This is a rebroadcast of Episode 237.

Synopsis

A power team is a group of professionals in BNI who work in non-competing, related fields and have developed relationships so they can refer customers to each other.

Here are ten questions you should ask potential members of your power team to strengthen your connections and make it easier to pass referrals.

* How did you get started in your business?

* What do you enjoy most about what you do?

* What separates you and your company from the competition?

* What advice would you give someone starting out in your business?

* What are the coming trends in your business or industry?

* What strategies have you found to be the most effective in promoting your business?

* If there were anything about your business or industry you could change, what would that be?

* What is the next big event coming up for you?

* What’s your biggest challenge at the moment?

* What type of customers are you looking for? How will I recognize a good prospect for you? What kind of situations are your prospects facing?

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 237 –

Priscilla:

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, CA. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan, and happy new year to you.

Ivan:

Thank you, Priscilla. I appreciate it.

Priscilla:

So you have something to share with us about power teams. What might that be?

Ivan:

I do. I think with the new year and the beginning of the new year around the world, it is a great topic to start the BNI year with. That’s power teams. Power teams can really make a difference in a BNI chapter in terms of the success of that chapter. We have found that several strong power teams tend to generate more business within the group.

A power team is a group of people that are in complimentary professions. They work with the same client but they don’t take business away from each other. Great examples of these are found in the real estate and wedding industries. A realtor, a mortgage broker, a building inspector, title agency, real estate attorney. All service clients looking to purchase property. Now, a wedding planner, a photographer, and a florist all cater to the bride to be. If these professionals form a power team, when one person in the team gets business, then he or she can refer the client to every other member in the team.

Now, many people have heard me talk about power teams and contact spheres. A contact sphere is like a concentric circle. The contact sphere is all of the professions that are symbiotic to you. They are compatible, noncompetitive professions. The power team is the group of people that you actually have the relationship with, So contact spheres are basically a list of professionals that you may have that are symbiotic to you. The power team is the list of professionals who you have a relationship with, you are in a referral relationship with them.

Successful members in BNI have the ability to select and cultivate those mutually beneficial relationships with high quality strategically important business categories. I think it’s an important core competency for success for many members in a BNI group. The question is how do you cultivate those relationships? It’s really important that you find out as much as possible about those referral partners so that you can send the the right kind of business.