Don’t
Quit your
Day Job!
But if you do, this book is for you.
By
Leland Stafford Kropp Jr.
“Success
is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.”
Winston
Churchill
“I was told by a friend from the Eureka Chamber of Commerce that her biggest criticism of my speaking style was that I give the impression that I know it all. Let me be the first and last to say that I don’t. I have just made a lot of mistakes, most of which I have tried to learn from,” Lee Kropp Jr., straight from the heart.
“Every
day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people
in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.”
Robert
Orben
Looking back on my life I now see that I was doomed to be in business for myself. I was never given a specific direction as to what to do with my life when I was a child. I had many role models throughout my life, but none were constant enough to see and direct me into the life of an entrepreneur. So I floated through life until I found my calling. I do not regret anything that has happened in my life and would not change a single thing. My point is to watch your children, directing and encouraging them to think outside the box.
“Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough.”
Earl Wilson
I was driving one night with my grandson, Andrew, who was 5 years old at the time. I asked him if he wanted to come to work for me when he got older and he said, “No, I’m going to start my own business.” “Really,” I replied, “and what type of business are you going to start?” Andrew proudly replied that he was going to start a “Folding Company.”
I adjusted my rearview mirror so that I could see him eye-to-eye and asked about the nature of this new business idea since I had never heard of a Folding Company. He proceeded to tell me how he wanted to fold sheets, towels, dishrags, and socks, but he mainly wanted to fold wash cloths because he enjoyed folding them the most. So, I asked him if he had done any research on other companies that did the same thing, who his ideal clients would be, how much he would charge for the items that he folded, and where he would base his business. Now these questions were all asked in the spirit of fun and he answered most of them pretty well, but as we drove along he grew so quiet I thought he had fallen asleep. However, when I glanced in the mirror I saw that Andrew was crying. So, I asked him what was wrong. And, he said in a sad little voice, “Papa Lee I don’t know if I am smart enough to run my own business.”
“Don’t worry,” I answered him. “I will be here to help you do anything that you choose to do. Besides you’re only five so you have a couple of years before you have to worry about that stuff.”
“Don't
worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good,
you'll have to ram them down people's throats.”
Howard
Aiken
My first attempt at business was the proverbial lemonade stand. When I was 9 years old I had a friend named Brad that had a brand new, crisp $20 bill that he had gotten for his birthday. After seeing some kids run a lemonade stand down the street I thought Brad, his $20 bill and I could do a better job. So I told Brad about the idea and the perfect location for our lemonade stand was at the corner by the YMCA. So, Brad and I became 50/50 equal partners; we walked to the store and bought $4.00 worth of cups and some “Old Time Lemonade,” the good stuff.
Our business venture lasted about three hours and we sold $28.00 worth of lemonade. Brad could not grasp that since we were equal partners in the lemonade stand business—his money, my idea—we were to share in the profits equally. So, he went home looking confused as to why he was going home $6.00 lighter than when he started the day. We remained friends for a few years, but for some reason we never did business again.
“Education
is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.”
Aristotle
My first year in Junior High School was a very profitable time and it all started from a package of “Bubble Yum” chewing gum. I was never a child that liked to share, so when a kid in class asked if he could have a piece of gum I said no, but I would be more than happy to sell him a piece for a dime. Within a few minutes I sold three pieces, which allowed me to buy another package with a nickel profit. Within a month I was the bubble gum king. I was buying packs for a quarter and selling them for fifty cents. By the time the principal put an end to my business venture I had three friends dealing gum for me and I was buying my gum by the case with several flavors to choose from. Imagine what might have been if that principal had not interfered; I could have branched out to other grades, other schools and maybe even other school districts. Looking back, I guess I was lucky that I liked gum and not drugs otherwise I might be writing a different type of book.
“The
fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by somebody
else's rules, while quietly playing by your own.”
Michael
Korda
High school brought new challenges and new opportunities in my developing quest into the business world. This time it started in an after school activity called Junior Achievement [JA]. If you have not heard of JA it gives kids the chance to run their own business. Kids met once a week; they sold stock to their parents to raise money to buy supplies to make products that they would then sell back to the same parents who had bought their stock.
The kids would elect officers, some kids would be employees and everyone was in sales. The JA program ran from the start of the new school year and ended just before Christmas. Halfway though my freshmen term my group elected me president after the current president move away.
I was not happy with what we were doing so I switched the product that we were making from cookie sheets to spice ropes. This was very lucrative and our group made record sales.
I was involved in JA for all four years of high school and was president for all four years. With the biggest and most profitable year being my senior year. We named our company “Bears Unlimited.” Our products were embroidery rings with a little bear pattern on them and lace trim and mason jars filled with hard candy and the same bear pattern on the top with a bow. These two products were easy to make and had great profit margins.
We experienced record sales form the beginning and I guess that was where the problem started. You see every cent we made was given back to our stockholders at the end of our session each of the employees’ made a few dollars and the rest of the money went back to JA.
Consequently, I took matters into my own hands and formed a mirror company that met at my parent’s house on Thursday nights. I explained to my parents that we had so much work that JA said we could work on our own as long as it did not effect our school work. Needless to say, we did quite well and when the term ended we folded our company at the same time as JA ended for the year and divided up over $1,500 between the seven of us in the group. That year our JA group won an award for the most profitable business, and I being president was invited to go to a special awards dinner where I received a $1,000 college scholarship.
If you are reading this and you have ties to Junior Achievement I would like to state that what I did was really wrong and I am really sorry and I will never do it again, and if you are a kid reading this and you are involved in JA don’t do what I did because it was wrong.
“Well,
if there ain’t going to be any rules, let's get the fight started.”
Butch
Cassidy
The last memory of childhood business that comes to mind was in my senior year at Ritenour High School. I was taking a radio production class with one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Alan Mitchell. He assigned a project that was to last an entire quarter and divided the class into four different business teams. Each team would put together radio commercials for fake clients; we would then have a board of teachers listen to the commercials and vote for the best one. Each team started off with $2,500 in play money. Then the winner would get the “contract” and win a certain dollar amount of play money. Well, the crux to this project was that the first place team with the most money would receive an “A,” second place a “B”, third a “C”, and fourth a “D” for the quarter. There were eleven students in this class with 3 teams of 3 and one of two. Everyone knew the team of two was destined to win; they grew up to be in radio and even in high school everyone knew where their future lay. The team that I expected to get the “D” was made up of three guys who were considered part of the “Stoner” crowd. The “C” team consisted of three girls who were more concerned with looking pretty than getting good grades. Then there was my team. Now, I never really cared about good grades, but I did hate to lose. After the first assignment the winners fell into place just like I called it. However, I knew if I did not come up with a business plan I would lose or as Mr. Mitchell called it I would receive a lower grade.
Therefore, for our second project I took the attitude of “if you can’t beat them join them.” And I hired the “radio guys” to record my commercial. I thought this would give us a chance to win first place. But, after the production of the second round of commercials the “radio guys” won again.
Mr. Mitchell told us just as he did in the beginning that we were to run this just like a business in the real world. So, I did what I thought any good businessperson would do in the same position. I sued the “radio guys” for not putting the same effort into our commercial as they did for theirs. The “radio guys” had a fit and of course they claimed that we could not do this, but Mr. Mitchell agreed with our team and we were given the chance to plead our case to the teachers grading our commercials. We replayed both commercials and the teachers agreed that the “radio guys” did not record our spot with the same passion as they did theirs, and since they took money for the spot they produced for us they should have given it the same effort. We were awarded the money that we paid them and half of what they won for their spot. With several more commercials to go before the end of the quarter, I determined that the “radio guys” were not going to produce anymore commercials for my team. Therefore, I needed a new plan if I wanted to win. There were other ways to make money by doing smaller projects and each of the teams had a fair share but none of us had enough to break out of our grade designation. So with the “radio guys” holding a healthy lead and only one day left in class I met with the “stoners” and the “pretty girls” and proposed a merger. I had figured out that in combining our play money we would have enough to give us all an “A.” They agreed and I wrote out the plan and took it to the judging teachers who approved the idea. The last day of the project was wonderful; the “radio guys” never saw it coming. One of them was on the honor roll and had never gotten anything less than an “A”. He was so mad that he brought his parents in claiming that this was unfair and should not be allowed to happen.
Mr. Mitchell approached me just before graduation and told me that in all of the years of teaching this project, ours was the most interesting and most memorable one that he had ever taught.
“Education
is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.”
Daniel
J. Boorstin
Chambers vs. networking groups
Deciding which type of business group to join has always been one of the biggest problems for business people to work out. Let me explain my take on the two. Please remember this is just my opinion drawn from my own business experiences. To me “the chamber is like being in college whereas the BNI (Business Network International) groups are like being in high school.” What this means is that you can join a chamber group and it really doesn’t matter if you attend or not. You pay your dues just like college but it is your decision if you go and make it work. Whereas with most well run networking groups they have rules. Once you join you have to go, just like high school. If you miss a certain number of meetings within a certain period of time they will close your position (in laymen’s terms that means they kick you out). The reason for this is that they believe in the out of sight, out of mind theory. BNI over the course of years has come up with a bulletproof program on running an effective business group that I will talk about later. The chamber should be about networking, but most are about community and a business’s place in it. Networking groups are about helping to make members more successful. My goal in writing this is to help small business people make more money through the knowledge that I have gained though my networking experience.
I have put together some of the important issues that I think every businessperson should know. With these I have also included my personal experiences and stories.
“Common
sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”
Samuel
Taylor Coleridge
Theatrical Concepts History
My true business story begins when I was 18. I had just graduated from high school and my parents arranged for a summer job at Mallinckrodt medical as a delivery driver. I worked there for two years and on my 20th birthday Mallinckrodt hosted a cost savings program. I was put on a team of sales people that ended up saving the company a lot of money and we were awarded prizes for our effort. This is where my true love for electronics began. I received a big screen TV and sound system along with a lot of other things. Within a couple of months I received a promotion into the nuclear labs. That spring Mallinckrodt hosted another cost savings program. This time my team took seventh in the world. I really won a lot this time around; a refrigerator, stove, microwave, kitchen set, washer and dryer, dining room set, living room set, bedroom set, a lawn mower, a vacuum cleaner, and of course a lot of home theater equipment. I won so much stuff that my parents kicked me out into the world because they no longer had room for me. So when I was 21 I bought my first house in Webster Groves Missouri. It was nice to be able to move into a fully furnished house at that age. I set up my new house with TV’s and speakers throughout the house, along with two home theater systems.
That was when my first personal business challenge began. I started to get calls from friends and family asking if I could help them hook up their VCRs or stereo systems. Helping them really was me working and them sitting there talking to me. I graduated from free help to beer and from there to BBQ, and the people I was helping were no longer friends and family but friends of family and friends. Well, at the time I did not like beer much so I started to charge cash.
In 1993 I met my future wife Donna Nienhaus at Mallinckrodt. Thanksgiving weekend in 1993, I moved into to her home in Eureka and as most people who start to set up a home, I began working on setting up my home theater system—a touch more extensive than most peoples. Donna came home to holes in the drywall from where I had decided to inset the TV and stereo system into the hall closet. A quick side note: do not I mean do not tear apart drywall in a woman’s home while you’re just dating. It wasn’t long before Donna came to love the system that I installed and she began to encourage me to turn my hobby into a business. So in June of 1994 my new wife and I started Theatrical Concepts.
Theatrical concepts started as a part-time business, mainly after work and weekends. During the first months I was fortunate enough to meet my first mentor, the manager of the Speaker & Stereo Store in Kirkwood Missouri and I still remember the first advice he ever gave me.
“A lot of guys go into to this business and most fail. If you survive your first year, don’t quit your day job. If you are doing well your second year, don’t quit your day job.” And, on and on until he finally said, “If you are still around at year five you may think about quitting your day job, but I wouldn’t” Well, I followed his advice almost to the day, and at year five I quit my day job.
As well as we did in our first five years I soon learned that by quitting my day job I also quit getting a steady paycheck. The phone, which always seemed to be ringing off the hook when I was fully employed, now seemed unusually quiet. Now that I had time to take care of all of my customers there were no customers to take care of.
Now what do I do, I thought, how do I get customers? I didn’t have a clue. So I started going to Chamber of Commerce meetings around St. Louis and everyone that I met wanted my business, but did not want to give me any. Things were so tight that I had to cash out my pension and 401k plans to pay bills. I was desperate for business. I started placing business cards on gas pumps, grocery carts at super markets, and anywhere that had a bulletin board. I even splurged on a $35 one-inch by two-inch ad in the Suburban Journal. Then I sat at home waiting for the phone to ring. However it did not occur to me at that time that most people do not buy high end products from a guy with a business card taped to a gas pump.
During this time I hurt my back moving a large screen TV. In talking to my neighbor about my injury, she told me about Dr. Pat Feder a local chiropractor. As bad as my back felt, it actually hurt more to pay the $20 that I did not have for a co-pay. Well I went and Dr. Pat adjusted my spine, and after my adjustment we sat and talked. He told me about this business group he belonged to and encouraged me to visit. He told me that they met every Thursday at 7:00 a.m. I checked my schedule and it appeared that I was free every Thursday morning for at least the next year or so. So I visited his meeting and met eight very nice business people from Eureka.
After a great meeting they gave me an application, which included a $240 membership fee and a non refundable $50 application fee. My heart sank, that was a lot of money and there was no way I wanted to lose $50 if they did not accept me and I told them that. They assured me that I was in and so began my adventure with BNI.
Within the first two months I got my first referral from Dr. Pat. It was a $9,000 job that went a long way toward keeping my family afloat. At this time I still had no networking skills, I would literally break out in a sweat during my one-minute infomercial. Infomercials were 60-second presentations each member used each week to tell the other members about their business.
Like most people who are new to a group, I wanted to sit on the sidelines to watch and learn but I was forced into becoming involved. One day, while I was waiting outside for a visitor to show up, the group held a vote without my knowledge. Upon my return to the meeting I was informed that I was going to be the new president as of April 1st. And to think I was nervous about talking for one minute, now I had to figure out how to fill 90 minutes.
BNI has leadership training, but nothing really prepares you for talking to a group and running a meeting. The date of my first meeting sums up my first day, April 1st. The day began feeling felt like a big April fools joke and snowballed from there. Being nervous was an understatement; I had to run a meeting plus it was to be my first 10 presentation. Each week one member gets to give a 10 minute in depth talk about their business. As if that was not enough, our waitress informed me during the meeting that the owner of the Legends Country Club (our meeting place in Eureka, Missouri) wanted to see me after the meeting was over.
After the meeting I met an older gentleman by the name of Carm Natoli, who informed me that the former leadership team had already been told that they could no longer meet at the country club, because according to the club’s rules we needed to have one of our members join the club in order to continue meeting there. I pointed out to] Mr. Natoli that we were all small business owners that could not afford at this time to join his country club and I thanked him for having us for as long as he had. However, I informed him that one day I would be back to join when I finally made it.
Carm told me that he liked me and that I was much more professional than the former leadership team. He told me he wanted people like me as members of his country club and offered me a membership for half the cost. I politely declined but thanked him anyway, besides I could barely afford to join BNI let alone an exclusive country club. To make a long story short I left owning a free membership with junior dues for life and a locker to boot; all this for just being polite and understanding his position.
Our BNI group continued to meet at the Legends Country Club for the next few years and during this time I continued to receive referrals, which soon allowed me to open my first store at #15 North 5th street in Eureka.
The coolest thing about this country club was the fact that my father-in-law and brother-in-law were both members. So for fun my wife and I called her parents and invited them out for dinner. They asked where we were going and we told them it was a surprise. When we pulled up to the Legends my father in-law quickly pulled me aside and proceeded to educate me about the etiquette of belonging to a country club.
“You cannot take someone to dinner at a country club if you are not a member,” he said. Just at the moment those words left my father-in-law’s mouth the maitre d’ said, “Mr. Kropp your table is ready.”
My father-in-law was surprised, but happy that we were members, even though he was not too happy that he had paid $25,000 for his membership.
“All
lasting business is built on friendship.”
Alfred
A. Montapert
Involve others
During my first year in BNI, my chapter went from ten members down to three. I came close to closing the chapter but my not wanting to lose attitude made me decide not to quit, and I decided to make it work; I wanted to make this work so I started to invite everyone that I met who was in business. Over the next year I personally brought my chapter up to 30 members. Now, this networking group rewards members who sponsor six members with a special black and gold badge. In the BNI organization less than 5% of all the members achieve this award.
BNISTL saw that I had a knack for recruiting new members so they hired me to be one of their first directors. The lesson that I taught was to invite every business person that you know to every meeting, because every business person can turn into a client. Every client that I talked to and found out that they were in business I’d bring to a meeting. The hardest thing to get people to understand was the “why.” Why would I go out of my way to bring people to a networking meeting? The reason is that if I can make them money, they may spend it with me. When you help make someone make money you make them happy. Give freely and don’t expect anything in return. The BNI philosophy is “GIVERS GAIN.”
If it looks too Good to Be True, It Is!
Beware the MLM (Multi Level Marketing)
You may call me a snob, but the only business people that I do not like are the ones that fall into the MLM trap. Not to say that they are bad people, but my experience with the MLMs has been nothing but trouble. Most MLMs have the ambition to be good business owners, but they lack a business. For those of you who do not know what Multi Level Marketing is I will tell you. MLM’s are people who claim to have a product to sell but when push comes to shove all they want to do is to get you to buy into their group under them and then have you get your friends and family to buy in under you. These MLM’s are pyramid schemes that offer the promise of money; the only ones to get rich are the ones at the top. I met one lady we were working for who told me that she sold cell phones. Her company was called Excel Communications. I invited her to my BNI chapter; she loved it and said she would join my chapter if I visited one of her Excel meetings. I agreed to go and to my surprise it was far worse than I expected. These meetings made The Jerry Springer show look sophisticated.
The room had over 100 people in attendance, the announcer turned on a giant boom box, some choice people stood and started clapping and before long everyone except me was standing and clapping. The lady who had invited me whispered in my ear “you have to stand up and clap.” Reluctantly I stood, but there was no way in hell that I was going to clap. The announcer started yelling over the music, telling the crowd how he had made over a million dollars with Excel. Another man shouted that he wanted some of that money, someone else yelled out in agreement. “Who wants to make a million?” more people started yelling in agreement. At this time I realized that I should have driven myself, this was going to be a very long night.
As the night rolled along I was trapped by two of the top hustlers. They told me how I would do great in their program and that they could make me rich. I told them the only thing that I wanted to sell was home theater. “That’s OK with us, just give us the name of all your clients and we will do the rest. We will make you so much money you won’t have to do a thing.” I left that meeting feeling like a rape victim, all I wanted to do was go home and wash.
Mrs. Excel joined my BNI group, and every time I saw her she would ask me if I was sure that I did not want to join. She even went as far at to call me to service her home theater system just to ambush me with the ringleaders from Excel. The last straw was when I gave her a referral to one of my big clients; he needed a cell phone so I told him about Mrs. Excel, besides what was the worst that could happen
The client called me up and proceeded to tell me about Mrs. Excel (most of the words he used to describe her were of the four letter variety). All he wanted was a phone; all she wanted to do was to get him to sell the idea of selling phones to his friends and family. After hearing this I asked her to step down from the group, which she did. I later found out that the members from my group were happy to see her leave because she had done the same thing to each of them.
http://www.mlm-beobachter.de/mlm/albania_org.htm has an article that goes into detail on how the MLM’s almost destroyed the economy of Albania. Some pyramids are even compared to Ponzi Schemes.
The Ponzi scheme
In the summer of 1920, Charles Ponzi had collected $9.5 million from 10,000 investors by selling promissory notes with the pledge of paying a 50 percent profit in 45 days. He based this promise on his postal coupon enterprise in Boston. As Ponzi paid the matured notes held by early investors, word of enormous profits spread throughout the community, whipping greedy and credulous investors into a frenzy. But there was no profit-earlier notes were paid at maturity from the proceeds of later ones. That scheme linked Ponzi's name with this particular form of fraud. A swindle of this nature is referred to as a "Ponzi scheme."
If you are reading this, and you belong to one of the groups please do not take offense, I am sure your MLM is different. Just do not ask me to join.
“Society
has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it
will get in practice.”
George
Orwell
Talk to the new people, they don’t bite
During my time as a director in BNI, I sponsored over 300 members when I stopped counting. At the time I started several new chapters and oversaw 12 BNI groups. The biggest problem that I found with these groups was that the members would develop little clicks that would sit and talk together, and forget why they were there. Visitors would come to the meeting and the members would be too busy talking amongst themselves that the visitors felt unwelcome.
I always felt that I can talk to the members of my group any time or any day I want, but if I don’t make new visitors feel welcome, why would they want to join and why would they spend money with you or me?
Think about it this way, you have two meetings. Meeting number one, you know that any time you go someplace alone you are usually nervous and it’s even worse when no one talks to you then at the end of the meeting you’re asked to spend hundreds of dollars to come back. Whereas when you go to meeting number two, and a visitor host meets you, introduces you to members and members talk to you about their experiences with the group, and then leadership introduces you during the meeting and you’re asked to tell the group about yourself aren’t you more likely to want to spend the hundreds of dollars they ask for to come back? .
Members become complacent and forget why they are at these meetings and why you, the visitor, are here. You’re here to make money and business contacts, not friends. With that said if you make friends great, but keep the friendship and non-business relationships on hold until after the meeting.
“Time
is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you
can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other
people spend it for you.”
Carl
Sandburg
What time is it?
Every member should show up at least 15 minutes early. Since visitors always shows up early. Visitors who show up late generally will not come into a meeting that is in progress. They show up early because they don’t want to get lost. This is the best time to make a first impression. I’ve picked up more clients by being early and having one-on-one time with new visitors.
Being a director, I would watch my group to see how they were performing so I would show up about 30 minutes early at every meeting. Sometimes even finding visitors already there, which gave me the opportunity to talk to them about their business and how becoming a BNI member could really help their business.
“Hell,
there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.”
Thomas
A. Edison
Take ownership
You have invested lots time and money to join a group; it is your responsibility to learn as much as you can, and make sure that the members and leadership are maximizing your investment. I have seen too many people sit back and watch bad leadership and poor members destroy a group because they were afraid to say something. You paid for it, make it work. Get involved, ask questions, and just like anything in life, if it does not seem right it is probably wrong. You are vested from the time you write your check, so if things are not going well take charge of your investment. It just like advertising, if your ad is wrong and you know it, then it is no ones fault up your own.
“Because
there's money in it, I don't work on it; I sit and think about
something else.”
Whitfield
Diffie
What to do when you receive a referral
That seems like a no brainer, but you would be surprised, in the ten plus years that I’ve been involved in networking I have literally seen millions of dollars left on the table. For some strange reason there are a lot of people that will not follow up on a referral. The reason that I found this to be is that most people give leads and not qualified referrals.
Back when my company installed satellites, I had a member named Bob C. who would pass me leads. When I’d call one of his many leads, (and they were pretty much the same for each) the person who answered did not know Bob. So I asked him about one that I received and he told me that when he picked up his son from a friend’s house he noticed that they had cable. He would then go to his sons buzz book and give me their number so that I could try to sell them a satellite.
So, who’s at fault? Bob who did not know how to pass a good referral, or me who did not make it clear that I wanted a solid referral? After talking to Bob I explained that what he had given me was a cold call, and I hate cold calling. I could pick up any white pages and pick a name; what I needed was an introduction, what I wanted was someone to be waiting on my call.
Now, the way I teach referral giving is pretty simple; every referral I give is pretty much a done deal. For instance, one of my employees “Rob” needed a mortgage specialist. So I called Dawn from the Eureka Chamber and told her what Rob needed and asked if she could help, then I passed the phone to Rob. At this point they are trying to do business and it may work out and it may not. It is now out of my hands, but I know that I passed Dawn a solid referral.
The mistake most networking members make is that they wait to pass on their referral until the meeting; by then it’s too late. If I had waited for the meeting Rob would have found another mortgage person and Dawn might have lost a good referral.
Most people are too scared to tell their network what they are looking for when it comes to their referrals. The members of your networking group are your sales team. You would never hire a salesperson and not tell them what they are selling or how to sell it, so why would you not inform your members? Once you have an educated sales team you have to make sure that you do what you said you’d do, and that is follow up. Passing referrals and receiving referrals are two edges of the same sword. If you continually give poor referrals the person receiving them will stop calling your referrals, and if you do not follow up you’ll stop getting them.
“One
of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem
before it becomes an emergency.”
Arnold
H. Glasow
Deadwood (not the HBO western)
Deadwood on a ship will cause a ship to sink. It will also destroy a networking group just as easily. So many networking groups let poor members ride because they don’t want conflict. It’s easier to let them stay and hope they will just leave, besides, you only have to see them once a week or once a month. So what is the big deal? Just do not pass them any referrals and maybe they will just go away.
The thing to remember is that all we really have in networking is our reputation and people judge you by the company you keep. Before we go further let’s define a poor member. It can be someone who does not follow up, shows up late, leaves early, talks during meetings or takes phone calls during meetings. These habits will give you insight as to how the member will perform with your referrals. It can also be bad business habits like not finishing a job or poor customer service. If at anytime you have a member like this you must, and I mean MUST, try to counsel and correct that behavior; If that does not work, have them removed from the group ASAP.
My wife was working in the international division of Mallinckrodt and she told me that she needed holiday cards for the whole international division, over a thousand cards.
So I called Bob C., who was in the ad specialty business, and he came over with his books, and my wife found the perfect card. It had the globe in gold with every flag from every country. She placed and paid for the order in August, with a nice message “happy holiday to you and your families from your friends in the states.” We were supposed to have the cards by October 15th. On December 7th we received the wrong cards and without the inscription. Needless to say, we weren’t happy, and that is just an understatement. We later found out, when I shared this story with my leadership team, they told me that they would never do business with Bob because the same thing had happened to them last year. Their silence in not reporting this to the group was just as bad, if not worse, than Bob’s business practices. They knew who and what he was, and now because of their silence my wife could have lost her job, and was totally devastated because I recommended using Bob. My solution was pretty easy and clear cut; I fired him at the next meeting. I was not going to let members who were not privy to Bob’s business practices fall into the same situation because it was easier for me not to say anything.
When it comes to making money to house, clothe, and put food on my family’s table, I would never let that happen again. When I told the group this story and I also told them that I only wanted to be surrounded by good reputable business people, people that I could trust without question, and if they were not that type of person they could get out. This is not a social group, it’s a business group; we are here to make money. We are all struggling businessmen and women; if we were rich we would not need to be here. Therefore, in any business group that you belong to, you have to surround yourself with good honest people and cut out the dead wood.
“I'm
in the business where you get the business all the time.”
Cyndi
Lauper
The ninety minute members
Every businessperson at one time or another visits some type of business group or a chamber meeting; some even join one or the other, however, most quit after a period of time. After seeing hundreds of members’ come and go, eventually you can begin to know the ones who will succeed and those who will fail. The ones who succeed are the ones who work the network and the failures are the ninety-minute members.
The easiest way to describe one is to tell you about one. We had a car salesman join our chapter. He would show up right on time and leave the moment the meeting adjourned. As the first few months of his membership passed his attitude became worse and worse.
It got to the point where our leadership team approached him and asked if he would stay for a few minutes after the meeting to talk. Unhappy with this request, he quickly informed us that he could not stay because it would put him behind schedule. So we arranged a lunch at his dealership.
At the meeting, we asked him about his bad attitude and he informed us that we had a lousy networking group, because “Other salesmen in different chapters were getting lots of referrals from their groups and in the months that he had been a member he had not received one referral, and belonging to this group was a waste of time.
We asked him why he thought he was not getting any referrals. He proceeded to tell us that our networking group did not work; if it did he would be selling more cars. He knew that three members had bought new cars and could not understand why they had not purchased their new vehicles from him.
Now it was our turn; “How many referrals have you given?” Answer, “0”.
“How many members have you had lunch with?” Answer, “0”.
“How much time have you dedicated to the group?” Answer, “90 minutes a week.”
“Really?” we asked. “So you really don’t know any of the members except what you hear from their sixty second talks?” “No.” “Do you think any of them know you? Did you know that two of the three people who bought new cars have family members who sell cars? And that the third one thought you only sold Fords?”
Anyone who joins a networking group needs to know that the meeting is just a place to educate and help tally the business that is brought in. It is a place to become a successful 24/7 member. You have to always be thinking about your group and your group will be thinking about you. You have to show that you care about someone other than yourself. Members have stopped by my store just to say, “I did not know you did home theater” and my reply is always “why not I talk about it every week.”
After years of asking the same question the most common reply is that during the sixty second chat they are thinking about what they are going to say. So, are the meetings really worthwhile? Yes, but the meetings outside of the meetings are better. You really need to get to know a person one-one. In the BNI meeting you get a glimpse as to what they do, but not as to who they really are. The more you know about someone the easier it is to refer business to that person.
“Nobody cares what you know until they know how much you care.”
Ivan Misner
“If
at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.”
Quentin
Crisp
“The member who says that they can’t give referrals”
That’s a load of bull; everyone is capable of giving referrals, the member who says such a thing is lazy. In a lot of ways they are like the ninety-minute member. Usually, they have been a member for so long that they have become like fixtures in the meeting room. My answer to them is to learn how or get out. Can you imagine hiring a salesperson who says that they can’t sell? You don’t hire them, You fire them from your business that day. This is usually allowed to happen because of weak leadership, or leadership that just wants a large group. Quantity rather than quality.
I would rather have a great group of 8 to 10 members’ than a group of 30 mediocre members. It all goes back to my earlier statement; this is business, not a social hour. Which may sound harsh, but imagine if you replace that dud with a stud or that you replace that one person who can’t give a referral with someone who is putting cash into your hand each week? Your attitude would change completely, because it is fun to make money.
“In
order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your
fear of failure.”
Bill
Cosby
How to make more money networking
Lots of business people join a network group and do all the right things. They show up early, talk to visitors, stay after the meeting to network, they have meetings outside of meetings. Still they don’t know why they are not getting the referrals that they think they should. We always talk about thinking outside the box, and networking for some is outside of the box. If we take it a step further then your networking group or Chamber you can really have fun. By fun, I really mean making money.
Let’s start by looking at who is in your business group. Most groups have a real-estate agent, mortgage broker, financial advisor, attorney, banker, ad specialty person, and so on. Most people do well from this, but with a little more work you can do better. Do you know what a “contact sphere” is? A contact sphere is a group of businesses that work in your circle. For my home theater business it is anyone who is doing work in million dollar homes, because people who work in million dollar homes usually work in more than one. Those businesses are interior designers, high-end kitchen builders, custom cabinetmakers, custom closet companies, and so on. The way I learned this was like one of those V-8 moments “wow I could have had a V-8.”
I was in California talking to Mike Garrison, an executive director in BNI, and I was telling him how I was giving a home theater bid in this 5 million dollar home in Ladue. While I was waiting for the house manager to show up, I started to talk to the guy working on their stairway banister. The guy owned the company and all they did was handrails. When I am say handrails, I’m not talking the straight wooden rail like the one in my home. I’m talking about a 70-foot spiral handrail with the most beautiful stain that you could imagine. The house manager showed up and I told the handrail guy that it was nice to meet him and off I went.
Mike then asked the million-dollar question; “So did you get to have lunch with him?” I said no. “Well did you get his card?” Again I said no, and asked why? And, he said, “wouldn’t it have been nice if every home this guy was in that he would say ’you really should use Theatrical Concepts they are really great to work with.’” It never occurred to me until that moment that if I were to have developed a relationship with the handrail guy, whether it be a business group or just one-on-one, I could have made a lot of money. All it would have taken was just a few minutes of thinking out side of the box.
For each business, it is different, and for a very few it may not work at all. For me it started by thinking about whom my clients were spending money with. I then developed relationships with all sorts of companies. I found a company that did nothing but clean chandeliers; another was a shade company called Two Blind Guys, and a window tinting company call Pro-Tint. I developed relationships with house cleaning companies, interior designers and pest control guys. Now, I did not look for just anyone, I found companies that my high-end customers were using. I would ask my customers who they were using and if they had a card, I would then call and explain what I was trying to do. Some got it and some did not, but the whole point is that I could have just gone to my monthly or weekly meeting which is only 90 minutes out of my 60 hour work week and been happy with that or I could try to make the other 58.5 hours work for me.
“Obstacles
are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your
goal.”
Henry
Ford
“I can’t afford to join”
Over the course of years my attitude has changed. Looking back I now feel sorry for all of the people that were brought in as visitors and got to see a great meeting, but then found out that they could not afford it. Where would I have been if I could not have come up the money to join? Would I still be in business? So my message is that you do not have to spend money to be a part of a networking group. It does not have to be like the old saying “it takes money to make money.” Once you find a good networking group, you want to belong. However, they tell members when they are recruiting not to talk about the cost, both time and money, but to let the meeting sell itself. So after you sat through this meeting you’re told “Surprise, we need a check in the sum of $500 for you to join.”
A lot of small business people do not have any seed cash to drop into an organized business group; all they have is a dream. Look at my first ad, $35 in the Suburban Journal. I had nothing but a dream; I did not know that I could network on my own in order to gather referrals. . All I’m saying is that you don’t have to have money to network; all you need is the desire to succeed. With time will come money and with money you can join an organized business group or Chamber of Commerce.
“We
can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”
Ronald
Reagan
Be fun to refer to
A big key when you’re starting out is to be fun to refer to. I learned this at a BNI director conference in California. I was just an assistant director and I found myself sitting in on a meeting with Ivan Misiner, founder of BNI, and a round table of some of the first BNI executives. One of my mentors, Mike Garrison, stopped by the meeting and started asking me questions about my business. His first question was one that I have heard a thousand times,” Have you ever thought about working with builders?” I told him yes we had, but it had never worked out, and blah, blah, blah. For some reason he stopped my rant, and told me that I sucked to refer to. I was speechless sitting here with all of these executives. He proceeded to inform me that I was sitting with the world’s best networkers, and that I was not giving them a chance to help me. What could it hurt to listen to what he had to say? His point was that there are a lot of people with a lot of knowledge. By shutting someone down who is trying to help because I thought his first idea was not very good or that we had looked at it already, I was losing. He may have had other good ideas, but I made him feel “Why should I bother, Lee’s not fun to refer to.” If I had listened, Mike may have had a builder that was different than the rest. So remember to be thankful if you get someone who is interested and wants to help. You may have heard the idea before but the next one might be better.
“It
usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu
speech.”
Mark
Twain
Be prepared
Just like the Boy Scout motto, “Always be prepared.” You will see unprepared speakers every time you go to a meeting where the members’ get a chance to talk. They have spent money, and they have invested time, and the one time they get to talk they sound foolish because they did not take time to prepare.
If you had sixty seconds to talk on national TV during the super bowl, would you wing it? No, you would prepare. You never know when the right person hears you say the right thing then bam; you just made a big sale.
Remember in networking it is your responsibility to educate your sales team, if you cannot talk about your business, how do you expect others to? Another way to look at it is to imagine you walking into an elevator with your dream client, would you be prepared to give him a perfect 30 to 60 second sales pitch while you’re between floors? If not then learn to because the 5 “P’s” work “proper planning prevents poor performance.
“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway”
John Wayne
Stand up and talk
This should go without saying, but if you get a chance to talk about your business take it. This happens more at Chamber meetings than at networking venues. Most networking groups and especially BNI’s have a format, they make everyone talk. Everyone gets their sixty seconds of fame and someone each week gets to do a 10 minute presentation. Chamber meetings are way easier to get out of speaking at because the meeting is more about the whole than the parts. They are more about community and the businesses place in it, and not about business growth. As a businessperson you are the face of your company.
Everyone knows the saying about how most people would rather jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet than talk in public. However, you have made the decision to make money for yourself. You are your own best tool, and as with any tool if you don’t use it, you won’t be any good with it. Any opportunity that you get to talk about your self and do not seize is wasted time and money that you will never get back. So if you get the chance, look out the door of that plane and take that 10,000 foot jump. I guarantee you’ll come out better for it.
“I saw a subliminal advertising executive-but only for a second”
Steven Wright
“Nobody's
a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better.
It's hard to stay on top.”
Paul
Coffey
Go to the trainings and be willing to be trained
One of my biggest pet peeves in BNI was the fact that so many members would sign up and spend a lot to become members. Yet they would not go to the training classes. The people doing these trainings were more often successful business people who were willing to share their knowledge about how they succeeded, and the new members not wanting to take advantage of this shared knowledge were more than a little irritating to me, not to mention the networking opportunities that they were missing out on. Every time that I ran one of the BNI advanced trainings, I would usually get at least one referral, plus the knowledge that I learned from the members who attended.
Life is constant learning; everyone that you encounter everyday is teaching and learning, most just do not know it. The trainings that are sponsored by Chamber groups and networking groups are given by people who have made it, and just want to help other business owners the way they were helped by others in the past.
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