Synopsis

Tony in the United States asks:

A membership committee member has asked me for something in writing that describes how a member’s credibility is reduced when that member mentions a separate business during their weekly presentation.

If you mention additional businesses, other BNI members may think you can’t be successful at one business and need a second one to make ends meet. For more about this, listen to episode 137, “Don’t Be All Things to All People.” Focus is the key to success.

Episode 7, “Simplify Your Story,” explains why you need to be specific about your products, services, and target market during your weekly presentation.

What if you have multiple businesses? Focus on one business when you are in the context of that business. Until you have built a billion-dollar brand, don’t try to leverage the brand name for multiple businesses.

If you’d like to hear the story of Dr. Misner’s property management business, leave a comment below.

Send your questions for Dr. Misner to [email protected].

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of Episode 456 –

Priscilla:

This is part of our Ask Ivan series. If you have a question for Ivan, email him at this address: [email protected].

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast, brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. I am 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:

Shhh, Priscilla. I am on a writing retreat. Don’t tell anybody. The publishers of a number of our books has asked us to do a second edition of one of our books that has done really well, Networking Like a Pro. So my co-authors for that book, David Alexander and Brian Hilliard, and I are together this week holed up, trying to outline the many changes that we are going to make for the new and improved second edition of Networking Like a Pro. IT should be out sometime next year.

Priscilla:

That is a great book. I use it all the time.

Ivan:

It has done really well. It has held up very well. Thanks.

Priscilla:

So talk a little bit about this topic of a second business and mentioning it in a BNI meeting.

Ivan:

So this is part of the the Ask Ivan series, where people will ask questions. I wish I could answer every single question that people ask but unfortunately, there is not enough time in the day to hit all the the questions, so I try to over as many of them as I can, especially when I get the same question from a number of different people and different aspects of the same question. This is one that has been asked a few times by some people.

This comes specifically from Tony. Tony is is in the United States, and he says that a membership committee was asking for something in writing that describes how a member’s credibility is reduced when that member mentions a second business during their weekly presention. Tony says besides knowing that you are not supposed to do it because you are representing one bus...