On today’s Engaging Marketeer, Darren is speaking with a BNI legend, Al Tepper. Al is very well known within networking circles and he actually runs the training nationally for new members who join BNI, called member success program. Darren and Al discuss BNI, marketing, why he does what he does what he does and why he’s been such a proud supporter of BNI for so long. There is also a very personal story in this episode which could be quite triggering, particularly if you are a parent.
The 8 categories of BNI
Al: So the eight seats we had were, I was on social, we had email marketing, video marketing, web, creative, print, merch and events. That was pretty much it. So I picked social but, apart from the creative agency in there, they’d all had other careers and come to marketing. One was a stock broker, one had run video production for a long time but now transitioned to video agency which is very different from production. I’m just through and through, since 1998, marketing, it’s all I’ve ever done. So very quickly, without sounding arrogant, I was the only one who’d actually ever had a job in marketing and the rest of them were agency, apart from the creative who’d been a creative director. So that power team was fun but a few people got found out there, it’s always the way.
Darren: Well the problem is, of course in that situation, is finding them out by giving them referrals and finding they can’t do it.
Al: I mean you and I been around long enough that I could smell it in the water, my knees start quivering. So in the nicest possible, you get that itchy feeling for your body of something’s not stacking up here and after 25 years in marketing, I’m like Neo in The Matrix now, I can I see it all in code so I can spot him a mile off. I don’t need to pass referrals to work out whether they’re any good or not, I can tell by the way they answer the first question. And that’s not criticism of them, they’re just trying to feed their families like everybody else.
Darren: If you’re in a networking group, whether it’s BNI or something else, and there’s other people in that group, that should be the kind of person you should refer to because, in an ideal world, all things being equal they’re a good referral partner for you and you are for them.
How do you go about it if that person isn’t what they claim to be or doesn’t click with you? How do you go about not referring them and where does the relationship go?
Al: Great question, the honest answer is nobody knows what they don’t know. So what that means is you’ve got two choices, you can either slow play and downplay the problem, it depends on the person and if they’re coachable. Versus if they’re not coachable, you’ve got a different approach. If they’re coachable you can pull them aside and say “Listen, I want to get your standard up because I believe in you, I think you’re worth more but you’re punching below your weight right now.” And I’m very blunt, as you can imagine, with people I’m not actually looking for the words that come out their mouth, I’m looking for the reaction on their face that I can read.
Al’s gym analogy
Darren: There’s so many people in in BNI, or any networking group really, who when they’re not getting the referrals, they’re not getting the business from it, they will blame the group. It’s like I’m not getting the business from this group therefore this group’s rubbish. When it’s their fault, not showing the credibility and not showing other people how they can be referred, if they have the credibility.
Al: If you’re not making money in business the only person you can blame is yourself. It’s up to you to figure it out and I’m blessed to be an MSP national trainer and I train mostly on MSP and I always remind people it’s a bit like a gym induction. And that analogy isn’t a wasted one because I regularly remind people that networking, especially BNI, is like a business gym.
I’ve joined loads of gyms over my life and if I’ve stood there taking selfies, done bugger all work, I won’t lose weight. So if you join BNI, and I’m showing you all the kit at your induction but for the rest of the year you do nothing, sit back and expect it to come to you, is it okay if you don’t do more business? And I want them to realise that it’s on them from day one. We’re not children, no one’s coming to the rescue, you’re an adult who’s running a business, deal with it. So if you’re not getting the referrals you want, it has to be on you.
Now there’s an exception that you could be in the wrong room, not every chapter’s the same chapters are variable depending on the people in them. So if you’re in a high performing chapter and everyone’s making loads of money and you’re getting no referrals there’s only one of three possible problems. You’re not visible in the right way, you’re not credible in the right way or you don’t know how to make money. It’s only one of those three and it’s our job to make ourselves visible, not just in BNI I but in life. The hardest lesson I learned in BNI was that it’s on me.
How BNI saved Al and his son’s lives
Darren: You mentioned earlier, and I don’t know whether you were being literal or factious, but you said that BNI saved your life and saved your son’s life. Can you tell me about that?
Al: So my son is 18 now, he’s safe as well. He was always a different child and at school he never really fit in. At age eight, kids were talking about Love Island and football and he was writing existential poetry, so he was always going to be unique and different and brilliant. But school was horrible to him, it was awful. So when he was 13, I came home and I found him fully clothed in an empty bath, my wife was crying over him and I said “What’s wrong?” and he looked at me and he said “I don’t want to be here anymore daddy.”
Which, as a father, is quite possibly the worst words you’ll ever hear, it’s like being hit by a truck because you never see it coming, I mean why would you?
And then we went through a journey and understanding a little bit with CAMHS, which is terribly under resourced and can’t really help people the way it needs to. But in one session, they needed to know what his intentions were. And he said on the call “I’m going to walk to the a-road and I’m going to walk in front of a truck.” Well again when you hear your child say this, it’s pretty challenging and you can’t react by the way, you can’t break down and lose it because you need to hold your s**t together frankly, because you’re the adult.
Long story short, I spoke to some people in BNI. I was obviously very challenged, stressed, anxious, distressed. I mean, I don’t know what words to use and I spoke to my team and spoke to some other people and I got a referral from somebody to a mastermind. And when I went to that Mastermind, I got a referral to a CRM lady and then that CRM lady referred me to one of her clients who are a medical a mental health charity and that mental health charity referred me onto an occupational therapist.
So without the first BNI referral, the rest of it wasn’t BNI it was all just people hooking me up to the next person in the chain. Nut that occupational therapist was the beginning of what worked and I’m not sure my son would be here without that and if my son wasn’t here, I’m not sure I’d be here. I have one son and if he’d have unalived himself I don’t know how I’d have coped with that, I don’t think I’d have coped well.
So genuinely, that one referral meant the difference between us getting to the solution and not and that’s the power of networking, it was six steps in that chain. Which step was the most valuable? Well it has to be the first one doesn’t it? So he’s fine today, he’s so strong and in a great place but I have to credit BNI with that because I wouldn’t have had that referral.
We always say people come for the business but we stay for so much more. I met with a chap today who said to me he’s so grateful to be in BNI and then he looked at me and I could intuitively sense he was upset by something, because I’m quite good at reading faces and I could see his eyes filled a little bit with water and that’s always an indication of emotion for me. So I put my hand on his arm and I said “Are you all right?” and he looked around, he was choking back tears and he said “I’m going to lose my house, Al.”
It’s 7 o’clock in the morning, I’m at BNI and someone just told me they’re going to lose their house. And I’m a father, I know what that means to me and I said “What are you doing about it?” And he said people in BNI helping, you’ve got all the pieces ready to roll, it’s brilliant. So come for the business but I promise you’ll stay for more.
More information on CAMHS, the charity that helped Al and his son can be found here: https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/your-guide-to-support/guide-to-camhs/
More about Al:
Al is a Marketing Leadership Coach and a Director Consultant at BNI. He is also the founder of TepFu which is a marketing academy set up to provide its clients with the best advice when it comes to marketing their company and pushing their brand further. You can connect with Al here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/altepper/
LinkdeIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/altepper/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/altepper/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/altepper
TepFu: https://tepfu.com/
About your host:
Darren has worked within digital marketing since the last century, and was the first in-house web designer for video games retailer GAME in the UK, known as Electronics Boutique in the States. After co-founding his own agency, Engage Web, in 2009, Darren has worked with clients around the world, including Australia, Canada and the USA.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/engaging-marketeer/id1612454837
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenjamieson/
Engaging Marketeer: https://engagingmarketeer.com
Engage Web: https://www.engageweb.co.uk
