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Triple Your Referrals Using LinkedIn

Finding connections for your chapter members.

By Rick Itzkowich and Betty Jo Waxman

The big ask: “I’m looking to be introduced to Brian, product director for Company X.” At first glance, there is nothing unique about the request that was voiced at a recent chapter meeting. I’m certain there are hundreds, even thousands, like it made every day at BNI chapters across the globe. The difference was what I did with it.

Up until that day, anytime I heard a request for an introduction to an individual whom I didn’t know, I would disregard it.

That day, however, I went back to my office and searched for the person on LinkedIn. Much to my surprise, I found him. And I had a connection to him. Brian was connected to at least one person to whom I am connected. I asked my connection if he would be willing to facilitate an introduction between my BNI colleague and Brian. He did, and it resulted in $30,000 worth of business.

Thanks to LinkedIn, I went from having nothing to give to facilitating $30,000 of closed business.

This experience prompted me to dive into LinkedIn and learn how to use it within BNI. The results were spectacular. I went from being a good referral giver to being a great referral giver. My referrals more than tripled - and so did the value to my chapter. I now had a brand new source of referrals readily available to me, thanks to the relationships I built over time.

LinkedIn was becoming a key tool for building referrals; I wanted my BNI chapter to learn how to use it to boost their referrals, too. My colleague and co-author of this article, Betty Jo Waxman, was one of the first to see the potential and began to use it as a way to give more to the members of the chapters she supports as an assistant director. Others listened as well and experienced immediate results.

As you know, word travels fast in BNI. Soon people began calling me with all kinds of LinkedIn questions. I became known as “The LinkedIn Guy.”

Within no time, fielding all the questions coming my way was consuming a lot of my time. I decided to create video tutorials to address the questions and teach people exactly what to do to capitalize on the synergy between BNI and LinkedIn.

The next thing I knew I was invited to speak on the topic at various venues – including Members Day during one of 2010's International Networking Week events in San Diego. Susan Goodsell, executive director of the Riverside/San Bernardino CA region, attended that presentation and invited me to BNI headquarters to do a session for her members. This ultimately led to Betty Jo doing a break-out presentation on the topic at the BNI International Conference in Anaheim last November.

Susan asked if she could use my video tutorials to do a pilot program. What could the results be if an entire chapter participated using these principles? I agreed, and the results were excellent: Referrals went up 350%, value given went up more than five times, and the number of visitors skyrocketed as well – all in a matter of weeks.

Eddy Longshore, president of Inland Empire Referral Network, said this halfway through the pilot program: “We’re now four weeks into the process, and I’m blown away by the results. We have more than doubled the number of referrals we used to average, and the energy and enthusiasm it has generated is phenomenal.”

For BNI members reading this article, I’d like to share a short video that explains how you can use LinkedIn to give and receive three times as many referrals. Please click here to watch it.

What’s fascinating is where this journey is taking us. Word-of-mouth within BNI has spread the LinkedIn program across continents. We’ve done presentations in Dubai and we’re currently scheduling a visit to India to share this program.

We’re also in the process of piloting the program in a few regions in the USA. It includes video tutorials along with a structured system for implementation and ongoing support on conference calls. There’s even a dynamic game to make it fun for members to implement. We are working out the bugs and creating the infrastructure so that we can soon offer it to the entire BNI community. Stay tuned!

Rick Itzkowich, aka The LinkedIn Guy, is the creator of QuoteActions and the co-founder of Productive Learning & Leisure – a Strategic Alliance Partner of BNI. A member of the Del Mar BNI chapter since 1998, he has earned the Notable Networker award - given to the top referral giver in the chapter - 19 times. Rick has been interviewed by Dr. Ivan Misner for the BNI Podcast where he discussed the importance of having a system for follow-up. As a sought after international speaker, he spoke on LinkedIn at the “You Learn Twit Face” Social Media Conference in Dubai where he won the People’s Choice award for best speaker. Go to www.21stCenturyNetworking.com to get free videos on how to better use LinkedIn.

Betty Jo Waxman has been a BNI member for nine years. Among the 80+ chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area region where she has also been an Assistant Director since 2004, those Betty Jo supports are consistently in the top ten. She is in high demand by chapters throughout the region to deliver two AD presentations she created to grow chapters and increase referrals – both of which she has presented in break-out sessions at BNI Conferences. Betty Jo had been working alongside Rick Itzkowich since 1982 leading Personal Growth workshops for both individuals and companies.

Tags: February 2011 Edition, LinkedIn, referrals, social media