Look, as a small business coach I really get this: EVERYONE is looking for the sales short cut. Every single business owner I know. Well, I have good news and bad news.
The bad news: There isn’t one.
The good news: The best method will always be a powerful network. ALWAYS. This is because it is high on relationship and involves people; so the know, like and trust factor is maximized and sales are easy and fast. You CAN DO THIS! It is wired into your DNA already.
It is also why I am so excited to invite you to watch our hour long, pitch-free masterclass below with none other than the founding father of modern networking – Dr. Ivan Misner. It is well worth your time to listen in!
Dr. Ivan Misner founded and manages the BNI organization – the leads group that now has 74,00 chapters on every populated continent in the world. He is going to teach you how to grow your own powerful network.
Now you may love or hate leads groups. I kinda do both. But you might find this true story below, my own first experience with BNI – very surprising.
A Surprising True Story About Leads Groups
People love Leads Groups because they meet often, start before the work day (often), the group becomes quite friendly and supportive, and you will get a lot of active business leads and business.
People hate them because they meet so often, sometimes really early in the morning so as not to intrude on the business day. And you will feel some pressure to pass leads to fellow members. Some people say they feel way too sales-y and weird.
I often get asked about my opinion on this. So, here is my actual experience of BNI, the world’ s best known Leads Group, no holds barred. You can decide for yourself.
“I joined BNI early on in my business, when I was still desperate for business and a little clueless about how to get clients. I truly did not enjoy getting my game face on and getting my high heels to the meeting by, I kid you not, 7:10 AM in the morning … every single week. (They get ratty if you don’t show up every week.) I got one minute to say my elevator speech. I had to listen to about 35 other people say theirs. There was a fun open networking session. Also, there was a 10-minute deep-dive presentation by one or two member’s businesses a week. You need a zillion business cards; you give out a lot!
Over time I got really good at my elevator speech. I could watch and see how it landed and judge the interest on requests to meet me afterwards. I got incredibly proficient, actually.
The first month everyone largely ignored me. I watched the Mary Kay lady make multiple sales of hand cream and other goods at each meeting. Lots of people wanted one-on-one face-to-face meetings with me right from the get-go, and then tried to sell me their products. Hmmm.
The second month I started wondering why the heck I was getting up so early; with heels and makeup at dawn for goodness sake! I had to admit I was making some lovely friends in the group, and I had a personal contact for every kind of business I could imagine. It was kind of fun since I was a bit to isolated as an entrepreneur working from home. The Mary Kay lady made a killing, almost 10 sales at one meeting. Me – no sales, or even nibbles. I started to feel really resentful of her. I missed a meeting one week and the president was not happy. I felt grumpy about that. Jeez!
During BNI Membership Month 3, I had 4 face-to-face meetings with leads group members that resulted in $20,000 of business. I decided the Mary Kay lady was quite sweet after all.
During BNI Membership Month 4, I closed another $20,000 of business as people started to know, like and trust me, and understand my business. $40,000 in 4 months – wow!
About 8 months into my membership, they closed our BNI meeting on our weekly Thursday morning because I was holding my first 3-day event. I had 30 BNI members coming to the event to support me, so there was no point having BNI. SO sweet! They had bought event tickets during my 10-minute deep-dive presentation.”
The moral of the story is this…
You may not love a leads group but, you probably will love what is does for your business. As always, make sure your leads group contains at least 30% of your ideal clients. You should be able to sign them all up as clients within your first year.
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