Synopsis
This is International Networking Week, and software entrepreneur Mike Muhney, one of the co-founders of ACT, joins Dr. Misner to discuss the 3 Ps of a powerful network:
Make relationships Personal. Get beyond what your competitors know about your connections.
Keep details Private. Don’t share things that people have shared in confidence.
See things from the other person’s Perspective. The people you deal with are always sizing you up.
Real relationships build real results–and superficial relationships don’t. People matter, whether it’s business or personal. If you adopt an attitude that relationships are priceless, purposeful, and precious, you have the key to the ignition to start the engine.
Mike Muhney’s latest product, the Vipor CRM, is built on that principle. It’s available for free in the App Store.
See also Dr. Misner’s blog about emotionally charged connections.
Brought to you by Networking Now.
Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 392 -
Priscilla:
Hello everyone and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, CA. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan. How are you doing?
Ivan:
I am doing great, Priscilla. Thank you very much. Most of the listeners probably know that this is International Networking Week, which is an initiative sponsored by BNI. If you would like information on International Networking Week, go to InternationalNetworkingWeek.com. Watch the video there. This is an initiative of the organization. It is a real important week for BNI worldwide. We have members and Directors doing a lot of activities during this week.
We have a special guest for this year’s International Networking Week. His name is Mike Muhney. He is a software entrepreneur. He has developed some world class tools that enable people to realize and achieve more not only in their business but their personal lives. He graduated from the University of Illinois.
He worked for IBM prior to the PC era, but most people would know Mike as the Co-Founder and co-inventor of ACT, the software. It’s a product that absolutely created the relationship management software category. I recommended ACT in a number of my books on networking. I am really honored, Mike, to have you on our podcast today. Welcome.
Mike:
Well, thank you very much. It’s great to be here.
Ivan:
Today we are going to talk about something that I think is very valuable for BNI members and we are going to talk about your new project. Towards the end, I will give out the website. But we are going to talk about the three Ps of a powerful network.
For the listeners, here are the three. I will give you a preview. Make relationships personal. Keep details private and see things from their perspective. Those are the three Ps of a powerful network. So, Mike, tell us what you have in mind with that first one of make relationships personal.
Mike:
Okay, In one regard in the prevalent social media world that we live in today where everybody has information equally about everybody else they need information on, it doesn’t distinguish me from my competition. Whether we like it or not, we all have competition.
So if we come at a person, especially in that first pass, with something we know about them and our competitors do, too, I have yet to distinguish myself. So you have to get beyond that and try to penetrate the personal realm. By that, I mean trying to have a connection that you could define as emotional because emotional bonds are not only what connect but glue that connection long term. That is kind of what I mean by personal- different than what everybody else knows. That little sliver of information that opens the door.
Ivan:
Yeah, that is a really good point. For the listeners, if you have a chance, go to my blog, IvanMisner.com. I talk about a related topic that Mike is talking about, something called the emotionally charged connection. If you understand your emotionally charged connections, it is much easier to make connections with other people on those same lines. That is a real good one, Mike. I agree completely,
Keep details private. Tell me about that.
Mike:
Well, I believe and I always have that people matter and in that, to have a sustainable and strengthened relationship with people in your various networks and personally, you have to have trust. The only way you can have that trust is by that information that you do begin to exchange and learn about each other must be kept private, must be held close to the chest because it demonstrates the ability to be discreet and understand and have something uniquely different than other people who blabber to everybody else.
You don’t want that to happen because it kind of runs into the third P, here, Ivan- perspective. You have to understand that you are always being sized up by the people you deal with. They are really the ones that are constructing and proliferating what we will call your reputation. If your reputation is such that there is lack of trust, that you can’t be depended upon to keep information private that was shared with you in confidentiality, you are going to lose that sustained relationship. Privacy indicates uniqueness in that bond that we are trying to achieve with other people.
Ivan:
Sometimes it is some very simple things. We do it, particularly with social media- we do it without even thinking about it. I have a good friend that really, by accident, shared some personal stuff that she shouldn’t have. She posted on the internet that was related to something that I owned, but she shared information that I shared with her that had never been public. She just wasn’t thinking and posted this stuff.
I had to call her and say, “What exactly were you thinking put that stuff up there? I told you something personal.” She was beside herself upset, but it is easy to accidentally do that and you have to be really conscious about not sharing things that are shared with you privately.
Mike:
Exactly. You know, given the social media world and information everywhere, people have from a relational standpoint, somewhat of a sense of what I will call macro-management of people. Hey, there is information about you on LinkedIn and Facebook, so why shouldn’t I share? It’s all out there.
Whereas, I believe that in these micro-managing relationships, they are more detailed, more personal and closer to the vest. There is a gap between those two in the culture that we live in today. I want to be on the side of getting closer to people. What I like to say, Ivan, is real relationships produce real results, as opposed to a looser relationship.
Ivan:
So you are talking about seeing things from their perspective. Here is another example that I have run into: I have some friends where they absolutely do not want photographs of their friends on social media. Other people, they don’t care. That is fine. They will put a picture up. So I have learned to ask before you do something like that because if you just start posting pictures of people’s kids, sometimes they don’t like that.
So having a conversation with someone, trying to see it from their perspective and then talking to them about it, I think, is an example of trying to be careful on issues like that.
Mike:
Yeah, and you have to understand that it is your responsibility to err on the conservative side of this case until told otherwise as opposed to being assumptive about information.
Ivan:
It is almost a little bit of Tony Allesandra’s Platinum Rule. The Golden Rule is treat others like you want to be treated, but the Platinum Rule he talks about is treat others the way they want to be treated by asking them and talking to them first.
I understand that you have a couple of bonus Ps.
Mike:
Bonus Ps. Okay, so here is a bunch of them. My foundation in my life and what prompted the invention of ACT and of course now the invention of my current product, Vipor, is that people matter. I don’t care if it is business or personal. I have no regard for that. Everybody matters regardless of the various networks that you walk in.
Why? What is it about relationships? They are priceless and that ought to be a goal- can I take this to a priceless level? They are purposeful, and that is what they ought to be if they are worked correctly. And they are precious. If you have the attitude that that is what relation ships are- priceless, purposeful and precious- then you have the key to the ignition to start the engine.
I don’t care what tools you use, what organizers you have, what notes you keep. None of that will matter if you don’t have the right attitude that is the key to getting all of that to work in harmony.
Ivan:
Very mice. What I like about what you are talking about, Mike, is that you not only provide those tools, you did so as the Co-Founder of ACT. You have a great philosophy on applying those tools. I think that is really important.
So you have a new project that you have been working on. VIP Orbit and a product that is coming out from VIP Orbit that is called Vipor. Do you want to share with my BNI members- because BNI members are always looking for tools to network more effectively. Tell us about Vipor.
Mike:
Thank you. So the company is VIP Orbit Software and Vipor is our product that runs presently for iPhone, iPad and Mac users. We just released Vipor three and a half weeks ago, Ivan, and presently, for the foreseeable future, those products will be free. That’s right. Free on the Apple App Store and the Mac App Store for the Macintosh version.
Obviously they all work together, but it is that same toolset that enables me to deal with more people more effectively in the constraints of 24/7 that we all have, and more productively, obviously, as well. So that is what is available to your members.
Ivan:
Of course, free is always good. People like free. Can you give our members one or two things that they can do with that app from a networking perspective that will help them?
Mike:
I appreciate the question. So the architecture is built on what is called orbit. Orbit by definition is a sphere of resource and influence. Who doesn’t want that, right? You need those to succeed in life. With no regard to business or personal it is a contained system that accommodates both. It could be both. An orbit can be literally anything you want. It can be your book club members. It could be your country club members, your customers, your strategic partners, whatever.
And a person could be in unlimited orbits, and then what you can do with an orbit, members of it, or selected members of it, is you can send a group email or a group text for example. And that communication will go to each of them as an individual but will go to all of them and will automatically archive in their history files with the transaction that you just did, that being the email sent or the text or whatever.
So the ability to deal with quantity very efficiently and streamlined but not sacrifice the quality of the individual relationships is one of the key value propositions in my opinion of Vipor.
Ivan:
And how can people download it? Just go to-
Mike:
Right. For the iPhone and the iPad version, go to the Apple App store on those devices and type in Vipor or VIP Orbit. It will bring up both. On the Mac, you have to be on your Mac and go to the Mac App store for the Macintosh version.
Ivan:
Well, great. Listen, thanks so much for being on the podcast, Mike. I appreciate it. BNI members, you have just heard Mike Muhney, who is one of the Co-Founders of ACT. We have all heard of ACT. Many of us have used ACT. He has a new product out. I would recommend that you go take a look at Vipor on the App Store. Or you can go to VIPorbit.com.
Mike, thank you so much. I appreciate you being here.
Mike:
Thank you, Ivan. My pleasure and have a great day.,
Ivan:
Thanks. Over to you, Priscilla.
Priscilla:
Okay. Well, thank you so much, Mike and Ivan. That was great.
Mike:
You’re welcome.
Priscilla:
That is it for this week. I would just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by networkingnow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.