Lorena Medina, National Director of BNI Mexico, joins Dr. Misner on the podcast this week to share a story that shows BNI is more than referrals.
One of the biggest challenges that entrepreneurs have is that no one ever taught them how to run a business. They go to school to learn a profession, but only teaches them how to be a dentist or a doctor or a lawyer—not how to be a business owner.
BNI is not a business school. The mission of BNI is to help members grow their businesses through referrals. But learning how to run a business can be a side effect of joining BNI.
Lorena has seen this at work. A dentist named Lupita went to a BNI meeting as a visitor. As she listened to each member’s presentation, she realized that she didn’t have a business name, or a logo, or incorporation papers, or many other things that she needed. She knew what to do once the patient was sitting in the chair in front of her, but not how to get them there. That’s what Lupita saw she could learn in BNI, and she’s been a member for 10 years now.
If you’ve experienced a positive “side effect” of joining BNI, share your story in the comments.
This episode is sponsored by Ivan’s Inner Circle. Become a founding member today!
Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast 647
Priscilla Rice Hello, everybody and welcome back to the official BNI podcast. I’m Priscilla rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. And I’m joined on the phone today by the founder and the chief visionary officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.
Hello Ivan. How are you and where are you?
Ivan Misner I am doing fantastic and this week I am back in the Southern California area speaking in the founding regions of BNI where I started BNI 35 years ago. And Mike Adray is the Executive Director there. And Mike’s putting on an event with a number of the other local directors and I’m really excited to be back into my old hometown and and do a presentation.
Priscilla Rice Great.
Ivan Misner We’re doing this as part of our sort of our 35th anniversary in BNI. So today I have a guest and my guests name is Lorena Medina. I consider Lorena a friend. She’s also the national director of BNI Mexico. She’s been in BNI since 2005. She has a degree in International Relations. She lives in Mexico City, and her hobbies include movies, reading, writing, and travel.
And something nobody about her knows–and I didn’t know it until I read this bio–is that she has written a science fiction novel, which she has not published yet. And so I want her to publish it because I love love this. Science fiction!
Lorena’s BHAG or Big, Hairy, Audacious goal is building a community of 100,000 networkers that will change the way Mexico does business. Lorena, it is truly an honor to have you on the BNI Podcast. Thanks for coming on today.
Lorena Medina Thank you, Ivan. It’s an honor to be here.
Ivan Misner Well, I appreciate you and you are on because, I think it was at a BNI convention, you mentioned to me a story about a dentist in BNI that I thought was amazing. And I asked if you’d share it, and anything else that you have that you’d like to talk about, about how below is more than just referrals? So let me hand it over to you, Lorena.
Lorena Medina Thank you, Ivan. Yeah, we were together at the global convention in in Poland last year. And I think that the question that was posed to me was, “In my experience in the last 14 years of a running BNI Mexico, what is the biggest challenge that business entrepreneurs run into?” I mean, I have known a lot of business people in my BNI career and I felt that not only in Mexico but in Latin America one of the main challenges that business owners have today, that’s what I have observed, is that nobody ever really told us how to run a business.
I mean, a lot of us maybe went to college, and maybe if I am a dentist, I went to college, and they taught me everything that I was supposed to do, from the time when I have a patient in front of me with his or her mouth open. But what about everything that surrounds that operation, everything that you’re supposed to have in place to actually run a business, nobody teaches you this unless you’re actually going to to business school somewhere. So when this question was posed to me, I thought about it and I said, “You know what, we are all running our business the best way we can and we learn a few tricks along the way.”
But this is actually something that is really exciting to me because this is not the our main or core business in BNI. Our business is referrals. Our business is not really to go inside a particular company and teach you how to run your business. However, this happens. I mean, I saw it happen with a very particular story that I use to put an example of how BNI can help you turn your business into something a lot more professional than if you were on your own.
So I met this dentist, her name is Lupita. So she is a member in my first chapter that I launched in Leon in Mexico. And she told me the story of the first time that she went to visit a chapter as a visitor. And she told me that from the first visit that she had in this chapter, she immediately saw value because she started listening to all the presentations from the members of this chapter. And she started realizing all the things that were lacking in in her business.
She realized, “I do have a profession, I’m a dentist, but I don’t have a business built around it.” She started realizing, “You know what, I don’t have a logo. I don’t have the incorporation papers for my business. I have never trained any of my employees. Maybe I need a business consultant.”
Or maybe it’s just realizing all of the things that she could do in her business to be better to to actually have a structure that would allow her to to grow. And what we do in BNI is actually provide the pipeline for you to get more business, but you need to also have structure to support that growth. So I thought it was fascinating that that’s not even what we do. But it does happen inside the BNI chapter. So we do more than referrals.
Ivan Misner And did she pick up some ideas? I’m guessing the answer is yes to that. She picked up some ideas on on how to develop a logo, how to incorporate, how to run the business, by surrounding herself with other BNI members.
Lorena Medina Yes, exactly. So that was my conclusion as well. So it does help. It does help you as a business person to be more professional and to develop a more professional business by being surrounded by specialists in these other areas. She probably would have never, ever evolved the way she did, she probably would have never had a name for her business, the incorporation papers, the proper hiring process for her people, and a logo, all of these things that she developed by being in the same room with other professionals, with other people that were all very good in their own specialties. So being in a BNI meeting is the right place to be because it’s inevitable that you’re going to learn something and that you’re going to be better as a result.
Ivan Misner You know, I don’t know if you know this, one of the founding members of the second chapter of BNI, the chapter that my wife Elizabeth, who you know well, was in, was a dentist and he was a member for 30 years in in the in the group. And I think that’s amazing. And it sounds like this dentist has picked up a lot of great ideas in BNI.
Lorena Medina Yeah, that’s exactly what happened, I mean, to this dentist Lupita that I’m telling her story now. She has been a member for 10 years. And what I would say is that I have been involved in BNI for 14 years, going to be 15 years in November, and every time I go to a BNI meeting, I learn something. And there’s always something that you can learn from the members, and there’s always some profession or some business specialty that you didn’t even know existed, that you start realizing what’s lacking in your own business. So that makes you better. And if I want to be—
Ivan Misner It’s not just about referrals, it’s about learning how to run the business more effectively, which isn’t what–it’s not our mission, but I think that’s the point you’re making is that that we still pick up a lot of other ideas in addition.
Lorena Medina Exactly. This is one of the what I call BNI side effects. It’s not our core business. It’s not exactly what it was designed to do. But it happens anyway. So I think this is even if you have a really prosperous business and you have a lot of customers and you think you don’t need referrals, you need to be in a room with other people that you can learn from.
I was trying to talk my brother into joining any organization, even if it’s not mine. Because if the only people that you talk to everyday are your employees, or are people that are somehow subordinate to you, you need to surround yourself also with people that are more successful than you so you can learn from them. And this is what happens in BNI chapters: you surround yourself with professionals and they all know something better than you and they all are experts in their areas. And there’s always something that you can learn from them and be better as a result.
Ivan Misner Yeah, no question about that. You know, when I started BNI, I was definitely networking up: most of the people that I invited into BNI were more successful than me. But even if you’re in a chapter where that’s not the case, there’s always something to learn from people, from peers, who can teach you something about their business that you didn’t know, that somehow helps you in your business. And this is definitely a side effect of BNI that we really don’t talk about very much and I’m really glad that you brought it up.
What was that expression that the dentist used and you mentioned it in the beginning of this about something about you only making a connection with the people when they’re sitting in front of you with their mouth open? What was it she said?
Lorena Medina What she said was, “What they taught me in college was what to do when you already have somebody with their mouth open in front of you, but what happens before we get to that point? How do I get that customer that trusted me enough to be here in front of me with his or her mouth open?” I mean everything that’s surrounding this operation, it’s kind of important too.
Ivan Misner And nobody talks about that in in dental school in chiropractic school and medical school and legal school and any of those, they don’t talk about how to get people to that point where they’re sitting in front of you with their mouth open. I absolutely love that expression.
Lorena, we’re out of time. But listen, any last thoughts before I turn it over to Priscilla?
Lorena Medina Well, just to conclude, I think that this experience that Lupita, my dentist and my member that I have in my chapter in Leon, it’s a it’s a story that probably repeats a lot throughout the organization. So how cool would it be to hear all of this stories of BNI side effects?
Ivan Misner That’s a great point. And I think if you’re listening to this and you have a “side effect” like Lorena is talking about, I’d love for you to post that right here on the podcast. Just give us a short version of your story. Comment. Just as a reminder, I read all of the comments that go up there. I’d love to read your comment.
Lorena, really powerful stuff. Thank you so much for being on BNI Podcast today. Priscilla, back to you.
Priscilla Rice Okay, I think that’s it. Thank you both for the great information. This podcast has a new sponsor. Go check out the great content available at www.ivansinnercircle.com, where Ivan has assembled a wide variety of topics and you are invited to participate.
Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we look forward to having you join us again next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.
第666集 引薦人的5個級別（經典播客） 由於 "666 "這個數字對某些人來說意味著一些邪惡的東西，所以我們認為我們將做一個 "魔鬼在細節中 "的播客。 這個主題的細節非常重要，我們認為與數字有關的事情會很有趣。 我們保證，這個主題不是邪惡的。 它很詳細，所以要接受這部分。 米斯納博士曾一度概述了一個引薦的16個級別。但當他在寫第二版《 Networking Like a Pro 》的時候，他意識到他的級別應該與世界上大多數BNI引薦單上的5個級別一致。 這5個層次的介紹是累積起來的，在書中有詳細的闡述。 您分享了希望您的引薦夥伴聯繫的人的聯繫信息。 您還分享了有關與潛在客戶聯繫的人的其他信息（名片，營銷材料，網站）。 你給潛在客戶一個關於你所引薦的人的個人引薦信。 你打一個私人電話，安排潛在客戶和你引薦的人見面。 您可以在潛在客戶和您引薦的人之間進行面對面的介紹。 引薦的級別越低，將其轉化為業務的難度就越大。你的目標應該是給出至少是3級的引薦 引薦人的5個級別在《Networking Like a Pro》第36章。第二版中的第36章。你也可以在Misner博士的博客上閱讀更多關於它們的內容。 由Networking for Success頻道在YouTube上為您帶來。 第548集的文字記錄 Priscilla : 大家好，歡迎回到BNI官方播客，由YouTube上的Networking for Success頻道為您帶來，該頻道有Ivan Misner博士和其他許多網絡專家。我是Priscilla Rice，我從加州伯克利的Live Oak錄音室為大家帶來。我今天在電話中加入的是BNI的創始人和首席願景官， Ivan Misner 博士。你好， Ivan ，你在哪裡？ Ivan : 嗨， Priscilla 。我現在很好，我在北卡羅來納州夏洛特的新的全球支持團隊總部，在BNI的全球總部，BNI大約一年多前搬到了那裡，這就是我本週的工作地點。 Priscilla : 很好，跟我說說引薦人的五個級別。 Ivan : 引薦的五個級別-多年來，我已經撰寫了有關引薦的各個層次的書籍。 我曾經將其分解，我認為這是商務引薦中16個引薦級別。 我在 《 Networking Like a Pro 》 第一版中縮小了範圍。 但是在第二...
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