Get Visible, Build Credibility

Bob Nicoll & Danny Bledsoe with GC producer, LuAnn Buechler

Perhaps you’ve heard about the VCP process…visibility, credibility, profitability. This subject is covered in detail in BNI Networking Secrets, available at www.bninetworkingsecrets.com. Tom Fleming tells us how you need visibility before you can start to build credibility and then turn the relationship into profitability. Too many times we meet someone and expect to move right from visibility (meeting them) to profitability (they buy from us).  Without credibility that is a transition that most likely will not happen.

A couple of weeks ago I was introduced to the IVCP – invisibility – by Mike Macedonio. Invisibility is before you meet someone, or even after you meet them if they don’t remember you! Have you ever met someone at a networking event, then three months later you run into them again and you don’t remember meeting them before? They remember you, however, and go on and on now trying to sell you their product…but wait a minute! What makes them think you will go from I to P?

Because of my position within BNI, as a Director, trainer and now consultant on the worldwide Connect project, many, many people know who I am, but I don’t know them. I might have met them once at a conference, or we connected online when they emailed me a question or they responded to a post of mine. I’m sorry I don’t know who you are, but I don’t. In this hurried world you need to connect with me as I need to be connected with, and that can be tricky.

Dr. Misner has taught us that the new Golden Rule really is, treat people how THEY want to be treated. In my case – and maybe yours too – to move from invisibility to visibility with me that means doing or saying something that has relevance to me. Danny Bledsoe is a great example.

Danny & I met at a BNI Conference in Orlando. If you were there, you know that’s when we announced the BNI Connect project and I invited 500+ people to give me their business cards and let me know that they wanted to help with the project. To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement. By the time I left to fly back to Minnesota I was drowing in information. I probably spoke with 200 people that weekend, one of whom was Danny. We spoke for a few minutes about young people (he’s in his 20’s, I’m not) texting while they should be paying attention to the speaker in the room. We spoke for maybe 3 minutes.

Six months later, at the BNI International Convention, Danny “cornered me” at the Director’s cocktail party. I hate to admit it, but I didn’t remember him until he mentioned what we talked about. Danny ended up being one of only two non-National BNI Directors I met with at conference. Why? Because he was so sincere in his flattery of a website I have, www.memoryhooks.com. Turns out Danny has a passion for memory hooks. In fact that was a reason he agreed to be an Assistant Director – so he could help more people with their memory hooks.

So what did he want? He wanted to help me. He realized that the MH site had been neglected, figured out that I didn’t have the time nor passion to keep it up-to-date, and offered to redo it and keep it updated. To make it more than what it is now. To take something off my hands that had been nagging at me for a couple of years. No charge, nothing to do at my end other than approve, and he would make the site come alive again.

How cool was that? So I said yes! I’d love your help. And he followed up afterward via email, and the site will soon be live under his watchful guidance. Whew.

There’s more about Danny to tell. We did a little event recently, GetConnected09.com. Perhaps you know that a bunch of high-powered people met up during International Networking Week in Florida last month? Anyway, Danny wanted to come, but the price was stopping him. So he called to offer his services. How could he help in return for a ticket to the event? Wow! How cool was that? So we said YES! and Danny was simply great. He was there all weekend whenever and for whatever we needed. Now Danny is part of the GC team, and we see a great future together.

Okay, so what’s the point? The point is Givers Gain. Danny offered help (unlike about 40 of those 200 people who tried to sell me something in Orlando) and because of that he has become a trusted partner. I will do whatever I can to help him with his business, and will continue to help him achieve his goals.

What have you done lately to move yourself from I to V before you start expecting C and P? What can you do this week to help a prospect, with nothing more in mind than helping them achieve their goals? At GC09 many of the speakers talked about calling 5 of your clients, just touching base, asking how you can help them. Not with what you are selling, but with the connections you have. Their basement just flooded? Connect them with cleaners, carpenters, new insurance agent. Pregnant? The connections are almost limitless. Phone system or computer network giving them fits? You know just the people who can help them.

Move from Visibility and build up some Credibility this week. It will turn into Profitability soon enough, if you just remember, Givers Gain.