Before we approve your membership application for NIA®, we need to make sure that we are a good fit for each other. Your personality profile will reveal a bit about you and the way you value others. If you aren’t interested in forming relationships with the people you’re doing business with and business for, then we don’t want to waste your time. We have built our entire model around relationships. We are not in the business of transactions. We are in the business of people. At the end of the day, we live by our mantra: “Network In Action—helping people build relationships that last a lifetime.”
This is one of the main reasons we teach our franchise owners to never chase people. We recognize that if you have to chase someone now, the reality is that you will likely have to continue to chase that person once that individual is in the group. We don’t want our leaders to stuff their groups full of warm bodies for the sake of numbers. We make sure they are committed to building out groups of committed people. That is the best way to ensure the health and success of each collective group as well as the individual members themselves.
One of the greatest joys I have is going out with new franchise owners who are obviously eager and excited to build up their groups. Early on, they may have only three or four members, but then I see them meet with someone and, after the interview, they walk outside and say, “You know, I just don’t think I want that person in my group.” That’s when I know that we have trained them properly. It’s not about getting the transaction—it’s about enrolling the type of people who are committed to building relationships.
I had an appointment with a business owner and potential member, and as we sat down to talk, I just didn’t feel comfortable with him. He just seemed “slippery”. When we got to the end of the discussion and talked about our guaranteed ROI, he said he wanted thirty audiovisual jobs, “And I don’t hang TVs.” As we closed up the meeting, I walked back to my car thinking, Well, you’re not going to hang anything for Network In Action members because you’re not a fit for this group.
We look for people who have reasonable expectations for their results and who ask questions like, “Who are the other members of the group? Tell me about the makeup of your membership. I want to make sure I can be a help to them and refer other people to them.”