In this BNI Education Slot, Darren Jamieson explains eight common ways BNI members waste their weekly presentation and reduce their chances of receiving referrals.

https://youtu.be/FBg4gRwcD_Q

He begins by pointing out that many members who feel they are not getting enough from BNI may be making one or more of these mistakes during their 60-second presentation. The weekly presentation is a regular opportunity to educate the room, ask for specific referrals and help other members understand how to support you. When it is wasted, referral opportunities are lost.

The first mistake Darren discusses is skipping the weekly presentation because it is also the member’s feature presentation week. He argues that this is a wasted opportunity. Even if a member is delivering a five or ten-minute presentation later in the meeting, they should still use their weekly presentation to ask for something specific.

The second mistake is giving the same presentation every week. Darren explains that when members repeat the same message again and again, other members stop listening. If people already know what is coming, they mentally switch off, which means the presentation no longer has any impact.

The third mistake is failing to be specific. Darren clarifies that being specific does not always mean naming one exact person, because some professions cannot easily do that. However, every member should still give the room a clear action, question, situation, or trigger to listen out for during the week.

The fourth mistake is what Darren calls the “engineer’s approach”. This happens when members in technical industries explain the details of what they do in a way that other people do not understand. He notes that while this detail may be important to the person delivering the presentation, it does not help the room identify referrals. Instead, members should focus on how they help people and what they are looking for.

The fifth mistake is irrelevant waffle. Darren warns against using a weekly presentation to talk about personal stories, jokes, holidays or other topics that are not connected to the referral being requested. With limited time available, every part of the presentation needs to support the goal.

The sixth mistake is assuming everyone already knows what you do. Darren highlights that this is especially problematic when visitors are in the room. Even regular members may need reminding and visitors may have no idea who the speaker is or what service they provide.

The seventh mistake is starting with your name and business. Darren acknowledges that this is often taught as a standard BNI approach, but he argues that it wastes the opening seconds of the presentation. Instead, he recommends using a pattern interrupt to grab attention immediately.

The eighth and final mistake is cramming in too much. Darren explains that asking for several names, listing several services or giving too many instructions creates confusion. A weekly presentation should focus on one thing only. When people are given too many actions, they are unlikely to take any of them.

Darren concludes by encouraging BNI members to avoid these eight mistakes and to help others in their chapter avoid them too. By making weekly presentations clearer, more focused and more actionable, members can improve their chances of generating more referrals.

Full Transcript

0:13
Here’s eight ways you can give your weekly presentation and completely waste it.

0:17
Now, I see these all of the time. I see at least one of these once a week in my own chapter. I see them in chapters that I visit.

0:25
And when members do one of these eight things, they are wasting their weekly presentation. They are wasting their opportunity to get referrals from other members.

0:33
When members say things like, “Oh, I’m not getting enough from BNI. I’m not getting the referrals from BNI. I don’t know why BNI is not working,” chances are they’re doing one of these eight things in their weekly presentation.

0:45
And the first one is a real bugbear of mine. It’s when somebody has their feature presentation that week. They’re doing their 10 minutes or their five minutes, or however long it is in your chapter, and they stand up for their weekly presentation and say, “It’s my feature presentation this week, so I won’t say anything today.”

1:05
And they sit down again.

1:07
What an absolute waste of time that is.

1:09
They have just passed on their opportunity to tell the room what they are looking for, to focus on a particular service, or a particular product, or a particular referral that they want, and ask for that. And they’ve just skipped it.

1:21
And the fact that they’ve stood up and said, “I won’t say anything this week,” has wasted people’s time anyway.

1:26
Why would you pass up on an opportunity to ask for something specific in your BNI meeting because it’s your feature presentation?

1:35
Anyone who does that needs to be told, “No, don’t do that. Never do that. Always take that weekly presentation opportunity, even when it’s your 10 minutes, because you will not get that opportunity again. You’ve just wasted it for the whole week.”

1:50
Another thing that people do, number two, would be giving the same 60 seconds, the same weekly presentation, every single week.

1:58
This frustrates the hell out of me because when someone stands up and they deliver the same presentation every week, you know what they’re going to say. You don’t need to listen to them. You don’t need to write anything down. You don’t need to pay attention.

2:11
You can mentally switch off because they are about to parrot off the exact same thing they said last week, the week before, the week before that, and they’ll say it again next week.

2:21
If you say the same thing every week, people will not be listening to you. They will understand that they don’t have to listen to you.

2:29
So, please do not deliver the same presentation every single week because it just doesn’t work.

2:37
Number three, not being specific.

2:40
If you give a weekly presentation and you are not specific on what you want someone to do, now that doesn’t have to be a name of a potential referral. Don’t get me wrong, not everybody can be specific on a name.

2:52
There are some industries where you can’t do that. So financial advisers, for example, often can’t ask for a very specific person. So, it’s a type of person that they want.

3:01
But they can ask for a specific thing they want you to do, whether that’s to listen out for a particular question this week, listen out for a particular thing that could get on the referral, pay attention to observe something in people’s office or in client meetings, to ask a particular question to people, to take a particular action.

3:20
Whatever it is, you should give somebody something specific to either do, or listen out for, or to say that week.

3:28
If you’re not doing that and people aren’t writing something down when it’s your 60 seconds, then you’ve kind of wasted it.

3:37
Number four, what I like to call the engineer’s approach.

3:40
Now, engineers are great at what they do. They love what they do with a passion, but the problem is they often love what they do with a passion so much they talk about it in great detail and other people don’t understand it.

3:52
So if you are in a technical job, or a job that has a lot of intricacies, and you stand up and you talk about that technicality, or those intricacies, or how something works, you’re not helping people find you referrals.

4:06
Now, IT companies sometimes do this. They’ll stand up and they’ll talk about the technology that they work with, or the technology that they help their clients with, and it doesn’t help other people in the room get them referrals because they don’t understand what it is they’re actually saying.

4:22
So, if you stand up and talk about what you do rather than what you’re looking for and how you help people, it’s not going to work. It’s not going to get you referrals.

4:32
Number five, irrelevant waffle or personal circumstance, or just talking about stuff that isn’t relevant to your business.

4:40
I see this so often. Someone will stand up and they’ll talk about what they did that week that isn’t even related to their business, or they’ll tell a joke to get attention that isn’t related to their business, or they’ll talk about a holiday they’ve just had and they’re not a travel agent.

4:58
If you start putting in personal stuff into your 60 seconds that is not related to the referral you’re looking for, or the introduction you’re looking for, or the service that you’re talking about, then you’re wasting time.

5:10
You have to be concise in what you want, what you want someone to do, and what you’re looking for.

5:16
There is no time for you to waffle about something else. If you’re doing that every week, then chances are you’re not getting the referrals, and there’s no good you complaining about it afterwards because it’s just not going to work.

5:28
Number six, someone who stands up and says, “You all know what I do,” or they don’t even tell you what they’re looking for, what they do, or even what their service is.

5:41
I’ve seen this a lot.

5:43
It’s particularly bad when there’s visitors in the room because if you assume that everyone in the room knows what you do because you go to that meeting every week, you see the same people every week, then there’s going to be five, six, seven people in the room who have no idea who you are or what you do.

5:59
So, you should never say, “You all know what I do. I won’t tell you what I do or what I’m looking for because you all know it.”

6:06
You assume people know. They don’t. So, please don’t do that either.

6:12
Number seven, this is what BNI tells you to do, so I’ve got to be careful slagging this one off, but it is when you start off with your name and your business.

6:22
If you say, “Hi, my name is Darren from Engage Web,” you are wasting the first five seconds of your 60 seconds when people should be paying attention to what you want.

6:32
People should be hit with what I call the pattern interrupt, which I’ve talked about in other 60 seconds.

6:39
And if you mention your name and your business, and everybody says their name and their business right at the beginning, everyone follows the same pattern. It’s very, very dull. People will not listen.

6:50
They will know they don’t have to pay attention for the first couple of seconds because everyone’s doing the same thing. You shouldn’t do that.

6:59
You should be doing the pattern interrupt so that people are listening to you, so that you grab people’s attention straight away. I’ve recorded Ed Slots on that before.

7:07
So don’t start with your name and your business because that is not a good way to start a presentation, to start a talk, to get people’s attention.

7:15
And finally, number eight, when you cram in too much.

7:20
If you have a full 60 seconds in your chapter, it can be tempting to try and get in all of those services that you’re looking for, all of those names that you want.

7:28
But if you ask for more than one name, if you’re going for two names or three names, nobody’s going to be able to write those down. There isn’t going to be enough time.

7:37
If you start cramming in all the different services that you want — we do this, and then we do this, and we do this, and we do this — people aren’t going to write that down. They’re not going to remember it.

7:47
Every single weekly presentation should focus on one thing and one thing only.

7:53
This particular service that you do, this is what you want people to listen out for. Or this particular name I want an introduction to. This is how you speak to them.

8:02
One thing and one thing only.

8:04
Because if you give people too many things to do, too many instructions, they are going to get confused and they’re not going to do any of them.

8:11
Because remember the phrase, a confused mind doesn’t buy.

8:15
And while you may not be selling anything in your 60 seconds, you are selling the fact that you want someone to take action. You want someone to do something for you.

8:22
And if you give them too many things, too many actions, too many names, they are not going to do any of them.

8:28
So focus your 60 seconds, your weekly presentation, on one thing and one thing only for it to work.

8:33
So there, that’s eight things that people do in their weekly presentations that can probably result in them not getting the referrals that they want.

8:41
So, make sure you’re not doing any of those eight things. Make sure the members in your chapter are not doing any of those eight things. And everybody will get more referrals.