I’ve never won anything on the Melbourne Cup. It’s always a fun day for sure, except for the last five seconds of the race when you realise the betting slips in your hand are not worth the paper they are printed on. Personally, I put this down to backing the wrong animal.

The SKÅL Melbourne Cup Lunch has a slightly different approach. They race mud crabs. Sure, you don’t have some of the sensory highlights that come with the track experience—the pounding of hooves as the horses thunder past the finish line, the sweat on their rippling muscles, the sickly smell of spew on your shoes. There’s nothing like it, but mud crabs have something you don’t get with horses—winning!

The BNI Riverside table placed bets on two rounds of crab races. The first one, ‘Nuthin Leica Lobster’, didn’t go so well—in fact I thought it may have been dead, but in the second race ‘Chilli’ slowly bolted out of the ring elbowing a worthy competitor on the way past. (Do crabs even have elbows?)

Our team, along with head coach and motivator Oliver, was very pleased with the effort. All the training and hard work paid off. And, as is customary with mud crab races, the competitors were unceremoniously cooked up and served up for lunch.

And so, with 125 bucks in our pocket, a head full of booze and a gut full of fresh mud crab we staggered off into the setting sun to find another bar in which to bask in the glory of our Melbourne Cup win.

Videos

1. The photo finish. Technically the body of the crab must be over the line to win.
2. The post-race interview. The crab was well-spoken. Not sure what Oliver had to say – something about croissants, we think.

Click ‘read more …’ to view videos

The team is made up of:

• President – Melanie Waters
• Vice President – Geoff Kirkwood
• Treasurer – Susan Milicevic
• Education Co-ordinator – Chris Garrett
• Membership Committee – Bruce Pilcher, Cara Crundall
• Event Co-ordinator – Judy Briedis
• Visitor Hosts – Belinda Payne, Prue McMillan, Stuart Warren

Their personal profiles can be found on the members’ page or by clicking their names.

Thanks to Scott Hailstone and his team for all their hard work last term. The chapter is really going from strength to strength with two new members this week.

Strangely, the two new members joined after visiting two weeks ago when the chapter looked more like a set from an Adam Sandler movie. The previous leadership team went out with a bang with everyone dressed as his or her alter ego.

A picture paints a thousand words …

Her response did not really surprise me. She said, “I am not getting the referrals I need!”

So is that you? Are you getting all the referrals you need? If so then perhaps you should take note of this concept!

It’s all your fault!

That’s right. It is nobody’s fault but yours! And it’s no surprise that when I say that to some people I often get a strong reaction!

So let’s look at this concept?

Firstly, I don’t really believe in the concept of blame that is associated with the word fault – however it serves to focus the discussion.

Secondly, it refers to the idea of personal responsibility where, if something isn’t working (in any area of your lives) it is up to you to change something.

Here are three suggestions that may help:-

1.    Sit down with the members of your group and ask why. Why are they not able to give you the referrals you want?

2.    Make changes to the way you promote yourself. No matter what you have been doing your current results are SHOUTING that it isn’t working.

3.    Look at whether you are promoting the benefits of your product/service OR the features (which will rarely persuade anyone into buying).

Start talking about the “why” of why I should use your product/service, not the “what”.

Remember those famous 10 words from Joel Weldon when he said…….

“If it is to be it is up to me!”

..… from The Referral Master®

Networking is the buzzword for business in the 21st century. Everyone talks about it. There are so many networking groups it is often hard to choose which ones to join. All claim to help you enhance your business through networking.

Yet many people do not really understand networking. And even fewer implement sound networking principles in their life.

I recently heard a radio interview recently where the guest was asked how could someone get a good work/life balance. To which she responded…

“How can you separate the two? Work is part of life just the same as sport is and family time is!”

Networking is not something you do. It is something you are – a way of life.

If you consider that the best networkers practice giving to receive then why would someone have one attitude at a networking meeting and another one for the rest of their activities. It simply does not make sense.

One of the more well known speakers of the 20th Century, Zig Ziglar, is reported as saying that “you can have anything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want”. If that isn’t a “giving” philosophy I don’t know what is!

So if you have an attitude of giving it will show up in your networking.

Good networking is about establishing a contact and then building a relationship with that contact. That takes time and rarely can be done in one meeting.

Many people go to networking meetings with an attitude of “what can I get out of this”. So they turn up determined to gather as many cards as possible and see how many people they can tell about their product or service. That is “notworking”.

Networking is about making contact with someone and looking for ways that you could be of service to them. To do that you need to engage the person and ensure they feel like you are genuinely interested in them. Many people forget the obvious that we do business with people, not companies.

So networking is all about the other person, not about you.

Why is it all about them? Because the law of reciprocity is alive and well. If you help others they will want to help you. And the interesting thing is that it often comes back in multiples.

A story that comes to mind here is the BNI Director in Australia who made contact with a journalist at a local newspaper and asked for some time to come and see her.

No prize for guessing what she expected when he arrived – someone asking for some free publicity! To her utter astonishment he then proceeded to ask questions about her role, her challenges and then ask that famous 5 word question – “how can I help you?” She confided that in all her career as a journalist no-one had ever approached her like that!

Do you think that somewhere in the not too distant future he may get some publicity?

So my question is – are you networking or notworking. The choice is yours – as are the results!