72 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 2
comment, different countries. You know I
really believe different countries, different
cultures, different races, different religions,
different people, different places. We all
speak the language of referrals. We all want
to do business with people we know and
trust. So, we have to take a look at what we
all have in common. And what we all have in
common is entrepreneurial nations want to
do business. People from entrepreneurial
nations want to do business with people
that they know and trust. So, we all have a
similar starting point.
Now, how do you then transcend that cul-
ture from one country to another country?
You start with that core philosophy. At BNI
that core philosophy is givers gain. That’s
one of our absolute core values, that’s givers
gain. If you want to get business from peo-
ple, you have to be willing to give business
to people. You have to take off your apron,
you have to take off your bib and put on an
apron. It’s not just what you can get, it’s
what you can give to help other people. And
that’s a starting point that resonates with
people worldwide. And so, you tell stories to
illustrate that philosophy, to illustrate that
core value.
One of the things that I did when we be-
came international, was I wrote a book and
the book is only available, I am sure you can
get it on Amazon, secondary market but we
do not sell it, it’s not sold to the public. It’s
given to every new BNI member. And it’scalled "Givers gain" the BNI story. And they
get it... and the reason I wrote it, was to
make sure to carry on, the core traditions of
the organisation. That as we went global,
that every single new member could get the
whole story, the good, the bad, the ugly.
In the book, I talk about mistakes we made
so that they can see it did not come out fully
formed, that we made a lot of mistakes as
we went. But here is where I think it really
works well, in doing something like a book. I
start... there are actually 60 different ver-
sions of the book, I start with first the local
story. So, before I tell the BNI story, I have
the local national director say, 'here is how I
started in France, here is how I started in the
United Kingdom, in Malaysia, in Hong Kong.'
So, every book has a different forward or
opening. So, it tells the local story. And then
it launches into the international or the or-
ganisational story, my story. And it is that
story telling that has helped keep the culture
cover the globe.
Neil: Yeh I was just curious because obvious-
ly keeping the book obviously tells people
your values and everything, presumably
that’s what it’s doing because you just could
not do it without somehow writing it down.
It would be virtually impossible, wouldn't it?
Ivan Misner: It would be virtually impossible,
you certainly do it through training, you
know training and education is a leaky buck-
et process.