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Episode number 774, the four CS.

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You're listening to the official
BNI podcast with BNI, founder,

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and chief visionary officer Dr.

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Ivan Meisner stay tuned for networking
and referral marketing tips from the man

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who's been called the father of modern
networking along with suggestions and

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insights into getting the most from
your membership in the world's largest

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networking organization, BNI.

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Hello everybody. And welcome
back to the official BNI podcast.

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I'm Priscilla rice,

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and I'm coming to you from live Oak
recording studio in Berkeley, California.

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And I'm joined on the phone today by the
founder and the chief visionary officer

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of BNI, Dr. Ivan Meisner. Hello, Ivan.

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How are you and where are you?

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I have been as in the past traveling a
lot, um, by zoom all around the world.

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I've been to Vietnam, uh, India,
uh, I've been to Thailand,

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but right now I am live and
in person in France at the BNI

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French, uh, conference this week. And,
uh, what an amazing group of people.

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I love BNI France.

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Yeah, that must be terrific. Well, tell
us what we're gonna be learning today.

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Well, I've got, uh, a
special guest today. Uh,

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he's a friend and a co-author of a book
that I've talked about a couple of times

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on previous podcasts. Uh,
he is Dr. ODI Abu chakra.

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Gotta get that right.
Uh, and, uh, ODI is, um,

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the co-author of the book, uh,
work year network with the four CS.

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He's a 23 year practicing
chiropractor by Dan coach speaker

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and author by night. He's the founder of
inspired results, performance coaching,

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and training, a focus on
attitude, breathing, correct
posture, diet, exercise,

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and sleep for the purpose of impacting
not only health, but human performance.

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It's no surprise that he's considered
to be a chiropractor with a and on

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top of that. Uh, Dr. Otis, the former
executive director of BNI Abu Dhabi,

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and he is, as I said, the co-author
of work network with the four CS,

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which recently hit number
five on Amazon's best seller

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list for marketing, uh,
to, to, uh, small business,

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uh, Dr. ODI, welcome to BNI podcast.

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Thank you so much. Awesome to be here.
I've been listening to the podcast for,

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oh my God decades.

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Well, it's fantastic
to have you here. How,

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how did you start your networking journey,

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cuz that is important not
only for the book, for,

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for the message that we
wanna get across today.

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Absolutely. Um, it started back
in Toronto. I was 27 years old,

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just opened my clinic. My father
walked in and he said, son,

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I really like what you've done with
the place, but it's missing one thing.

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And I thought I had everything covered
Ivan and then dad looked around and then

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looked me dead in the eyes and
said, patience. There's nobody here.

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This place is empty. And I was like, dad,

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you gotta give people time to find out
about me. You gotta give, you know,

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patience an opportunity to know
I'm, I'm the new guy on the block.

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And he's like, son, that
is your first mistake.

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You don't wait for patients to find
you. You go out there and you network.

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And I gotta tell you, networking was a,
the word networking was intimidating.

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And I don't even think I
really know what it meant.

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I just knew it meant
getting outta my office, um,

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the comforts of my walls and
going out there and meeting,

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meeting people and strangers and
having to talk about what I do.

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So that's when I got introduced
to be I by somebody and yeah,

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the rest is history.

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Uh, it was good advice from dad. Dad
sometimes give really good advice. Mine,

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mine certainly has in, in his.

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So just for the record,

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everyone knows the whole concept of
the four CS was, uh, Dr. O's, uh,

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concept. And he came to me with, um,
this idea that I really, really liked,

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and we did this book together, but,
uh, this is something that, uh,

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you put together, uh, the
concept and I love it.

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Maybe you can share with everyone
the four season and nutshell,

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because for BNI members,

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this is critical to understand in
order to generate a referral business.

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So what are the four CS?

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Sure. Ivan, well, thanks. I just wanna
also mention that you did make a very,

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very important distinction in the book,
which, uh, which it's so powerful,

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which, which I'll get to in a second,

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but the four CS are basically
the foundation for which
relationships are built.

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And it not just in the business context,

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which of course that is the most
important and most relevant part of it.

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But if you go back to, you know,
before there was even language,

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if you were sitting with your family in
your cave and somebody knocked on your

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imaginary, uh, cave door,

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you obviously would be asking a set of
questions like who is this person? Um,

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and several things.

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But the idea is the first question that
would come to mind would most likely

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have nothing to do with
the person's confidence.

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Even if the person looked like someone
who'd be able to help you around the

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house, help you with your hunting and
gathering and all that kind of stuff.

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The first question you'd
probably be asking,

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and I know it's hard to predict
what people would be thinking,

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but it's probably safe to, to assume,

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and to say that you would be questioning
whether you can trust the person.

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Can you, you know,

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is it safe for your kids and your
family to be around this person?

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And so the first C is
credibility. Even if he,

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even if he or she turned around,

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climbed a coconut tree
and offered you a coconut,

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you wouldn't be mesmerized
and be thinking, oh wow,

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it'd be great to have this
person around to, you know,

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for food and hunting purposes, you'd
be thinking, can I trust a person?

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So really competence is irrelevant
unless credibility has been established.

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And that is the first C credibility.
The second C is competence.

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Once you've ticked that credibility box
in your mind, you then wanna be asking,

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you know, what's this person's skillset,
what's this person good at? You know,

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how are they gonna help
around the, the, you know,

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the house or helping with your
life and what you value most.

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But once you've credibility,
competence comes in,

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we wanna know we wanna trust a person
and we wanna trust that they're good at,

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let's just say their job, but it's,
that's not just fit either. Um,

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in the social, like I said, non-business
context. And even the business context,

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we also wanna know that
this person, you know,

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wanna know what this person
needs in terms of help, like, um,

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do they communicate well?
And the third sees clarity,

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which basically has to do with
how clear you communicate.

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It's very difficult to help someone
if their communication is off point,

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it's very difficult for people to help
you if you're not communicating clearly

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and with clarity. So that's
the third C and the last C,

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which I think is probably
an underappreciated sea.
And that is connectivity,

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which is a,

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a recent term that has to do with
the quality and the quantity of

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your connections. So even if we go
back, like I said, the, the, the non,

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you know, the times when, even
before words, uh, before language,

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we would be asking, you know,

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how well connected is this
person who does this person know?

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Because like it or not,

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people are judging how connected you
are and people wanna rub shoulders with

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people who are well connected,

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because those who are well connected are
gonna help you make the connections you

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need, because we know that, you know, uh,

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behind every successful man stands a
woman and every behind every successful

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woman perhaps stands a man, um,

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or behind every successful
person stands a person,

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but also every door that
leads to an opportunity.

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There's a person standing in front
of you in front of that door.

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And so it's important to be able to,
to connect to those people who open,

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who open doors for you. So those
are the four season a nutshell.

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The only caveat,

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the only little twist in the business
context is that competence comes

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first because we are not gonna
refer someone if we don't think, um,

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they're good at their job.
And so that's pretty much it,

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the only thing in the business context
we gotta think about is it starts with

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competence. Then we go to credibility,
clarity, and connectivity,

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as opposed to starting with credibility
in the, in the non, um, business,

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social context and interactions
with people at large. So.

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How did you struggle with the
four CS in your early career?

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You know, that's the thing when
I first got involved in BNI, I,

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I really didn't understand why some people
get referrals and some people don't.

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And after 20 years of being an
in BNI, I was able to, you know,

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distill it down to these four
CS. And I can tell you for me,

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the biggest challenge for me
was clarity of communication.

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So I was a, I'm a us and Canadian
board certified chiropractor.

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So I think from a
competence point of view,

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I take that box and
credibility wise, I was okay.

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But when it came to communication, I
really struggled. I haven't, I mean,

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it was really,

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really difficult to be concise and precise
and really get a message across in,

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in a networking context within, you
know, under 60 seconds in our, uh,

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in our weekly presentation. So
that was probably my toughest. See,

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and it cost me big time. How.

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How did it cost you and time I'm guessing
it took, took a while for people to,

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to really, uh, understand
how to refer you.

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It did. I think it cost
definitely time. It costs if,

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if I wanna stick to the CS concept.
So it, it costs time, it costs cash.

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It costs confidence because every
time you speak in effectively,

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you then start to second guess yourself,

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and then you lose confidence for
the next presentation. Um, it's,

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it's a huge, huge, I, again,

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I think most people
underappreciate all these CS. Yeah.

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But specifically with communication,

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most people think that they're
effective communicators,

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but if you ask their peers many times,

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they'll say I don't really get what
they do. I don't really understand them.

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Right. Well, we're almost
at a time. Um, what was the,

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what's the most powerful way
to develop this, the, the CS.

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And could you speak briefly about the,

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the four C's peer tope assessment
that we have in the book?

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Absolutely.

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So definitely it's important to work on
each one of those and maybe ask your,

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uh, you know,

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those that maybe in your power teams
or people that you're very close to for

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real honest feedback,

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but the problem is most people will not
necessarily tell you what they really

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think. Cause it's, it's tough. It's
hard to give critical feedback,

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and it's also not necessarily assumed
that you're gonna receive it well.

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So the peer tope assessment
is an anonymous, um,

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survey that goes out to your
members. For example, in the chapter,

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you can also do this outside
of BNI in, in organizations,

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but just imagine every member of
your chapter rated you anonymously

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on these four CS. And imagine you
got a scorecard that basically said,

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you're nine outta 10 with credibility
nine outta 10 with competence.

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Maybe you score three outta 10 with
clarity and nine outta 10 of connectivity.

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Guess what, you know, not
only what you need to work on,

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but what you don't need to work on so
much or what you can just maintain.

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Yeah. The peer tope
assessment is a great concept.

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It's one of the things that you,

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one of the many things that you brought
to the book, and I really like it.

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I urge people to pick up a copy of the
book and do some of the foresee peer tope

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assessments. Dr. Ody. Thank you so
much for, uh, being on BNI podcast. Uh,

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any last comment before I wrap?

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No, I just wanna thank
you so much for having me.

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And I really think it's important for
people not to just walk around assuming

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that they know how their members
are perceiving them, but really to,

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to number one, um, ask those that are
close to you, but also consider doing a,

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a four's assessment,

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maybe at the transition of leadership
teams or at some point be an eye because

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it'll just really help you
understand how you, you know,

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where you sit in the eyes of
your, of your fellow members.

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Yeah. Well, thank you so much again,

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the name of the book is work your network
with the four CS. We'll have a link,

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uh, to it here on the podcast. And for
more information about Dr. ODI, go to,

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uh, Dr. odi.com that's, uh,

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D R O U do com thank you so much.

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I appreciate you, uh, being here.

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And of course I appreciate
co-authoring the book with you.

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Thank you. Ivan's it's been a pleasure.

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Over to you Priscilla.

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Okay. Perfect. Thanks for
the great information.

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This podcast is sponsored by
Meisner audio programs.com.

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These audio programs will provide you
with the tools and the inspiration to

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powerfully enhance your BNI experience.

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So check out the great
material available to

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00:12:00,840 --> 00:12:03,720
you@meisneraudioprograms.com,

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00:12:03,940 --> 00:12:08,680
and then use the promo code
Ivan five oh for 50% off of

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00:12:08,680 --> 00:12:12,880
everything. All of the proceeds
go to the BNI foundation.

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Thank you so much for listening.
This is Priscilla rice,

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and we look forward to having you join
us again next week for another exciting

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episode of the official BNI podcast.