Take a Moment to Think Again Episode
Synopsis
A "Brody Moment" is where you have a shockingly unambiguous realization that the current resources are no longer a viable option to achieve the results that you're looking for. What you do as a result, and how fast you do it, can turn a Brody Moment into a defining moment.
Dr. Misner had a Brody Moment about BNI in 1986, when BNI had 30 chapters and he realized it could get to 10,000 chapters—if he created a plan to scale the business. BNI reached 10,000 chapters in 2020.
What are some of the epiphanies that you've had in business? Do you have a plan to scale your business? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Complete Transcript of Episode 753
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. And 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 and where are you?
Ivan:
I'm still Zooming around the world, Priscilla. I've been to a number of states in the U.S. including Vermont. I've been to India, Canada, Europe. I'm really looking forward to going out and seeing people in-person. And I know we have the [BNI] U.S. Conference coming up and I plan on being there live and in-person really soon.
Priscilla:
When is that conference?
Ivan:
That is the week of April 28 through 30th. So there might still by the time this podcast comes out, there might be an opening or two if you're listening and you want to go to the U.S. Conference.
Priscilla:
Okay, great.
Ivan:
So today's an interesting topic, You're Going to Need a Bigger Boat. In the 1975 hit movie, "JAWS," Martin Brody, the police chief of a really small summer resort in the Northeastern U.S., utters probably one of the most quotable lines in film history when he gets his first close-up look of the great white shark. Remember that moment, Priscilla?
Priscilla:
I think I do. Yeah.
Ivan:
And as soon as he sees it, he slowly backs into the wheelhouse and he says to Captain Quinn, "You're gonna need a bigger boat." And this is what I like to call the prototypical Brody Moment, with Martin Brody, the police chief. It's where you have a shockingly unambiguous realization that the current resources are no longer a viable option to achieve the results that you're looking for.
And so let me explain how my Brody Moment came about with BNI. And I've talked about this a little bit in different podcasts, but I'm going to put it all together here. But the most important thing for you to think about as I talk about my Brody Moment is your Brody Moment, as you listen to mine. You know, understanding your Brody Moment can help you think about your motivations, and move you forward successfully with your entrepreneurial endeavors. You're thinking about what's it going to take to have a bigger opportunity to move your business or scale your business along.
My Brody Moment for BNI came at the end of 1985. After about 11 months, 11½ months, of opening up BNI groups, I'd opened 20 chapters. And I'd really done it by accident, without a plan, without even trying. And that's when I realized that I had struck a chord in the business community. I was a management consultant in Southern California, and I needed referrals for my consulting practice. I needed referrals for my own business, and I'd hoped that I would be able to refer some of my friends. So I put together a group where I could start passing business to them. And hopefully, they would do the same for me.
I had previously gone to networks, and I've mentioned this briefly in some other podcasts, where they were incredibly mercenary – everyone was trying to sell to me. And I went to other groups that were totally social, happy hour, and hors d'oeuvres, and there was no business happening. What I wanted was something to focus on business without being mercenary. It was relational, not transactional, something that at the same time wasn't totally social, because I wanted the relationship building aspect that led the business. Therefore, I created a network that I hoped would satisfy both of those considerations. I wanted to merge that focus on business with the relational aspect and the glue that would hold it all together is our principal Core Value of Givers Gain® — the idea that if I help you, you help me, we can both benefit one another by working together.
That one networking group led to another and another until there were 20 chapters within 11 or 12 months. And that first year, you know, I was method-acting my way through the process. I was trying to figure it out as I went. I was a young 28-year-old business professional. And I really thought that most businesses had this figured out. The thing is, I learned that nobody had it figured out because we don't teach this in colleges and universities anywhere in the world. What I didn't expect to find was that everyone has this challenge. And that was my Brody Moment.
Ivan:
To me, BNI was an example of necessity being the mother of invention. And it helped a lot of businesses. At the end of 1985, I figured out that I was going to need a bigger boat. And this way of business networking was going to be much larger than I anticipated. So I sat down, and I created my business plan to scale the company. And I touched upon this, I think, in a previous podcast, but to be more specific, it was June of 1986. And I had a goal in mind as to how big BNI could be someday and I went to the library to gather information on populations. Now 1986 – remember, at that time, there was no such thing as Google. And so after extensive research and many calculations, I felt that BNI could someday have 10,000 chapters.
And shortly after that, I told a friend of mine that I think that BNI could have 10,000 groups someday. He said, "10,000." I said, "Yeah, I think that's possible". And he said, "Well, and how many groups do you have now, Ivan?" And this is like June of 86. I said, "30." He said, "You think you can have 10,000?" I said, "Yeah, I think it's possible." And he said, "Well, it's good to have goals, Ivan." And that was a BIG goal.
Every year near the end of December, and I've talked about this in a lot of my podcasts, I take time to reflect. That particular year I read "The E-Myth" by Michael Gerber early on and I used it as a baseline strategy. I looked at what was working well and what didn't work at all. And each year, I adjusted my plan and revisited the small goals that were all striving towards that one big goal of scaling my company into a global enterprise. In December 2020, in the middle of the craziest years I have ever seen in business, BNI achieved that big goal. We had grown to 10,000 chapters, and we continue to grow, helping BNI members around the world, do business through referral marketing.
Ivan:
As a business leader, you've probably experienced a few Brody Moments over the course of your career. And you've probably got a few more coming. What you do as a result, and how fast you do it, can turn a Brody Moment into a defining moment. And so, I ask you to think about what are some of the epiphanies that you've had in business? Comment on them here in this podcast.
And if you haven't had a Brody Moment like I'm describing, sit down and think about your business and what's it going to take to scale your business. How are you going to do it? How are you going to build that bigger boat to help you scale your business? And it doesn't have to be global. Certainly, when I was thinking about BNI back then, I wasn't thinking of it in global perspective. I was thinking of it in a national perspective. International came later. But I still had my Brody Moment. And I still realized that I could create a plan to scale my business. And that's what we all need to do, even if it's scaling it locally, or regionally. Scaling your business is what entrepreneurship is really, to a large extent, about. And that's my message for today. Priscilla, do you have any thoughts or questions?
Priscilla:
Do I have any thoughts or questions? I have thoughts, definitely. But I was trying to think if I had a Brody Moment, and I don't scale my business, Ivan, it's one recording studio. But I did change what we're doing here at the studio and focus on something a little bit different, which is doing a narration recording and audio books primarily.
Ivan:
Yeah, well, those are ways to scale your business. You've also transitioned from, you know, doing a lot of things by telephone to, we're using Zencaster to record these now. And you can tell the quality is, I think, substantially better. But taking on different products like, you know, voiceovers and reading. You said, book material; you're doing book readings?
Priscilla:
We're doing audio books for lots of publishers.
Ivan:
Audiobooks, yeah. So those are things that you can do to scale your business. And the more all of us can sit down and think about – how do we change during these changing times? – the more effective we're going to be at scaling our business and pivoting our business. You know, it was back in 2018 that I wrote my first public article, I'd been talking about it for two years before that, but I wrote my first public article that the future of in-person networking was online. And, you know, the pushback on that concept was dramatic back in 2018. But I knew it was inevitable. And what I also believe to be true, is that it will also help to scale BNI even further. Because creating it as an online platform, even in a hybrid form, or fully online form, is going to make it easier and easier and easier for business people to participate.
And so the kinds of things that you want to think about, not just you, Priscilla, but anyone listening to this podcast, are how can you do things that utilize current technology that enable you to have a bigger impact on your business? And you can have one location and still be able to scale to a larger extent in that one location. So that's what I ask everyone to think about. And certainly, I think, decent food for thought, Priscilla.
Priscilla:
I think that's a great thing to be considering. And I appreciate it. It's a great topic.
Ivan:
That's everything that I have today.
Priscilla:
Okay, then. Thank you so much, Ivan. This podcast is sponsored by www.misneraudioprograms.com. These audio programs will provide you with the tools and the inspiration to powerfully enhance your BNI experience and help you boost your business. So check out the great material available to you at www.misneraudioprograms.com and use the promo code IVAN50 [this code is good for a limited time] for 50% off of all the audio programs. And all of the proceeds are going to go to the BNI Foundation. So 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.
Source: https://www.bnipodcast.com/2022/04/13/episode-753-youre-going-to-need-a-bigger-boat/
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