and education…not a huge sales pitch.  People don’t like being sold to, but they do like to buy!  A great presentation can motivate your audience to want to buy what it is you have for sale.

This technique is tailor-made for difficult businesses, but it can work for almost anyone. Next time you think of rubber chicken, think leverage, think networking, think business!

I’d love to hear from you on this one.  Do you think this would work for “difficult to refer businesses?” Do you use speaking engagements as a way of getting new business?  Have you tried this technique in BNI?  Let me know what you think.

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 (www.bni.com), the world’s largest business networking organization.  His newest book, Networking Like a Pro can be viewed at www.IvanMisner.com.  Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company (www.referralinstitute.com).