Synopsis

Tiffanie Kellog joins Dr. Misner on the podcast today to talk about a different kind of referral: referrals to referral sources in your contact sphere.

People in your contact sphere serve the same clients you do, but are not competitors. These are the people most likely to be able to pass you quality referrals. A referral to a contact sphere relationship can be more valuable than a referral to a single prospect over time. Once you go through the VCP process with this new person, s/he will introduce you to many qualified prospects.

Brought to you by the Networking for Success Channel on YouTube.

Complete Transcript of Episode 506 –

Priscilla:

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast, brought to you by the Networking for Success Channel on YouTube, featuring Dr. Ivan Miser and many other networking experts. 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:

I am in Austria. Vienna, Austria this week at a BNI German-speaking conference. I have been here in Germany and Austria many times. They have some amazing members and Directors here, so I am really excited to be back.

Priscilla:

That sounds great.

Ivan:

So, today Priscilla, we have a guest someone who, I think we can say it’s official. She has been a guest on the BNI podcast more than any guest ever. That is Tiffanie Kellog. Tiffanie is a trainer with Ascentive in Tampla, Florida. She is a speaker and an author. She has done two books: The Four and a Half Networking Mistakes. I absolutely love that title. And Tiffanie has been on my podcast talking about that book, so if you are intrigued by that title, type “four and a half” in the BNI Podcast search engine and you can see my interview.

She is also the author of a book called Knock the Socks Off Your Audience. That is s title that is really meaningful because Tiffanie has more crazy colored socks than anybody I know. That is sort of your thing, isn’t it, Tiffanie? Colored socks and – ?

Tiffanie:

Yeah. The crazier and more colorful the better.

Ivan:

So I don’t know if we talked about this last time. I think we did off-air. I don’t know what got into me but I had seen all these socks that she always has and I took a photograph of my sock drawer, which you have to understand is like all black socks with just one white sock. I sent it to Tiffanie and then after I sent it, I thought, this is actually kind of creepy of me to be sending her a picture of my black socks.

But Tiffanie, thank you, you didn’t take it wrong.

Tiffanie:

No, I love pictures of socks. Anytime people see socks, sending me photos is totally fine.

Ivan:

Well good. Listen, it is great having you on again and we are going to talk about a topic that I don’t think we have ever talked about. I don’t think I have ever talked about it on any of my- we have never talked about it on the podcast and I have never talked about it in my presentation. That is really an interesting perspective on referrals.

First question: are there other things you can have as a referral other than a referral to a specific prospect? I know the answer is yes. Explain it.

Tiffanie:

Yeah, so we are so used to in BNI “Here is the client I am looking for. Here is the prospect that I am looking for.” I think that is powerful, though we are missing an opportunity because for most people, we have gaps in our network for professionals that if we can meet more of a certain profession, they would be able to refer us on a consistent basis....