Frank de Raffele, US National Director for BNI, joins Dr. Misner on the podcast this week to talk about proactive referrals.
Most referrals are “reactive”—we make a referral if someone we’re talking to happens to mention they need help and there’s someone in your network who can help them.
With a proactive referral, you don’t wait for the other person. You reach out to your contacts and ask whether they’d be interested in having a conversation with one of your referral partners.
What you need to make proactive referrals work
Here are the key ingredients for a successful proactive referral.
You need complete trust and confidence in both your referral partner and the potential prospect.
You have to be there when they meet, to help facilitate the opening of the conversation by telling each person what’s great about the other.
Take the blinders off. Don’t make judgments about members of your chapter based on their profession. You never know who they know.
This episode is sponsored by Ivan’s Inner Circle. Become a founding member today!
Complete Transcript of Episode 673
Priscilla 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 today?
Ivan I’m doing fantastic, Priscilla. Thank you. And, you know, at the end, you talk about Ivan’s Inner Circle as the sponsor for this. I just wanted to let everyone know that our goal was to have a couple of dozen downloadable webinars and content on there within a year, and we actually have over 60. Yeah, that’s right, 6-0. So check it out if you get a chance, Ivan’s Inner Circle. It’s a lot of content that is just available there. And I do a lot of Facebook Lives with very few people, just for the Inner Circle group. So check out the site when Priscilla mentions that later.
Today, I am really excited to have back an old friend. I’ve known Frank for many years. We have Frank De Raffele, he is a New York Times bestselling author and he is the U.S. National Director for BNI. He oversees well over 100 BNI franchises around the United States and his focus is to help each region make every single member of BNI more successful in their referral processes, which is what we’re going to be talking about today.
He’s been involved in BNI for 28 years and this is his 25th anniversary of owning his own region, the mid-Hudson Valley area of New York. And Frank is a personal friend, and has co-written a book with me, Business Networking and Sex, Not What You Think, it is about how men and women network, we did that with Hazel Walker. And Frank and I are working on another book together now. So, Frank, it’s great to have you back on to the BNI podcast again.
Frank Well, I’m excited to be here and I gotta tell you, the most exciting thing for me is, I know you’re not gonna believe this, but my lucky number is 673.
Ivan No. (laughing)
Frank Yeah, there you go.
Ivan I think you’re making it up. Hey, at least you didn’t get 666.
Frank There you go. Great to be here, man. Thank you so much for having me on again.
Ivan Well, it’s great to have you here. So, proactive referrals. So let’s talk about that. How in the world are they different than like, you know, a referral?
Frank Well, you know, I think when we talk about most referrals, most are what we call reactive referrals. And what that means is I’m out during the week having regular everyday conversations, family conversations, friendship conversations, business conversations, stranger conversations, you know, just conversations with people. And when I’m in those conversations, I may find out through whatever they’re telling me is going on in their life, that hey, I know somebody that can help this person out. That’s called the reactive referral that I’m listening, I hear that they have a need, I know somebody else. I react to that by engaging what we call word of mouth marketing. And I help refer this person out.
Proactive is different because it’s not waiting for that to happen. It’s actually going out and creating something from nothing.
Ivan Okay, so what are some of the key points, key factors to actually be successful with a proactive referral?
Frank Number one, by far, number one is there’s no way that you’re going to be able to give or receive proactive referrals unless you have incredible trust and confidence in the people that you’re working with.
Because the reality in a proactive referral is, I’m working with the people in my database, the people that I know, the people that I have relationships with, and I may be going to them and seeing if they would be willing to kind of have a conversation with you, without even knowing if they have a need, just the fact that there may be something there between the two of you, and I’m willing to kind of go and do that work and help make it happen; to proactively make that relationship or introduction happen, that it can grow into an actual, you know, referral and piece of business.
So, you can’t do this with people that, you know, are just random people on the street, right? This has to be people who have a great relationship with, and you continue to build that relationship with, because for me to do that, obviously, I’m putting a little bit of my reputation on the line for you, in order to introduce you to this person that might be a great referral source for you.
Ivan Yeah, now, are you talking about a great relationship with both the BNI member and the potential prospect, your associate, your friend? You’re talking about both correct?
Frank Yeah, it’s got to be both, right. So, the BNI member itself, if we’re there, and we’re talking and you see somebody that might be good for you in my database that I can introduce you to, or I know somebody in my database might be a good introduction to you, obviously it’s because I know that person, I have relationship with them already.
But you know Ivan, I’ll give you a perfect example of kind of a way that this can help both parties. I had a gentleman years ago, who was saying, Yeah, he really wanted to get into Hudson Valley Bank. Now I had done work with Hudson Valley Bank, I’ve done sales training and things like that with them over the years. And I worked with them for like two years in developing their whole staff. So now about four years had gone by and I hadn’t talked to the guy, Michael, that I know there.
And this guy said he wanted to get Hudson Valley Bank and I said, Well, you know, something, I know this guy that I don’t even know if he’s still there, right? We’re supposed to keep in contact with our past clients. The problem was, I didn’t; you know, we all do that. We all forget to do that type of thing. So I said, Well, let me see what I can do. So I figured I have to first reestablish the relationship before I can talk about this.
Ivan Good point.
Frank Right. So now I call Michael and say “Hey, Mike, it’s Frank, how you doing, man?” I don’t even know he’s gonna pick up the phone, I didn’t even know if he still worked there. So he picks up the phone. I said, “Hey, how’s it going? How’s the wife and kids,” and we BS for a little bit.
And as we’re talking, and I said, you know, hey, look, I saw you in my database, and I was just thinking, we haven’t talked in awhile and I would love to catch up on stuff. So we talked for a while, and I said, hey, look, I’m going to be in Westchester in a couple weeks. Why don’t I call you we’ll do lunch? He said, great.
I wasn’t going to introduce my friend yet because I had to reintroduce myself.
I go down two weeks later, we have lunch. When we have lunch, during lunch, he says, “Hey, Frank, you’re still doing the training and stuff in development, right?” He goes, “Hey, look, we need some leadership development.” And now all of a sudden, we’re talking about business for me. That wasn’t the purpose of my call, right? So I’m like, well, this is cool. So we kind of go through that. The next week, I put a proposal together and give it to him. A couple of weeks later, we’re starting to talk about that.
Now, we’ve talked like three times. Now we’ve got that relationship back and I say to him, “Hey, Mike, I’ve got a friend of mine,” and I started telling him about my friend. I said, “Would you be open to me introducing the two of you, maybe even the three of us having lunch? I think it might be something there for you guys to just have a good relationship.”
He said, “Yeah, Frank, absolutely.” That’s what I did. Right. So I had a past relationship that I really hadn’t even talked to in a while. But I went to reestablish that for the person that I obviously truly believed in, and I did that work. And meanwhile, I got something out of it that I wasn’t expecting. But the point was that I worked my network for this person, and it worked out really well for everybody.
Ivan Yeah, absolutely. And I like to call this the referral triangle. There’s you, there’s the prospect, and there’s the BNI member, the three of you now. What I love about what you just described, is that you just didn’t tell the BNI member “Hey, he said it’s okay to call him.” You said, “Hey, you know, can I set up a lunch?” So you’re actually there to help facilitate the opening of the conversation where you can edify your client, you can talk about how great the client is, and you can also talk about how great the BNI member is. I mean, that just sets it up for success in my opinion.
Frank It absolutely does. I’ll tell you kind of a funny story about it. The way that I do it usually is we have lunch, the three of us have lunch. I have them sit across from each other, I’m sitting in between.
I say, “Hey guys, look, the reason I want us to get together is Mike, John, like, you know, I love you guys, you guys are great. You know, I fully trust you guys. You’re two people that have great confidence in your integrity and everything else. And you know, so I wanted you guys to meet. I don’t know what can come out of this, but I thought you guys could meet. So Mike, why don’t you start? Tell John a little about your background, where you came, from what else? John, why don’t you do the same? And I just want you guys to know each other.”
Then I’m done. Right? I sit back. And I just start having lunch and I let these guys talk. And they’ll just literally have a conversation for 45 minutes, an hour, and it’ll go directions that you never even know.
But because I kind of got them, I said you talk first, then you talk and then wherever it goes. And all of a sudden they go to whole different direction. You know, so it’s just, it’s so powerful. And I’ll tell you what else. It’s powerful for me because I end up learning things about both them that I never knew because they’re having different conversations than I would have ever had with them. So it just increased that triangle like you’re talking about, that’s really powerful.
Ivan Yeah. And having that conversation with them is, to me, that’s advanced networking. You know, there’s sort of networking 101, and there’s graduate school. You’re talking about graduate school, you’re doing things that you know, some people go, “I don’t have time to do that.”
Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. If you take the time to do that for other BNI members, they’re going to do the same for you, which means you’re spending a whole lot less time out there trying to sell and because you’ve got members who are making it really easy for you to make the sale.
Frank Yeah, Ivan, we talk about when people say lead by example; to me, it’s give by example, right? This is about, you want to give by example, if I’m going to give, if I can set you up with a lunch with somebody, that person is going to, the next time he has something, he’ll say, “Frank, I’ll see if maybe the three of us can do lunch.” because now that’s what’s in his mind, and that’s the way that you do this. Right? And I just think it’s of great value to do that. And so when you give by example, that’s how you’re going to get it back.
Ivan All right, so we’re talking about proactive referrals. Anything else that you want to add to the conversation, Frank?
Frank Yeah, I think it’s, Ivan, I think it’s take blinders off. And what I mean by that is, I think that a lot of time what happens in the BNI world and other worlds, we have these referral relationships with people, we start, and I don’t mean this the way it’s gonna sound, but we start judging people by their profession.
So I’m a chiropractor and I see somebody in the room, the guy’s like a roofer, or the guy does gutters, and I’m like, well, we’re not gonna, like, he’s not really in my sphere. We’re never gonna do anything together, so I don’t need to get to know him. My response is really? Really? Do you know what his brother does? What his sister does? His mom? Like, you never know.
I had this one guy in a chapter one time, who was talking to somebody and said, “Yeah, well, that, you know, I don’t know, that person should be in here, you know,” and I said, “Let me ask you something. What’s a great referral for you?”
And he just said, “Well, a vice president of a bank.” I said, “Really?” And he goes, “Yeah.” And I said, “Did you know that John, the guy who he’s saying that he didn’t think was of value to him, do you know, John’s brother is the vice president of the regional bank there.” He’s like, “Are you serious? Really?” I said, “No. No, but you don’t know that.”
Ivan Oh, that’s good. And it’s accurate. You don’t know that. You don’t know who people know. It always blows me away when I find out that someone, you know, knows an individual that I just wouldn’t have expected. We make assumptions about people and we shouldn’t.
All right, a really good networker should make only one assumption and that is, are they are they good at what they do?
Frank There you go.
Ivan Actually, it’s not an assumption but one thing to screen, are they good at what they do? And it doesn’t really matter what business they’re in. If they’re good at what they do, then you never know who they will know.
Frank And I think you’re right. I think that’s the assumption. The assumption is, I don’t know who this person knows. I have no clue who this person knows, or who they don’t know, meaning who are they going to meet next week, or a month from now that they don’t even know yet that could be a perfect referral for me?
Ivan Totally agree. That’s it, we’re out of time now, Frank, but let me just let everyone know if you want more information about Frank, you can go to frankderaffele.com. We’ll have this spelling here. I still have to look it up sometimes to make sure I get the spelling right, Frank. So we’ll have it here in the podcast, or BNIHudsonValley.com and of course BNIamerica.com. Frank, thank you so much for being on the BNI podcast.
Frank My pleasure, Ivan. Thank you so much for having me.
Ivan Over to you, Priscilla.
Priscilla Okay, great. Thank you both. That was a really, really fun piece of information. So thank you. Thank you, Frank.
The sponsor for this podcast is Ivan’s Inner Circle. Go check out the great content available at www.ivansinnercircle.com where Ivan has assembled a large variety of interesting topics for you to learn about and participate in. 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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