NYC Elevate is a million dollar a month networking community organized to help our members make more money through structured collaboration and referrals.
Every week, I give you tips on how to use our networking tools to make more money.
This week is your annual reminder on reporting more money as Closed Business to Elevate.
The simple answer is that you should be reporting all closed business that resulted from your membership in Elevate.
But please listen very carefully to the following examples of the various ways you can get business from Elevate:
Eric Lorenzo asked me to build a new website for him. That was a first tier referral, member to member.
Ten years ago, Josh Doyle referred me to a startup called VB. That’s a second tier referral, which is a referral to a nonmember.
VB referred me to BS. That’s a third tier referral credited to Josh.
BS referred me to their marketing company and we built the marketing company’s website. That’s a fourth tier referral credited to Josh.
The marketing company referred us to 10 of their clients over the years and each of those websites was a fifth tier referral credited to Josh.
Next, a few years ago a guest at this meeting introduced me to his wife many weeks after we met. His wife works at NYU. The visitor didn’t remember who invited them to the meeting.
So I went to the visitor database (https://members.whyelevate.nyc/visitors) and saw that the inviter was Amy Noelle, so she got credit for the closed business I received from the 10 different departments I worked with at NYU.
Remember, if you do business with a guest at this meeting make sure you look up who originally invited them because they should get credit for the closed business.
Next, a former member introduced me to his wife and we built a website for her company but I can’t credit the former member any longer.
So I went to the former member database (https://members.whyelevate.nyc/former-member-closed-business-credit), and looked up the person who originally invited that former member to visit the chapter. That person was Simone and now Simone gets credit for that closed business.
In another instance, Peter referred me to GP at Legacy Builders and we built their website. Another company saw the site we built and loved it; and we closed a deal with them, so I credit that to Peter because if we didn’t build the Legacy site, we would not have gotten the opportunity to build the second site.
Then when GP got a new job, she contacted me to build a website for her new company. I credited Peter for this as well.
In another case, Jordan Metzger introduced me to his firm’s Marketing Manager to bid on building his firm’s website, and while I didn’t get that project, the marketing manager was impressed enough with me that she referred me to another law firm and we built their website, so Jordan gets credit for that.
Last year I received an SEO lead from my website. That project required a high level Brand Strategist and I requested help from Elevate. Seth introduced me to a Brand Strategist that was integral in helping me close the deal, so while Seth didn’t introduce me to the client; he introduced me to someone that made the acquisition of that business possible, and then he got credit for that quarter million in closed business.
So when do you use BNI Other?
Recently I subbed at another NYC meeting and met someone there, and I sold them a website, so that gets recorded as NYC Other because no member in this chapter was involved in creating that closed business.
And by the way, the 250 clients that you have referred me over the last decade continue to spend a few dollars with me each and every month, and I credit all that ongoing business to the people that made those original introductions.
Again, the simple answer is to record all closed business that you can trace back to your membership in this chapter be it a referral or some other help that put money in your pocket.
And to that end, it’s critical for you to have methods to be able to backtrack the full lineage of every relationship you develop to properly credit the person that started that chain of events here at Elevate.
If you ever have any questions about this, please let me know. Now get out there and make more money … and then record it!
