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Massively Expand Your Network In No Time Using These Tools with Dr. Ivan Misner

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In this episode, we uncover the truth about networking. Why most people do it wrong, how you can do it right, and the key ingredient that’s been missing in your networking efforts with our guest Dr. Ivan Misner.

Named “Humanitarian of the Year” by The Red Cross, Ivan Misner Ph.D. is a people scientist. He is the author/co-author of multiple business networking books and he’s been called a “Top Networking Expert” by Forbes and the “Father of Modern Networking” by CNN. Ivan is the Founder of the world’s largest networking organization, BNI.com. He is also most recently the co-author of Who's in Your Room? The Secret To Creating Your Best Life. 

  • What is networking? Why do people misunderstand networking?

  • Don’t jump right into sales mode. 

  • “The networking disconnect"

  • The “VCP” Process

    • <Invisibility> 

    • Visibility first

    • Then Credibility

    • Profitability

  • You communicate differently depending on where you are with 

  • Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting, it's about cultivation 

  • The 24x7x30 follow up process

    • 24hrs: follow up “It was great to meet you, I hope our paths cross again."

    • Within 7 days: Connect with them on social media where THEY like to play not where YOU like to play

      • Ask in conversation - where do you hang out on social media?

    • Within 30 days, reach out to them and follow up for a face to face or a phone call and “learn more about what you do"

  • GOLDEN RULE: DON’T SELL TO PEOPLE WHEN YOU FIRST MEET THEM

  • Once you get to credibility, start going deeper, ask how you can help people with the projects that they are working on, etc. 

  • You need a network that is both wide and in places deep. 

  • How do you decide which contacts to go deep with?

    • Start with self-awareness and your personal values. 

    • What are your top personal values?

    • If you don’t know your values, you don’t know what kind of life or business you want to create. You have to work with people whose values align with yours. 

    • Find people whose values connect with your values, you can connect with them on a personal level 

    • They don’t have to be the same values they just have to be resonant or similar to yours

  • Here’s a good way to start with your values - begin with your deal breakers. What is the behavior you absolutely don’t like in a business person or friend?

  • “Follow up is the secret sauce to networking"

  • It’s all about touchpoints with people. It’s a lot easier to stay in touch with people via social media than it used to be. 

  • What do you think about what your touch points should be?

    • Find ways to help people

    • “Givers gain” - find ways to help people. 

  • If there is any force multiplier in building a relationship it's your skill in asking “how can I help you?” 

  • “How can I help you?” It shouldn’t happen when you're in the visibility stage of the relationship. 

  • When you’re networking “up” you need to not impose what you want on the other person. 

  • Can it hurt to ask? If you ask too early in a relationship you may never have the opportunity to ask again.

  • How do you manage your CRM?

  • Manage your CRM using the “VCP” funnel/pipeline because you should have a different communication strategy for each part of the funnel 

  • "You can network anywhere, anytime, even at a funeral."

    • BUT - you have to honor the occasion. 

  • Networking secrets for introverts

  • How do you scale a business from your garage to a global enterprise?

    • You must have systems.

    • You have to know your numbers.

      • You have to get granular with your numbers.

  • Do you want to be successful in business? Do six things 1000 times. DON’T do 1000 things six times.

    • What activities should you pick?

    • Let MENTORS (or virtual mentors) guide you.

    • What are your key success factors? The handful of things in your business, that you can measure, that massively contribute to your success. 

    • Be a dog with a bone. 

  • Work in your flame, not in your wax.

    • People are on fire, they are excited, they are passionate, they are engaged. When they are working in their wax they hate what they are doing. 

    • As soon as possible hire people whose flame is your wax. 

  • Learn how to delegate effectively. 

  • You have to learn how to reinvent yourself. Hire people to do the things that you’re getting tired of. 

  • Hire slow, fire fast. 

    • "I’ve lost more sleep over the people that I’ve kept, than the people that I’ve fired"

  • Culture eats strategy for breakfast. To create a great culture you MUST know your businesses and your personal core values. 

  • The processes in your business become your “traditions” and they can become your core values. Think about the process and the stories that you tell. 

  • Homework: Get to know your values. 

  • Homework: Start building your relationships. 

  • It’s not WHO you know, it’s HOW WELL you know each other. 

    • If I called that person, would they take my call, and would they do me a favor?

Thank you so much for listening!

Please SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE US A REVIEW on iTunes! (Click here for instructions on how to do that).

The Science of Success is brought to you by MetPro a world-renowned concierge nutrition, fitness & lifestyle coaching company. Using Metabolic Profiling, MetPro’s team of experts analyze your metabolism and provides an individualized approach to obtaining your goals.

Science of Success listeners receive a complimentary Metabolic Profiling assessment and a 30-minute consultation with a MetPro expert. To claim this offer head to metpro.co/success

MetPro’s team of experts will guide you through personalized nutrition and fitness strategies and educate you about how your body responds to macro and micro-adjustments to your fitness, nutrition, and daily routine.

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.4] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Science of Success. Introducing your host, Matt Bodnar.

[0:00:11.8] MB: Welcome to the Science of Success; the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the Internet with more than five million downloads and listeners in over a hundred countries.

In this episode, we uncover the truth about networking, why most people do it wrong, how you can do it right and the key ingredient that’s been missing in your networking efforts with our guest, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Are you a fan of the show and have you been enjoying the content that we put together for you? If you have, I would love it if you signed up for our e-mail list. We have some amazing content on there, along with a really great free course that we put a ton of time into called How To Create Time for What Matters Most In Your Life. If that sounds exciting and interesting and you want a bunch of other free goodies and giveaways along with that, just go to successpodcast.com. You can sign up right on the homepage. That’s successpodcast.com. Or if you’re on your phone right now, all you have to do is text the word “smarter”, that’s S-M-A-R-T-E-R to the number 44-222.

In our previous episode, we shared the universal secret to growing any business, how to build a unicorn startup and what the real definition of an entrepreneur is, as well as much more with our previous guest, the Square Co-Founder, Jim McKelvey.

Now for our interview with Ivan.

[0:01:37.9] MB: Named Humanitarian of the Year by the Red Cross, Dr. Ivan Misner is a people scientist. He's the author and co-author of several business networking books and has been called the top networking expert by Forbes and the Father of Modern Networking by CNN. Ivan is the founder of the world's largest networking organization BNI. He's also most recently the co-author of Who's in Your Room: The Secret to Creating Your Best Life. I hope you're staying healthy out there. Ivan, welcome to the Science of Success.

[0:02:08.8] IM: Thank you. It's a real pleasure to be on.

[0:02:11.2] MB: Well, we're so excited to have you on the show today. You have an incredible background and have been tremendously successful. I can't wait to learn about networking and hear some about your success story and what you've been working on lately.

[0:02:23.8] IM: Thanks, Matt.

[0:02:25.2] MB: Well, let's start with something simple and it's a question you've probably been asked and answered a million times, but what is networking and what do so many people misunderstand, or get wrong about networking?

[0:02:38.1] IM: Well, to me networking in its simplest form is about developing relationships. I think that a lot of people get networking wrong. They view networking as a face-to-face, cold-calling opportunity. “Hi, Matt. My name is Ivan. Let's do business.” They jump right into sales mode. Years ago, I did this big presentation. There are 900 people in the audience. I don't know what possessed me, but I asked – it was an all-day affair, a lot of networking. I was the keynote.

I asked everyone. I said, “How many of you are here today hoping to maybe just possibly sell something?” Matt, 900 people raised their hands. They all raised their hands. I thought that was good. I said, “Great. Second question, how many of you are here today hoping to maybe just possibly buy something?”

[0:03:21.6] MB: Nobody?

[0:03:22.3] IM: Nobody raised their hand. Not one single person. This is what I call the networking disconnect. People show up wanting to sell, nobody's there to buy. Then they go, networking doesn't work. Well, networking works fine. You're doing it wrong. If you're there to sell, you're doing it wrong. Why go? I believe you go to networking events, to work your way through what I call the VCP process; visibility, credibility, profitability.

Visibility is where people know who you are and they know what you do. When you get to that point, you move to credibility where people know who you are, what you do, they know you're good at it. Then and only then can you get to profitability, where people know who you are, what you do, they know you're good at it and they're willing to refer other people to you. That process takes time.

Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting. It's about cultivating relationships. That's I think how people get it wrong is they go right into sales mode, rather than relationship building mode.

[0:04:16.1] MB: Yeah. So much wisdom and there's a couple things I want to break down and explore from that. I've always thought the VCP process is so simple and yet, really powerfully describes what so many people miss about networking.

[0:04:29.8] IM: Yeah, no doubt about it. What's interesting is that once I explain the VCP process to people they go, “Okay, I get it. I understand that.” It goes all the way down to the way you communicate with people. Let's take the two ends of the extreme, the visibility versus profitability. When you send an e-mail message to somebody that you're a profitability with, if you knew me really well and we had a good relationship, I could send an e-mail to you and say, “Hey, Matt. Would you put this out to your social media that I'm doing an event on such-and-such a date?” You’d go, “Yeah, I'd be happy to do it.”

If I sent that to you and we weren't even at visibility and I say, “Hey, would you promote this?” People are like, “That’s spam. No. I'm not going to do that.” You communicate differently with the people that you're at depending on where you're at. There's actually a fourth phase that I haven't mentioned yet. It comes before visibility and that's invisibility, where they really don't even know you and they're asking for something.

When that happens, by the way in one of my books, I wrote a book on the difference between men and women and how they network, we call that premature solicitation, which you don't want to say fast three times, it'll get you in trouble.

[0:05:36.4] MB: I'm curious. Tell me a little bit more about this idea of premature solicitation and even this this concept of, let's say, this is a good example. I went to an event a couple days ago and when you go to any event that has a networking component, an industry conference, etc., how do you think about approaching that from the perspective of if you have zero visibility, etc., how do you start from the ground up and start to cultivate some of those relationships?

[0:06:03.8] IM: It's all about follow-up. A couple of my books, Networking Like Pro is one of them. I talk about the 24/7/30 follow-up process or system. 24/7/30. Within 24 hours, you should reach out to them and say, “Hey, it was really nice meeting you at the Chamber function, or at the BNI event. Really nice meeting you recently and I hope our paths cross again.” You could do an e-mail if you want, but a handwritten note, or I love send out cards. I'm a user. I don't sell it, but I love it. It's a great way online for you to send a printed card through the mail.

You reach out to them within 24 hours and say, “Hey, it was great meeting you. I hope our paths cross again.” Whatever you do, don't sell to them. It's like sales Tourette's. People just – and they blurt it out and they sell. Don't do that. It's 24/7/30. Within seven days, connect with them on social media. What's really important to understand is you got to go where they like to play, not where you like to play. I learned this from my kids, because my eldest, she's 33 now, but when she was 17 or 18, if I called her on my phone, she wouldn't answer. If I texted her, boom, she'd respond right then.

Then my second daughter when she was a teenager, early 20s, and this is maybe she's 28 now, so it was maybe when she was 18, 19, I would call her, nothing, text her, nothing. I went to my wife and I said, “Well, what do I do? She's not responding.” She said, “Oh, we got to WhatsApp her.” Now this is eight years ago and I'm like, “What's WhatsApp? I don't even know what that is.” My wife had to show me WhatsApp.” Call her, nothing, text her, nothing, but if I WhatsApp her, she responded immediately.

Then came my son; call him, nothing, text him, nothing. He didn't like WhatsApp. He was a gamer. I figured this one out on my own. I knew he used an online platform called Steam. I downloaded Steam and I bought a game. I was in my 50s. I bought a game, because they had an instant messaging feature. I knew if I instant messaged him, boom, he'd respond immediately and he did.

You want to go where they are. I learned a little bit of networking from my kids, because if I wanted to communicate with my children, I needed to go where they were. Not where I want. Me, I'm old-school. Pick up the phone and call you, but that's not what they wanted. Same thing here, go where they are. When you're having a conversation with them, ask them, “Where do you hang out on social media? LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter? Which one do you like?” Then find that out and then go connect with them and make touch points and don't sell to them. “Hey, this is Ivan. We met at the BNI event and I love some of the stuff you're posting.” Or comment on posts.

Then within 30 days, 24/7/30, within 30 days, reach out to them and say, “I'd love to get together with you face-to-face.” If you can't do a face-to-face because they're too far away, Skype. Buy a cup of coffee if it's face-to-face. “I'd love to learn more about what you do.” Get together and spend an hour talking about what they do, a little bit about what you do and even then, don't sell to them. It's about building the relationship. At 30 days, you're just at visibility. You're not even at credibility.

[0:09:15.7] MB: That's a great framework in the analogy, or the example of the different social media platform is so true. I have nieces and nephews that are teenagers and I have to Snapchat them and all kinds of different things. You got to find the right way to get in and then they immediately start interacting with you. It's a perfect analogy.

The point, I love the example of calling it sales Tourette's, right? The point not selling, just being really genuine, trying to build a rapport, trying to build a relationship is really, really smart and makes total sense.

I want to come back to this other concept. I think you've touched on this, but it's almost a different perspective too, or a different piece of the same answer. You mentioned this idea of focusing on farming, instead of hunting. Focus on cultivation, instead of going out and constantly generating new context. Tell me more about that distinction and how we can do it well and how we can maybe do it poorly.

[0:10:09.4] IM: The whole process of coming across like you're hunting is when you go to networking events and you're trying to sell. Instead of that, what you should be doing is trying to build relationships. Let's go back to the VCP process. If it's someone you're meeting for the first time, it's really all about just getting to know them well enough where you can go through the 24/7/30.

Let's say you're at visibility. Maybe you've already had a one-to-one with them. You them at another event, that's a chance to touch bases with them. “Hey, it was great talking to you a couple of months ago when we met.” You just keep that connection alive. If you're at credibility, that's where you want to start going deeper with the person and say, “Look. Tell me more about the projects you got going on. How can I help you with that project? What can I do for you?” If you’re at credibility, that's the question you should be asking them.

Now if you're at profitability, it's a whole different ball game. “Hey, that referral you gave me last month turned into a sale. I really appreciate it. I've got somebody for you. Let's connect tomorrow, because I want to refer them to you.” Different kinds of conversations based on the different people that you meet, most of them will probably be at pre-visibility or visibility when you go to some networking events. Some won't. I mean, in BNI you're meeting a lot of the people over and over again, so it's really working the credibility and profitability level. It depends on who you're talking to. Does that make sense?

[0:11:30.9] MB: Yeah, that totally makes sense. I want to talk a little bit in a second about some of the strategies for cultivating, maintaining and organizing your network. Before we even get into that, maybe in the specific context of a networking event, or more broadly thinking about managing our networks, how do you think about the relationship between breadth and depth, if that makes sense? In terms of having a ton of really shallow relationships, versus a few deep relationships and where do you try to strike that balance?

[0:12:01.0] IM: Sure. If your network is a mile-wide and an inch deep, it will never be very powerful. You need a network that is both wide and in places deep with people that you've made a connection with that you really like. You need to go deep with those people. I live in Austin, Texas now, but I really grew up in Southern California. In Southern California, every year they have the Santa Ana Winds, which are these really big winds that hit Southern California.

It was always amazing, because during that season which was usually September-October, news at 6, you would see all of these huge eucalyptus trees that had blown over in Southern California every year. What's interesting, the eucalyptus trees come from Australia, so they weren't – they're not native to southern California. The problem with them is they have these root system that's really wide. When it gets hit by wind, the trees knock over.

I would equate that to a recession. If your network is really wide and not deep, when you get hit with financial difficulties, your business is going to fall over. If you have a network that has a lot of contacts, but has some really deep contacts, you can weather difficult times, because friends don't like to fire friends. They'll fire a vendor, but they don't like to fire a friend. They don't like to stop doing business with a friend. You have those relationships with people and you can weather difficult times.

Just one last thing I'll tell you on this. I had a huge debate with a gentleman who I highly respect. He's a great guy. He argued with me, it's all about the number of people. It's not about how deep you go, or the quality of – It’s numbers. It's a numbers game. I argued with him, now it's more of a people puzzle than a numbers game. Yeah, you have to have a certain number of people, but it's about building those relationships.

Boy, it's the biggest argument he and I ever had. He had a network-like business. That network-like business is out of business now. I think the reason for it was he was so focused on numbers, he forgot about going deep with people. Very few people did he go deep with. I think that's a huge mistake.

[0:14:16.7] MB: How do you think about which contacts, or which people in your network are the ones that you should go deep with, versus the ones that you shouldn't?

[0:14:25.3] IM: I think and I talk about this in my most recent book, it's really important that you go – that you get good with your values. If you don't know your personal values, you don't know the answer to that question and you don't know the answer to a lot of other questions. When I talk to people about their values, it's like looking at somebody, a deer in the headlights.

Sometimes I'll really catch people off-guard. I’ll say, “Give me your top seven personal values.” Their eyes get wide and is like, “What?” “Give me your top seven personal values.” “Uh, really?” “Yeah.” They'll think for a moment and they’d go, “Honesty.” “Okay, great. Give me six more.” They're stumped. They have no idea. Well, if you don't know your values, you don't know what kind of life you want to create, you don't know what business you want to create.

When you know your values, you look for people who have values that resonate with yours. They don't have to be the same, but they have to be congruent. They can't be incongruent with yours. I talk about this in Who's in Your Room. There's a great example. I'm not a musician, but I've seen this done. If you have two pianos and put them side-by-side and you have a person at piano one and you have them hit the middle C key, and person at piano two press the sustain pedal, the second piano’s strings will vibrate, even though you didn't hit the key. You hit it on piano one. The second one will vibrate. That's resonance.

People are much the same, I would argue, that if you find people whose values resonate with your values, then you can really connect with them on a very personal and professional level and develop a great business relationship. When you have people that have values that are dissonant with yours, it's just not going to work.

[0:16:09.8] MB: Yeah. That's a great piece of advice. The importance of being aware, self-aware of what your own values are, what's important to you, where you're trying to go and making sure that the people you surround yourself with are aligned with those values makes total sense.

[0:16:23.6] IM: Yeah. They don't have to be the same values. They just have to be resonant. They can't be completely opposite or different than yours. A lot of people have a hard time with the values. There's a lot of instruments online where you can start to think about your values. Here's a great place to start. Begin with your deal-breakers. Now when I ask somebody what their deal-breakers are, boom, they've got it. They can tell me in an instant. What is a behavior that you just absolutely do not like in another business person, or in a friend? What's a behavior that is a deal breaker? You don't want that relationship. Start with your deal-breakers and that helps you then start thinking about your values. It's a great technique.

[0:17:00.1] MB: Yeah. That's a really good way to start and it makes it much less intimidating to go down that journey. I want to come back to something you said a minute ago, because I want to follow up on it because it's so important, which to me one of the biggest distinctions that I've seen between, especially in sales-oriented roles, but people who are successful and people who aren't is following up and the power of follow-up. Tell me a little bit more about how important follow-up is in terms of building effective relationships.

[0:17:30.0] IM: Well, I think follow-up is the secret sauce to networking. You've got to effectively follow-up. I gave you the 24/7/30 follow-up system and I think that's a great way to do it. Beyond that, I think it's important to have touch points, where you're constantly in one way or another connecting with people that are in your personal network; people that you're a profitability with, you ought to be having personal phone calls with, or meeting them face-to-face. That's a relationship that you need to really cultivate.

People that your credibility with, you don't necessarily need to meet as much, but you should stay in touch with them. People that you're a visibility with, you want to see if there's a – their values resonate with mine. Does their business resonate with mine and they may move to that second and third level. It's all about touch points. Staying connected. Social media has helped with that. It's a lot easier to stay connected with people through social media than it was when I started my business.

If I wanted to talk to somebody, it was telephone or I had to type up a letter. Now through social media, it's a lot easier. That's a great tool for today's business professional to continue those touch points and follow up.

[0:18:38.7] MB: When you're in the early stages of building a relationship and I think you gave some really good guidelines with the 24/7/30, but even beyond that, or once that's established, how do you start to think about what those touch points should be and finding meaningful ways to connect with somebody, or to ping them?

[0:18:56.1] IM: The best way to really build and go deep on a relationship is to find ways to help other people. In BNI, our principal core value is givers gain. If you want to get business, you have to be willing to give business to people. I suggest to people that if you really want to – if there was any force multiplier in building a relationship, it is your skill at asking, “How can I help you? What can I do for you?” Being prepared to do your best to help them in some way. It may be – I don't mean sell them your product or service. I mean, really genuinely help them in some way.

It may be referring them to someone else that can helped them with a particular problem they have. It may be if they've got an interview that they just did and they want that put out on social media, you put that out on your social media for them. For me, oftentimes I get people who say “Would you do an endorsement on my book?” “Absolutely. Send me the book. Let me look it over, but assuming that it's all in alignment with my values, I'd be happy to do an endorsement.” That takes a lot of time.

I probably get – I bet you I get 50 endorsement requests a year. That takes a lot of time, but I'm happy to do it because that's a relationship builder. It really depends on who you are, what you do, what your expertise is, but find ways to help other people, then they really appreciate it and that's – they're going to reciprocate.

[0:20:24.4] MB: I wholeheartedly believe and agree with that advice and it's something that I've taken in and very deeply internalized in the way that I interact with people. Do you think that there's – I feel that advice almost has gotten too popular in the sense that it's lost some of its meaning and people ask it in a perfunctory way without really meaning it. It’s like, “Oh, what can I do to help you?” It almost feels like a forced ask sometimes.

[0:20:49.9] IM: I couldn't agree more. It shouldn't happen when you're working on visibility.

[0:20:54.6] MB: Yeah, that's a great distinction.

[0:20:56.4] IM: Yeah. I mean, it's meaningless. I mean, if you don't know me and I ask you for help, it's like, you don't even know who I am, you don't know if I'm good at what I do. I could be a scam artist. You don't know. I never ask that question. I rarely ask that question when I’m pre-visibility or visibility with somebody. It's only when I'm at credibility with somebody.

By the way, it doesn't matter where I think I am in the relationship. What matters is what does the other person think that I'm at in the relationship. We both have to feel like we're at credibility. You know when that's happening, when you're having deep discussions about what you do and you're starting to talk about how you might be able to help each other in terms of referrals or whatever. It's at that point that I'm at credibility that you got to ask the question, “So how can I help you?”

One of the ways I do it is by saying, “Hey, tell me some of the challenges that you've got.” I usually ask that with somebody I know. What are some of the challenges you’re going through now in the business? They'll tell me and I'll say, “How can I help you with that? Or, I know somebody that might be able to help you with that.” Either of those two are a great way to help somebody and do nothing, but move the relationship forward.

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[0:24:03.8] MB: You've brought something up twice that to me is one of the cornerstones and most important learnings about building relationships that so many people never understand, which is this idea of meeting people where they are and framing things in terms of the other person, as opposed to imposing on them what you wish that they would be, or what you want them to be, or where you want to go, right? From the example of social media, from the example you just gave. It's such an important meta lesson about building relationships and I just wanted to underscore that, because I think it's critical.

[0:24:36.5] IM: I couldn't agree more. I think that's really extremely important when you feel you are networking up. Anyone who's listening to this, if you feel you're in a position to network up, to network with somebody above your weight class in terms of success, it is so important to not impose what you want on them, to not ask for business. I have so many people who say to me, “Well, come on. It never hurts to ask.” Wrong. Totally wrong. Completely wrong. If you ask too early in a relationship, you'll never have an opportunity to ask again, especially if you're networking up.

If you're networking up with somebody who's really, really successful and the first thing you do is ask them to buy your product or service, you have just joined 90% of the rest of the people who meet that person for the first time, because everyone's trying to sell to a successful person and it gets old.

If you want to make a connection with that person, the best way to do it is to find a way that you can help that person. I mean, I've been to Necker Island a couple of times, about three times. That's Branson's private island.

I was just there two weeks ago. He has a new book called Finding Your Virginity. Look, I could have gone to him and say, “Hey, Richard. Would you mind doing a video with me about whatever.” He'd have probably said yes, but it was way more effective I think to say, “Richard, tell me about your new book. Tell me something. In run a network.” He remembered what I did. “Tell me about something that I might be able to teach my members.” He talked about his concept of circles, circles, which is the first circle is you. Get your life together. If you don't have your life together, you can't go to the next circle. The next circle is your family, the next circle might be your neighborhood and then it might be the state and the country and the world and you go through these circles. He has that in the book.

I said, “I love that. How can I help you promote that concept?” He said, “I don't know. What do you have in mind?” I said, “Would you like to do –” We did a video last time I was here. “Would it be a benefit for you to do another video about that concept in your book?” He said, “Yeah, I'd love to do it.” He did love to do it. I mean, he really was into it, which is great, but it was all about me finding a way to help him.

I didn't even use the words, “How can I help you?” I did say, “How can I get that out for you?” Which is a variation of it. If you can find a way that really resonates with that person to help them in some way, guess what? It helped me too. I had a video with Branson, which is on my blog by the way, in February 17th. You can see it on my blog.

[0:27:18.9] MB: Yeah, that's awesome. Was that the same as the Plan B video, or are those different?

[0:27:23.7] IM: That was different. I'm impressed you know the Plan B video.

[0:27:25.7] MB: We came across that in our research. Yeah.

[0:27:29.0] IM: This is a follow-up and we start by – in the new video, we start by me talking about Plan B and saying – last time I saw Richard, we talked about Plan B and Plan B is that business can be noble. B stands for business. Business can be noble, business can make a difference. I told him, “Based on my conversation with you five years ago, we created a movement in BNI called business voices for the foundation.” It was where BNI members can volunteer their time for schools to help them achieve things that the school wants and to support schools. I said, “That came out of that video, and so I wanted to thank you for that.” Today we're going to talk about circles and I led into the circles conversation. Yeah, it's a new video.

[0:28:13.3] MB: That's awesome. Well, I'll have to check that one out.

[0:28:16.1] IM: Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's February 17th on my blog. I'm sure you're going to put the blog in the show notes.

[0:28:22.1] MB: We will find that video and include it in the show notes.

[0:28:25.0] IM: Yeah. I'm looking at – It's actually February 13th.

[0:28:27.6] MB: Got it. Coming back to networking, I have one or two other questions about that. Obviously, you're one of the world's foremost experts in it, so I think it's worth picking your brain a little bit more. How do you think about and this is another topic that I've heard a lot of different answers, I've seen a lot of different strategies, how do you think about organizing, structuring, managing your network through whether it's CRMs, contact lists, etc. What are some of the best practices you found for really optimizing that?

[0:28:59.0] IM: I mean, I think any Salesforce or any CRM system that you want to use is fine. The one thing, I would do a twist on it. I would create a category in your contact management system for VCP, actually even pre-VCP, pre-visibility. I'd have four categories. I'm at pre-visibility, I'm at visibility, I'm at credibility, or I'm at profitability. Why? You do that, because what we talked about earlier the way you communicate, don't communicate with people that you're in visibility with like you're at profitability. “Hey, would you promote this for me?” Don't do that.

If you have a large list, it's important to differentiate between the people you have a deep relationship with and the people that you don't. Whatever system you use, you need to have the ability to put in there where you're at in the VCP process and that changes over time, so you need to be able to edit it as time goes on.

[0:29:53.4] MB: Yeah. That's a great way to break up the funnel and think about. Because you're right, there's such a different communication strategy and you already shared some really good examples around that for each different piece of the VCP funnel.

Another quick question about networking that I found interesting and this is something I think I saw you say on YouTube, or maybe it was an interview a couple years ago around how you should always be networking, whether it's in-line at the grocery store, whether you’re picking your kids up from school, whatever it is. Tell me more about that philosophy, because that's one that I've always been a little bit hesitant about, or unsure of.

[0:30:29.8] IM: You'll get real uncomfortable with my answer for at least a moment or two. I originally had this in a book I wrote years ago called Truth or Delusion, where we walked through what I felt were the truths and the delusions of networking. One of the questions – we posed it as question and then we'd give the answer. Here is the question. You can network anywhere, anytime, anyplace, even at a funeral. The answer was truth, but there's a caveat that's critical. That caveat is you must always honor the occasion.

To show up at a funeral and start passing out your business cards is a really bad idea. That's not honoring the occasion. If networking is and this is where we started the conversation, if networking is about building relationships, then where exactly is it wrong to network? If networking is about finding ways to help people, where is it wrong to network? As long as it's genuinely helping people.

I'll give you an example. I was at a church function years ago. It was somebody who I'd met a few times, didn't know him real well, but I knew him well enough to ask him. I asked him a lot about his business, went a little deeper. It was one of those potluck things, sunny afternoon. I had an opportunity to go a little deeper with him. I said, “So what are some of the challenges?” Which I told you is a question I like to use. “What are some of the challenges you have in your business?” He gave me the most unusual answer that allowed me to help him. He said, “You know, I have a really weird challenge.”

He said, “I have a very successful business. My biggest challenge is that some years, I make a ton of money and some years I make good money. Those years I make tons of money, I want to give it to charity, but I don't want to give it all away at once. I'd like to create a foundation, but I'm not quite big enough to have my own foundation.” That's a strange problem and I'm not found a solution for it. I said, “Wow. Have you ever heard of community foundations?” He said, “No. What are those?”

A community foundation is a really big foundation where you can have directed funds, donor-advised directed funds. For I think back then, it was for $10,000 you can open up, and this was in the California Community Foundation, you could open up a donor-advised directed fund that's part of a 501c3 charity and you could give that money away to any other 501c3 charity through the California Community Foundation and you don't have to run it.

He's like, “Oh, my goodness. I've been looking for something like this for years. Would you mind introducing me to the vice, or to somebody in development at the community foundation?” I'm like, “It would be my pleasure.” He handed me his card. “Here's my card. Call me up this week, because I really want to set up a fund.” I did and I put him in touch with somebody and he opened up a fund. Now if I wanted to meet with him, to talk more about my business, do you think he would have taken my call a couple weeks later?

[0:33:32.0] MB: Absolutely.

[0:33:33.1] IM: Yeah, he would have. I mean, I didn't need to. I was able to help him, that was good enough, but he would have definitely taken my call. Instead, what people do is they launch into sales mode, instead of helping mode. It doesn't have to be, “How can I help you?” It can be, “Just tell me about some of the stuff that you got going on.” I'm always amazed at what I discover by asking those kinds of questions.

[0:33:54.4] MB: Do you think it's worth it to –

[0:33:57.8] IM: Can I ask you that you believe now that you can network anywhere, anytime, anyplace?

[0:34:01.2] MB: Even at a funeral.

[0:34:02.8] IM: Even at a funeral, as long as your honor the event.

[0:34:05.5] MB: I like that. I like that.

[0:34:07.1] IM: All right. I cut you off. Sorry.

[0:34:08.2] MB: No, you're good. I was just going to ask, in some ways, you answered this in a meta level, but less from the question of are you able to network in the situation and more do you think it's worthwhile to network in the situation? Let's say you're waiting in line at the grocery, would you turn and talk to the person behind you and start to strike up some relationship? Or do you think that if you end up doing that, you clutter your life with too many miscellaneous or random connections that end up not being meaningful?

[0:34:35.9] IM: My answer may surprise you. I run the world's largest face-to-face networking organization, but I'm actually a little bit of an introvert. To just talk to a stranger is maybe a little bit of a stretch for me. I know that sounds crazy, but I did another blog on my blog called OMG. I'm an Introvert. That's when I discovered. I took a test and my wife was saying, “No, you're not an extrovert. You're an introvert.” I think, “You're crazy.”

I took this test and show that I'm a situational extrovert. That when I'm talking about a subject that I really feel good about, I come across as an extrovert, otherwise, I'm an introvert. Go apologize to your wife. I probably wouldn't. My wife on the other hand is a total extrovert and she strikes up conversations with people everywhere. We're in an elevator and she's talking. We're in a grocery store and she's talking to people. There's nothing wrong with it. You just got to feel comfortable with it. If you don't feel comfortable with it, do it in places where you feel comfortable.

[0:35:28.5] MB: I think that's great. That puts it in context and makes total sense. I'm definitely surprised. I would have totally pegged you as an extrovert.

[0:35:35.7] IM: Yeah, I'm a situational extrovert. Check out that blog, OMG. I'm an Introvert.

[0:35:41.0] MB: All right. We'll put that one in the show notes as well.

[0:35:44.0] IM: Yeah. You know why it's valuable? Because there's a lot of people who are introverts who say, “Well, I'm not good at networking. I'm an introvert.” I would argue that both introverts and extroverts have strengths and weaknesses at networking. Extroverts can talk to anybody, but they can't shut up. They just go on and on. What's their favorite topic, you think?

[0:36:05.1] MB: Themselves.

[0:36:06.3] IM: Themselves. Yeah, it’s absolutely right. Extroverts are really good at meeting people and talking, but they're not good at listening. Introverts are better at listening. I've said for years, a good networker has two ears and one mouth and should use them both proportionately. They should be like an interviewer. You're asking me questions and you're allowing me time to extrapolate, to explain, to tell stories. That's a great networker.

A great networker is a great interviewer and introverts are better at that than extroverts. Extroverts have to learn how to listen and ask questions. Introverts have to learn how to introduce themselves at events and not be a wallflower.

[0:36:48.4] MB: Yeah, that's a great insight. I consider myself an introvert, that's why I like to do the podcast, because I get to ask a question and then learn as much as possible from the wise folks like yourself.

[0:36:58.5] IM: Oh, thank you.

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[0:38:31.4] MB: I want to change gears and talk about something that we talked about a little bit in the pre-show and you showed me a really fascinating graph that's basically BNI’s growth since 1985. It looks basically like a hockey stick. We'll throw it on the show notes page as well for listeners to actually see it. You were talking about this concept that you're working on about as you called it garage to global, which I think is fascinating and what enables businesses to scale from the early stages, all the way up to the world stage. Tell me more about that concept and what prompted you to start writing about it and what you think about it.

[0:39:07.0] IM: Well, I'm going to be writing it with my CEO of BNI. I'm going to be doing the how do you take it from garage to the early parts of going global and he's going to pick it up from the global organization that you really want to continue to scale. There are a lot of things that I think are critical in those early days. For any one new, one of them is you got to have systems. You have to have systems in place and put in processes in place and you've got to write everything down.

I mean, there's just so many things in those early days. You got to know your numbers. I mean, really know your numbers. If you don't know your numbers, you could be selling products and losing money. I get a daily report as of today, BNI had 9,503 chapters in over 70 countries. We 272,140 members. You've got to get granular with your numbers.

Now maybe you can't get a daily report if you're a small business, but you got to know your weekly numbers; certainly, certainly monthly numbers. If you want to be successful in business and this is one of the most important lessons I learned. You want to be successful, do six things a thousand times, not a thousand things six times.

So many people I meet, they do a thousand things six times. They're constantly chasing bright shiny objects. “Oh, look. Let's try this. Oh, look. Let's try that.” By the way, it doesn't have to be six. It could be five, it could be seven, but you do a handful of things and you do it a thousand times. Now what things do you pick? I'll tell you how to pick them. Find mentors. Mentors might be people that do you know, that you have a relationship with. They might be virtual mentors. Podcasts like yours are a perfect place to find virtual mentors.

When somebody hears one of your podcasts and someone is saying something that really resonates with the listener, that listener should go look that individual up. They should use that person as a mentor, a virtual mentor. Hey, who knows? Maybe you'll meet them and become – and they'll become a face-to-face mentor. I've got at least two there were virtual mentors for me, because I read their books and years later met them and they became friends and personal mentors. Do six things a thousand times, not a thousand things six times.

Here's another one, work in your flame, not in your wax. Work in your flame, not in your wax. I wasn't taught this in college, but it's so critical. When people are working in their flame, they're on fire. They're excited. They love what they do, what they're doing. They're passionate about it. You can hear it in their voice. You can see it in the way they behave. When they're working in their wax, they just hate what they're doing. You can hear it in their voice and you can see it in the way they behave. It's why one of the first things that if you start a business, one of the first things you should do is figure out, “What’s your wax?”

Then as soon as possible, hire people who their flame is your wax. One of the first people I hired for my company, for BNI, was a bookkeeper. I can do books. I know how to do books. I hate doing books. It's my wax. I remember I hired her and it was totally her flame, totally her flame. She absolutely loved bookkeeping, Matt, which is mind-boggling to me, but she loved it. One day she came up to me and she said, “Oh, gosh. I spent two hours. The books weren't balanced by 5 cents. I spent two hours and I found the 5 cents.” I said, “Hey, well done. Congratulations.”

Now I told a friend that and he said, “Did you reprimand her?” I said, “Why?” He said, “Well, two hours. You paid her two hours to find 5 cents?” I said, “Not only did I not reprimanded her, I complimented her.” He said, “Why would you do that?” I said, “Because what if it were 50 bucks? If it were 50 dollars, I'd go, close enough. It's a rounding error. That's all right. She would have stayed there till she found it. What if it were $500? Man, she wouldn't gone home until she found it.” That's her flame. Find people where your wax is their flame, bring them onboard. Those are a couple of the concepts that I talk about in garage to global.

[0:43:10.5] MB: I think all of those are great. The one that I've seen so many times and personally definitely resonates with me is this idea of doing six things a thousand times, versus doing a thousand things six times. It's so easy to get distracted by shiny objects. How did you force yourself to focus and make the tough choices and trade-offs and really get into the handful of things that were the most important?

[0:43:38.6] IM: I think you start by really taking a look at what are your key success factors, just a handful of things that you can measure in your business that you know are indicators of success. Then everything you do should be to work towards those key success factors in your business. That becomes certainly many, if not all of those six things. Then you've got to be a dog with a bone.

You just got to be really persistent with it. If I have any superpower as a business person, it's that I am a dog with a bone. I can work it and work it and work it and work it and find the solutions that I need. It's really important to I think find those key success factors and work those extensively if you want to be successful.

Over time, it's okay for you to have different roles. I mean, when I was early in BNI, I was much more hands-on on the day-to-day process. As the company grew, I had to step back, learn how to delegate effectively, which is another one of the key elements in garage to global is how do you delegate. I had to learn how to delegate effectively. Then I learned, I had to reinvent myself, because a lot of the stuff I did for years, I got tired of. That's one of the problems for entrepreneurs, they get tired of something. You find somebody to take that on and you reinvent yourself and have a different role than you had in the past. Before, I was the king leading the charge. Today, I'm the Colonel Sanders of BNI. I'm the spokesperson of the organization. I reinvented myself, so that I could stay in my flame.

[0:45:12.7] MB: Yeah, that's great advice. At what point and this is getting at the question of I think how you reinvented yourself, at what point the in organization's trajectory did you feel the need to bring in someone else to be the CEO?

[0:45:29.8] IM: Yeah. I was CEO for a good 20 years. I brought in somebody who really started as the national director for BNI, then I promoted him to the COO, and then I promoted him to the CEO. He was CEO for a number of years. About five years ago, I actually brought in partners. My main partner is the CEO with the company. It was at least 20 years before I started down that road. It doesn't have to be 20 years. You can do it in five or 10. I really was very hands-on for a long time.

One bit of advice that certainly you've heard of before and I'm going to put in the book is you hire slow and fire fast. That was a lesson that took me too long to learn. Hire slow and fire fast. I had lunch with Harvey Mackay a few years back. I don’t know if you know Harvey. He wrote the book Swimming with the Sharks Without Getting Eaten Alive and Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty. He's a great guy.

He said to me once over lunch. He said, “I've lost more sleep over the people that I've kept than the ones that I fired.” I didn't quite buy it when he said it to me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I've lost way more sleep over the people I've kept that I should have let go. Be slow to hire, fast to fire.

[0:46:50.5] MB: Yeah, that's great advice. The piece about losing more sleep over the people that you keep, that makes total sense and that definitely resonates with my experience as well.

[0:46:59.2] IM: Hey, I earned all these gray hair I have. It comes honestly.

[0:47:05.5] MB: Well Ivan, for somebody who's been listening to this conversation and wants to start to put in practice or concretely implement some of the stuff that we've talked about, what would be one action step, or one piece of homework that you would give them to begin putting these ideas into practice?

[0:47:21.5] IM: I think what you want to do is start by really thinking about the culture that you want to create in your organization. I believe culture eats strategy for breakfast. In order to create a great culture, you need to know your core values, both your personal core values and your business core values. What are your core values? If you don't know the core values of the business, if you don't have them, if you don't have your core values written down and teach every new person who's working with you, what will happen is a culture will be created without you. It might not be the culture that you're proud of.

It's very important that from an organizational perspective that you really learn how to build your culture. I write about this and I've never seen anyone do it quite the same way. I think culture is created by taking at look at the processes that work in your business. Those processes become traditions. They're the stories you talk about. “Well, when we started this happened and that happened and we learned this.” Those are your traditions.

Your traditions can become your core values. When you start thinking about core values, think about the processes and stories that you tell. Those are your core values. Your core values create culture. Then teach everyone that culture. That's the answer on garage to global. For networking in general, just remember it's all about building relationships. If you forget everything I've said, it's all about building relationships. You know the old saying, it's not what you know, it's who you know. I don't believe it's either. I don't believe it's what you know or who you know, it's how well you know each other that really makes a difference.

I may have a great contact in my database, but so what? The question is can I call that person? Would they take my call? If I asked them for a favor, would they be willing to do it? It's not just who you know, it's how well you know each other that really makes a difference. In order to do that, you got to go deep and build a relationship.

[0:49:14.4] MB: Great advice. I love that perspective on shifting it from it's not – what it's not who, but it's how, how well do you know them.

[0:49:21.7] IM: How well, yeah. That you both know each other. It’s can you make that – can you reach out and ask for that favor? If you can do that, then you've got a really good connection there. It's not just a contact. It's not just the person in your database. It's a connection. It's a relationship.

[0:49:36.0] MB: Yup. Great perspective. Ivan, where can listeners find you, your writing, your work and your new book online?

[0:49:45.6] IM: Yeah. I wrote a book called Who's in your Room? It's about your life and the life that you create and that really, that the secret to your success is highly dependent on the people in your life. It's a great little book. It's a quick read. You can see it on my blog IvanMisner.com. I've been blogging since 2007, twice a week since 2007, so I've got literally more than a thousand posts and videos up on IvanMisner.com. Of course, anyone that's interested in BNI, the referral organization I started, bni.com. We’ve got chapters all over the world.

[0:50:19.0] MB: Well, Ivan. Thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing some great stories, some really insightful wisdom and for taking the time to spend it with our audience.

[0:50:29.5] IM: Well, listen Matt. My pleasure. You've probably heard this before. You're one of the most well-prepared hosts that I've done an interview with ever. Well done.

[0:50:39.7] MB: Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.

[0:50:41.7] IM: My pleasure.

[0:50:43.0] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you our listeners, master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story, or just say hi, shoot me an e-mail. My e-mail is matt@successpodcast.com. That’s M-A-T-T@successpodcast.com. I’d love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener e-mail.

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