Terry Atkins, BNI’s Chief Marketing Officer, joins Dr. Misner on the podcast this week to talk about the 2020 BNI brand refresh. The last brand refresh was almost ten years ago. The research for this one started in 2018.
Every brand needs to take a look at itself in the mirror and say “Are we relevant?” BNI is more relevant than ever and needs to look like it.
The new branding focuses on the idea of growth. People join BNI to grow their businesses. The red “I” in the new logo is cut by a white diagonal line at the angle of the BNI growth curve to symbolize personal and professional growth in BNI.
The new BNI logo showing the BNI growth curve
So why red? It stands out even at a small size, such as on a lapel pin. It looks great on the new assets.
You’ll see the new branded look on the websites first. The templates for BNI Online(tm) meetings will also move to the new branding, as will the new BNI social media icons. There will be new BNI merchandise and a new Proud Member logo. You’ll also be able to download customizable Zoom backgrounds with the new branding.
This episode is sponsored by Ivan’s Inner Circle. Become a founding member today!
Complete Transcript of Episode 660
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. 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?
Ivan: I am doing great, Priscilla. We have a guest on today, Terry Atkins. Terry is the Chief Marketing Officer for BNI and he brings to BNI over 30 years of business strategy and creative marketing experience at Fortune 500 companies, which I really think will help set the foundation for the company’s continued growth. Prior to joining BNI, Terry has served as Vice President of marketing communications for Extended Stay America, the largest owned and operated hotel chain in the US. And in addition, Terry has held marketing leadership roles at Campbell’s soup, and the Kellogg company. At each of these companies, Terry has successfully created and executed strategically integrated big ideas that have built long term equity and driven profitable growth. And I’m really excited to have Terry as the Chief Marketing Officer for the organization. It’s one of the positions that I probably work closest with other than Graham as CEO, Terry and I work pretty close. Terry, it has been fantastic having you as the Chief Marketing Officer, and I want to welcome you to the BNI Podcast.
Terry: Well, thank you very much, Ivan. I am so happy to be a part of BNI and I’ve loved every minute of it.
Ivan: Well, I have loved working with you. I hope you’re here to stay for a long time, because it’s been a real pleasure working with your expertise. So we were doing a brand refresh, the last brand refresh that BNI did was almost exactly 10 years ago. And we’re going through another refresh. Can you share with us, for the members, what are some of the things that went into the process and why is doing a brand refresh important from a member’s perspective?
Terry: Sure! Well, you know, every brand needs to, every once in a while, take a look at themselves in the mirror and say, “Are we relevant?”. And you know, BNI is certainly relevant, in fact, probably more relevant now than ever before. But you do need to take a look at yourself every once in a while and just say, you know, how do I appear to everybody?, just like you would if you were doing it for yourself. And so, when BNI was looking at this project – this goes back to 2018, it started before I actually joined the organization, there was a lot of research that was done at the time. And at that time, it was decided that they would start on this brand refresh project. More research was done, lots of design work was created, months and months of work behind the foundation of this work. I joined the organization at a point when I could really kind of influence the design. So we decided to go forward with a new brand design that really focused on the one thing that’s important about BNI, and that’s growth. People join BNI because they’re looking to grow their businesses, and we wanted to create a design that really symbolized that growth and kind of where BNI was going to go in the future.
Ivan: Yeah. Talk about symbolizing the growth because I think that’s one of the things I love about the new logo- which by the way, if this podcast does not have the new brand on it yet, this is a pre recorded podcast so if it doesn’t have the new brand on it, I will make sure that the new logo goes up on this podcast so everyone can see it. So talk about the growth because I love that concept. How is that illustrated in the logo?
Terry: Sure. Well, when you look at the new logo, the design of the characters are very simple. We wanted to look that was professional but friendly and we wanted to promote simplicity. So when you look at the logo, it’s three capital letters, B-N-I, and the color is red, which is a great color choice for BNI, it pays homage to our burgundy. At the same time, it’s a color that has energy, it promotes leadership, suggests confidence, courage, and it’s a color that attracts like no other color. It’s a perfect color for BNI. One of the things, though that we did, and it actually, Ivan, came from a conversation that you and I had, and you had showed me a chart when I first joined the organization that showed the 35 years of consecutive membership growth that BNI has had.
Seeing that information, and that was one of the things that motivated me to think more about what BNI was really here to do for its members. I mean, certainly, it’s had a lot of growth as an organization, but people join BNI to grow their businesses. And by them growing their business, they often enhance their life and and they grow personally. So we wanted to make sure that that was an element symbolized within the logo. And what you’ll see when you look at the logo is there’s a white diagonal line and that white diagonal line pretty much matches the growth curve that BNI has had. So we’ve had that little simple, subtle reference on the logo that really is there to represent the professional and personal growth that the members have when they join BNI.
Ivan: I like it because it’s the growth not only of BNI, but the growth that can be reflected in members’ growth by participating in BNI, the diagonal line in the I. Great idea!
Terry: So we’re very, very happy with the way the logo came out.
Ivan: So you talked about the ‘why red’, you know, a lot of people have come to me and said, “Are you okay with the new logo?” And the answer is, yes, I am great with the new logo! 35 years is a long time, and we’ve had a couple of refreshes in the 35 years, but this is the biggest refresh to date. One of the things I like most about this new logo, is that it will really stand out when it’s smaller. Like many proud members of BNI, the BNI will pop even when it’s small. It will also pop even better, I think, on lapel pins. It’s just a bolder BNI that shows much easier when it’s reduced in size. So that’s one of the things I love about it.
Terry: I would tell you that over the last couple of months as we’ve been building out a lot of different assets, it really works well everywhere. I mean, we’ve got a new website, BNI.com, which it looks great on and it looks great on a shirt and it looks good a business card. On every application we’ve seen so far, it really does represent brand very well.
Ivan: Can you tell us the process? What can members expect? I know that the process begins with websites having the new branded look, but what comes after?
Terry: Well, there’s a whole bunch of mediums and materials that you’ll find this new logo on. Right now, we’re meeting online so the templates that are being used for those online meetings will all be converted to the new look and feel. And so it’s a great way to make sure that the members are experiencing it firsthand. Also, social media. We’ve got all kinds of new social media assets for all the major platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
When we go back to in person meetings, we have all kinds of chapter branding materials, outdoor signage, chapter banners stands, and all the collateral material that you would typically see at a BNI in-person meeting. We have a bunch of promotional merchandise like hats, shirts, mugs and things of that nature- which people who are associated with BNI just can’t seem to get enough of. As you look around the world, we’ll be doing things with a global press release. One of the things that we have that I think the members will really like, is we have a new ‘proud member’ logo.
And what’s really great about that is members will be able to use that logo and they can incorporate it into their own business and take advantage of the equity that BNI offers. So you can have somebody who wants to maybe put it on their service truck, their storefront, on their business cards or on their website. We’re providing access to that. So members can take advantage of the endorsement that comes along with being the BNI member.
Ivan: Do have a site that members can go to to get some of these graphics?
Terry: We do! We have a site called Brand Share and the website is BNIBranding.com and it’s open to the members. There they’ll find the artwork for the ‘proud member’. One of the things we also have right now, that’s a lot of fun for members is now that we’re in this kind of virtual networking environment, we have backgrounds that can be used as part of the meeting. And we have about 15 to 20 different backgrounds, some are pretty much a straightforward BNI graphic, but then there’s other ones that have been designed for the member. One in particular says “proud member” another one has it where to you can put your name, your company’s name and what you do on it, so that as you’re talking to others, and they’re looking at your image on on the meeting, they can see who you are, what you do and there’s a place there also for contact information so somebody can reach out to you directly. We’re trying to do as many things as we can to support the member as part of this brand refresh.
Ivan: So Terry, can you remind us again of the name of the website members can go to, to download some of the visuals, the graphics, and the branding for their BNI chapter?
Terry: Certainly. They would want to go to BNIBranding.com and it’s going to have all the things that they’ll need.
Ivan: Fantastic! So go to BNIBranding.com to see the new brand. Anything else you’d like to add before we wrap up, Terry?
Terry: No, I just will tell you I’ve been very, very excited to be a part of BNI and to be able to bring something new like this to the organization. Ivan, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your partnership and support through this process. It’s really been great to work with the “father of modern networking” and BNI to be able to bring something like this to the members.
Ivan: Well, thank you, Terry. I’m just glad they’re not calling me the “grandfather of modern networking.” (Laughing) I’m happy about that. Terry, it’s great working with you. And again, everyone, if the podcast has not been rebranded yet, by the time this goes up, it will be and we will make sure to provide a link for a website where you can get the graphics. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Terry, I appreciate you.
Terry: Thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun.
Ivan: Over to you, Priscilla.
Priscilla: Okay, thank you both so much. That was great information. 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 variety of listening 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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