In this BNI Education Slot, Darren Jamieson delivers a detailed and practical guide to crafting impactful weekly presentations that generate referrals.

He begins by addressing a common challenge faced by many BNI members: knowing what to say and how to say it effectively. Drawing on his extensive experience in public speaking and coaching, Darren introduces a structured formula designed to make presentations both memorable and results-driven.

https://youtu.be/EFcJ2Yk8YKM

The foundation of this approach is the “hook,” also known as a pattern interrupt. Darren explains that the opening words of a presentation are the most critical, as they determine whether the audience pays attention or disengages. By breaking away from the standard introductions used by most members, speakers can immediately stand out.

He then explores the use of props as a powerful tool to reinforce this hook. When used correctly and tied directly to the message, props can make presentations more engaging and easier to remember.

Appearance and delivery are also highlighted as important factors. Darren demonstrates how aligning clothing and presentation style with the message can strengthen the overall impact.

Storytelling forms the core of the presentation structure. By sharing relatable examples, client stories, or scenarios, speakers can clearly communicate what they do, who they help and the results they achieve.

When it comes to referrals, Darren challenges the traditional idea that “specific is terrific.” Instead, he emphasizes the importance of clearly explaining why someone would want to speak to you, focusing on the benefits to the other person rather than your own objectives.

Finally, he stresses the importance of confidence and connection. He strongly advises against reading from notes, highlighting eye contact as a key element in engaging an audience and building trust.

The session concludes with several real-life examples of his own BNI presentations, illustrating how the framework can be applied in practice.

Overall, Darren presents a clear, actionable structure that enables BNI members to deliver more engaging, memorable and effective 60-second presentations.

Full Transcript

[0:00] Darren Jamieson:
I’m going to share with you a guaranteed step-by-step formula that you can use in your weekly presentations in BNI that will get you referrals and will get you remembered.

[0:18] Darren:
What I’m going to do today is go through a number of weekly presentations that I have done in my BNI chapter over the last couple of months, recorded purely for the benefit of this video. I’m going to show you some of those 60-seconds presentations and exactly how I constructed them, what formula I used, and how you can use a similar formula for yourself.

[0:49] Darren:
A lot of people, when they deliver a presentation in BNI, don’t know what to say. They don’t know how to address what it is that they do, what service they offer, what product they offer, who they’re looking to speak to, or how to get an introduction. It’s not something that’s really taught in school. It’s not taught in business.

[1:15] Darren:
How do you deliver a weekly presentation? How do you deliver a 60 seconds and get it to land so that it generates results?

[1:24] Darren:
I’ve had a lot of training in this. I’ve had a lot of public speaking training. I’ve had a lot of coaching. I’ve had a lot of practice. I’ve had a lot of experience. And I know most people haven’t had that. I wouldn’t expect other people to have that as well.

[1:37] Darren:
That’s why I’m going to give you the benefit of what I have learned and what I have created over the years, so that other people can use this formula for their own presentations.

[1:46] Darren:
The first step I want you to pay attention to, and note down, is that the very first thing out of your mouth when you deliver your weekly presentation is the absolute most important thing that you can say. The first words you utter are the most important thing you say.

[2:03] Darren:
That is called the hook, or the pattern interrupt. If you’re in a chapter of 20, 30, 40, however many it is, and everybody is standing up and the vast majority of people are saying, “Hi, my name’s I’m an accountant,” or “Hi, my name’s Tim and I’m a financial advisor,” or “My name’s Jeff and my company is XYZ Printing,” and you do the same thing, you are just going to blend into the monotony.

[2:29] Darren:
You need to break the flow. You need to say something that is going to make people go, “Oh, I need to listen to this person.”

[2:45] Darren (examples of hooks):
This is a Scottish Claymore, the sword of Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod from the movie Highlander.

[3:03] Darren (example hook):
Usain Bolt. It’s like he’s in the room, isn’t it? It’s like he’s in the room.

[3:06] Darren:
Didn’t win eight Olympic gold medals after just one training session.

[3:14] Darren:
As you can see from those, they’re a little bit different. I did not stand up and say, “This is my name and this is what I do.” I did not introduce myself. I did not say good morning to the chapter.

[3:30] Darren:
If you say good morning, you will just blend in with everybody else. You need to say a pattern interrupt. You need to say something that is going to grab people’s attention.

[3: Darren:
This is absolutely critical. I’ve seen some people try to do this the wrong way. There’s no point standing up and doing a pattern interrupt if it’s not relevant to what you’re about to say or relevant to what you do.

[3:55] Darren:
Don’t stand up there and say something completely unrelated, or tell a joke, or do something completely devoid of what you do. In each one of those things that I talked about, I related it to my business. I then went on to say this is what I do and how I do it, or what I’m looking for and how I do this.

[4:20] Darren:
Make sure it’s relevant. The pattern interrupt needs to be something that is going to stop other people in their tracks, get them to pay attention to you, and get them to listen to you.

[4:37] Darren:
So that’s the first thing: hook. Create some kind of hook, some kind of pattern interrupt. Do something different that’s going to get people to listen. Those first words are absolutely critical.

[4:45] Darren:
The second tip I can give you is that if you can use props, it is a great way to create a pattern interrupt without you having to try too hard.

[4:54] Darren:
In a couple of the weekly presentations I delivered, I had some props. In one, I had a Scottish claymore sword. Be very careful if you carry one of those around. It could get you into trouble.

[5:10] Darren:
In another, I had an American football in my hand, which I pretended I was going to throw at somebody across the audience.

[5:19] Darren:
In another one, I had a magic lamp. I bought a magic lamp in Turkey. I’d always wanted a magic lamp. I’m going to develop this into a full-on talk later in the year.

[5:26] Darren:
So let’s use the magic lamp and relate it to digital marketing. If you can get a prop and work it into your 60 seconds, or into your weekly presentation, it’s going to work really well for you.

[5:34] Darren:
But again, make sure it’s relevant. Don’t just have something for the sake of it.

[5:42] Darren:
Don’t have an inflatable daffodil or something and say, “Oh, I’m Welsh. It’s St. David’s Day. This is what I’ve got,” and then talk about something else because it’s not going to link.

[5:49] Darren:
It’s important that when somebody remembers what you did and they remember the prop that you had in your hand, that they can then make that leap back into what it is that you actually do.

[6:08] Darren:
When I held the magic lamp up, I talked about making wishes genie, the digital marketing genie, and what businesses would wish for if they had a magic lamp: more traffic, more Google inquiries, that sort of thing.

[6:26] Darren:
The third tip I can give you is what you actually wear and how you present yourself.

[6:34] Darren:
If you’ll notice in the one where I talked about the Super Bowl, dressed in a San Francisco 49ers football jacket and carrying an American football.

[6:51] Darren:
When I sang (and I use the term sing very loosely), I was dressed in a tuxedo with a bow tie hanging down from my neck.

[6:58] Darren:
If you can wear something that enforces what it is that you were going to do, it is going to help you.

[7:06] Darren:
Whereas, if you’re just dressed in what you would normally dress and you do something that’s a bit abstract, it’s going to be a mismatch.

[7:14] Darren:
The more you can commit to what it is you’re going to say or how you’re going to present, the more it’s likely to work.

[7:22] Darren:
Think about what you’re going to wear. Think about the whole ensemble about what you were going to talk about.

[7:30] Darren:
Your story is important. In each of the presentations that I delivered, I gave a story about what it is that I was doing or what I was looking for.

[7:38] Darren:
When I crept up behind another member as though I was stalking him and pounced on him, I then went on and explained how it’s important to stalk people within Facebook advertising because retargeting ads are really important.

[7:58] Darren:
When I talked about Highlander and being the only one, I related it to Google in the fact that if somebody is looking for what you’re doing, there is only one that they can find.

[8:06] Darren:
I kept relating it back to Highlander and to Google to make sure the synergy of the sword that I was carrying was relevant to what I was talking about.

[8:14] Darren:
Tell a story about your business, your service, your product, or a client that you help, and relate it back to your hook and what you are carrying.

[8:31] Darren:
Tell a brief story about what you do, who you help, what results you’ve got, and how it works. That’s going to get people interested.

[8:38] Darren:
At the end of this, you want to talk about who it is you’re actually looking to speak with.

[8:46]nDon’t get hung up on what BNI teaches you: specific is terrific. You don’t necessarily have to come up with a specific person that you want an introduction to.

[9:06] Darren:
In my weekly presentations I am very rarely specific. In the examples I’ve shown you here, I am not specific.

[9:20] Darren:
Sometimes I may mention a particular industry that works particularly well. For example, I talked about escape rooms because I was interested in working with escape rooms.

[9:36] Darren:
But you don’t have to go that far. If your business works with any kind of person, then you can do that. You do not have to be specific.

[9:44] Darren:
But what is absolutely critical, and this is where most people go wrong, is that while you do not need to be specific on who you are looking for, you do need to be specific on why you are looking for them and why they want to speak to you.

[10:01] Darren:
That is the key: why do they want to speak to you? What benefit is there in them speaking to you?

[10:19] Darren:
When your fellow BNI members introduce you to the person or business you want, why would they want to speak to you? What are they going to get out of it?

[10:41] Darren:
So those are the basic tips for doing a weekly presentation: make sure you’ve got a pattern interrupt, a hook. Do not say what everybody else says.

[10:55] Darren:
If you can stand out, you are going to be remembered. People will pay attention.

[11:00] Darren:
If you have a habit of doing that, people will look forward to your 60 seconds because they know you’re going to do something different.

[11:18] Darren:
Make sure that you tell a story. Tell a story about what it is that you do, how it helps people. Give examples, specifics, and results.

[11:26] Darren:
If you have a prop, please use it. If you have some kind of dress or costume that you can apply, that’s even better.

[11:34] Darren:
You don’t need to be specific about who you’re trying to speak with, but you do need to be specific about why somebody wants to speak with you.

[11:48] Darren:
There is one final thing I want to leave you with. Not everybody is confident speaking in public. That’s fine.

[12:09] Darren:
Do not read your 60 seconds. Do not read it. There is nothing as disengaging as somebody looking at their phone while they’re speaking and not making eye contact.

[12:24] Darren:
Eye contact is the most powerful weapon that you’ve got. If you make eye contact with somebody when you are speaking, they know you are speaking to them.

[12:41] Darren:
You cannot make eye contact if you are reading something off your phone or reading off a piece of paper.

[12:58] Darren:
You don’t have to remember a script word for word. No one knows what you’re about to say.

[13:06] Darren:
If you make a mistake, the only person that’s going to know is you. Don’t worry about it.

[13:20] Darren:
You should have your hook ingrained into your mind anyway. You do not need to read that.

[13:29] Darren:
If you’re standing up and reading, “Hello, my name is Darren and my company is Engage Web,” then there are bigger problems. You should not be reading your own name and company off a sheet of paper.

[13:48] Darren:
Never stand up and read your own name and your own company off a sheet of paper.

[14:03] Darren:
Don’t worry about forgetting something because nobody is going to know other than you.

[14:10] Darren:
Stand up. Make eye contact. Use your hook. Say it loud and proud. Remember the key points.

[14:21] Darren:
You do not need to know word for word.

[14:26] Darren:
Have that structure in your head: hook/pattern interrupt, story, the people you want to speak to, and why they want to speak to you.

[14:40] Darren:
If you have a name and you need to write it down, that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with referring to a name off a piece of paper.

[14:48] Darren:
If you’ve got just an industry, you don’t need to write it down.

[14:56] Darren:
Have the people you want to speak to and why they want to speak to you, and that’s the structure for your weekly presentation.

[15:04] Darren:
That’s the structure I have been using over the past couple of months, and that is why they work, why people remember it, and why you get referrals and others do not.

[15:13] Darren:
Hope you’ve. Please don’t forget to subscribe. Please let me know if you’ve got any questions, or anything you would like as a future education slot.

[15:24] Darren (example weekly presentation: Highlander):
This is a Scottish Claymore, the sword of Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod from the movie Highlander.

In that film, a race of immortals train throughout history to battle each other through time until only one remains, because in Highlander there can be only one.

Which is exactly the same as your website in Google. When someone is looking for what you do at the top of Google, there can be only one.

If you’re not working on your website every day, practicing on it, improving it, adding content, then it’s not going to be you.

So, I am looking for business owners who want to be the one, but they want someone else to do the work for you.

I’m Darren from Engage Web. There can be only one. Is it going to be you, or is it going to be one of your competitors?

[16:24] Darren (example weekly presentation: magic lamp):
My name is Darren, my company is Engage Web, and this is a digital marketing magic lamp.

Most business owners would rub their magic lamp and say, “Oh, powerful genie, I would like to rank higher on Google.” But that is not what they really want.

So they rub their magic lamp again and they say, “Oh, powerful genie, for my second wish, I would like more traffic to my website.” But that is not what they really want
So then they rub their magic lamp again and they say, “Oh, powerful genie, Iwould like more inquiries through my website.” But that is also not what they really want.

That’s because most business owners don’t really know what to wish for. And most all-powerful digital marketing genies or companies only give you what you ask for.

In Engage Web, we ignore your rankings. We ignore your traffic. We ignore your inquiries because we focus on what’s really important to you, which is usually paying customers.

At Engage Web, we don’t build websites, we build businesses.

[17:22] Darren (example weekly presentation: training/SEO):
Usain Bolt. It’s like he’s in the room, isn’t it? It’s like he’s in the room. Didn’t win eight Olympic gold medals after just one training session.

Novak Djokovic didn’t win 24 tennis grand slam titles after one practice game.

And your website is not going to beat your competitors because someone has sprinkled a little bit of SEO on it. So why do businesses think that? It’s because your web designers lied to you.

They tell you that websites include SEO, which is a physical impossibility.

If you’re going to be an Olympic gold medalist or a tennis grand slam champion, or beat your competition online, it requires effort. It requires dedication. It requires daily work.

Which is why I want to speak to business owners that have been told, lied to by their web designers, that their website includes SEO. It categorically does not. It is impossible.

That’s Darren from Engage Web. We don’t build websites, we build businesses.

[18:18] Darren (example weekly presentation: escape rooms):
I love locking my kids in a dark room and seeing if they can get out. Now, some people call that child abuse. I call that escape rooms because we are addicted to escape rooms in our household.

But the one thing I don’t like is actually booking an escape room on their often useless websites because it’s usually more difficult than the escape room itself.

If you try to book an escape room on a website and you want to book a second room, you have to run through two separate transactions, mostly, which is awful usability.

So, I would like to speak to owners of escape rooms. There are loads in Chester. There’s loads across the Northwest.

Ask them: when someone uses your website to book an escape room, does your website suggest to them, “Would you like to book a second escape room before or after?”

And when they say no, say: “Well, would you like it to do that? Because that would dramatically increase youraverage order value.”

Then introduce them to Darren from Engage Web, because we don’t build websites, we build businesses.

[19:16] Darren (example weekly presentation: retargeting/stalking):
I love to stalk people, to creep up behind them when they least expect it and pounce on them.

And I think you should love to do it too, particularly within your business, because stalking people is very, very profitable.

Because if you are running any kind of digital advertising, whether it be pay-per-click via Google Ads, content marketing, search marketing, or email marketing, and someone visits your website and they don’t inquire with you or buy from you then and there,they’ve gone.

If you are running a Facebook retargeting ad which shows only to them, it is extremely low cost and very high converting.

For example, one of our clients throughout the whole of last year ran a retargeting ad which cost about £2,100 for the whole year and over £34,000 in revenue from that one ad. It takes a few minutes to set up and it is very low maintenance. You’re leaving money on the table if you’re not doing it.

That’s Darren from Engage Web. We don’t build websites, we build businesses.

[20:24] Darren (example weekly presentation: Super Bowl leads):
This weekend I was watching the Super Bowl very late at night. It was a very boring game and my team wasn’t in it, but never mind. I watched it anyway
At 3:00 in the morning, midway through the fourth quarter, when it was getting really dull, I started scrolling onmy phone. And I noticed an inquiry come through to Engage Web for somebody that needed more business via their website.

That was one of 19 inquiries we received over that weekend period through a Facebook ad asking people if they needed help with their digital marketing.

And we had a £10 per day budget on that Facebook ad.

So I am looking for more businesses that want high-quality, low-cost leads through their website.

Just kidding. I’m not going to throw it.

That’s Darren from Engage Web.

[21:30] Darren (example weekly presentation: Rat Pack / Map Pack):
Fly me to the moon. Let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.

That, as you probably know, is a song by Frank Sinatra, part of the Rat Pack with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. And they dress a little bit like this.

But whether or not you’ve heard of the Rat Pack, you should have heard of the map pack. That is the listing at the top of Google with maps when somebody searches for a particular service in a particular area.

Research shows that you might be getting up to% of your organic search traffic from the map pack.

So I’m looking to speak with businesses that do not appear in the map pack. Introduce them to Darren from Engage Web and I will help them to fly them to the top, let them close up the gaps, and let them see what traffic is like from Google Maps.

That’s Darren from Engage Web.Thank you very much