64 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 2
It’s a great example I think of necessity being
the mother of invention. There was a need
out there for business people, to get refer-
rals and to network effectively. And I help
provide the mechanism to accomplish that.
In terms of my personal life, married almost
27 years. We
have three
great kids, we
are empty nest-
ers now, woo
hoo hoo, it’s
just us and we
have got three
grown kids who
are great kids.
Neil: So, Ivan, you have created something
that’s global. Which is just awesome. And
from my knowledge of your business, you
certainly started it pre-internet days. Which
is even more awesome for people who are
using the internet... even to work out the
concept of making something global without
the internet, is like 'how do you do that?' I
mean how did that happen?
Ivan Misner: Well you know, it’s really about
relationships and connections and referrals.
We were international before the internet
really became what it is today and by the
mid-nineties, we were starting to open up
globally and we did it through referrals. As I
talk to people, I ask them, you know if you
know somebody from another area, I was
thinking the US. You know, please refer themto us and we had somebody in Missouri who
had some close friends in Canada and they
introduced us in the mid-nineties to some
people in Canada. We opened in Canada,
and someone from Canada had a brother in
the UK, who said, 'hey you know brother, I
think you would love this', and he explained
it to them and
so we opened
up the United
Kingdom from
someone in
Canada. The
United Kingdom
opened up,
there was
someone from the UK who moved to New
Zealand, and guess what we worked it just
like word-of-mouth. It was not done as neat-
ly and cleanly as one might expect, but you
know, we just followed the referrals and the
people.
I mean I will give you an example what I am
talking about. The third state for BNI in the
US was California, Arizona, Montana. Now
there are more mountain goats than people
in Montana. A beautiful, beautiful state but
just not a lot of people so why in the world
would Montana be the third state for BNI? It
was the third state because a father came to
see his daughter in Arizona and she said, 'I
cannot have breakfast with you this morning
Dad, I have got a networking meeting to go
to' And he said, 'hey let me go along.' AndI think an entrepreneur is either
working in their flame, or working in
their wax. When they are working in
their flame, they are on fire, they are excited. They
love what they do, they are just passionate about
it, and when they are working in their wax, it just
sucks them dry, it just takes all their energy away.