A few years ago, a friend and colleague of mine, Art Radtke,
told me about a member of one of his networking groups who was
about to leave the organization. The member's name was Mike. He
owned his own business and was considered a good member of his
group. Most people were surprised when he dropped out of the group
only a year after helping to form it. Mike was receiving referrals
and things seemed to be paying off with some high-quality
sales.
Despite appearances, Mike had a totally different perspective on
the situation. In talking to Mike, he explained that the members
liked each other a great deal, and he truly felt that they helped
each other whenever possible, but, inexplicably, he felt that it
just wasn't working for him. Mike explained that his business
was doing well, and he went on to describe some of the new clients
he acquired. Oddly enough, many of the clients and referrals he
described sounded very familiar. As it turned out, many of these
people and companies that he discussed as the basis for his
burgeoning business were the very same people that had been
referred to him by the chapter members throughout the previous
year!
One of us called Mike to end the confusion over why he was
leaving. As it turned out, the call only created more confusion.
The conversation took an hour and, in the end, we agreed with all
the facts but had dramatically different interpretations. Mike
believed that:
- He had been introduced to these new clients by members of his
group, or by people introduced to him by members of his group,
mostly by chance.
- He didn't feel that the results were any indication that a
system was at work. He stated quite clearly that these referrals
were basically coincidences. It was by chance that so-and-so bumped
in to someone that just happened to need his services.
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Mike was looking at his success from a position of
repeatability. His professional training taught him that he and his
employees should call people from a list that was generated based
on the demographics he was looking for in a client. If he
didn't have enough business, he needed to call more people. The
results of his activity were always measurable and could always be
accounted for by the actions he took. Most importantly, there was a
well-defined ratio that he fully understood relating to the number
of calls, appointments and closed sales.
The clients he picked up from referrals, on the other hand,
always had a story attached to them that couldn't be repeated,
leading him to believe that the results were coincidental.
This misconception happens when someone focuses on the referral
rather than on the relationship that produced the referral. This
interpretation led Mike to the inaccurate conclusion that the
results were coincidental.
It's no more coincidental that people receive regular and
consistent referrals from the people in their network than it is
that a fisherman who casts a net catches fish. The fisherman
concentrates on his action of casting the net, not on the
individual path of one of the fishes that swam into it. If he did
base his decision on that one random fish, he would quickly come to
the same conclusion Mike did: That it was coincidental.
The reason Mike focused on the referral and not the relationship
is because he didn't understand that building effective and
profitable relationships is a system. In fact, he had never been
trained on how to systematically build mutually profitable
relationships. In his early training, he was taught about products,
customer service and cold calling. When he did receive referrals,
he had no idea what specific actions he had taken that had caused
it-so he was simply thankful for his good luck and went back to
what he knew.
When it comes to networking, "luck" is where
persistence meets opportunity. There is no coincidence about repeat
referrals. It comes from the day-to-day activities of building
relationships. Although it can't be measured as easily as
tracking cold-call ratios, the results are dramatic and almost
never coincidental. Repeat referrals happen because you've laid
the groundwork through professional relationships.
Art Radtke contributed to this article.
Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author and
founder and CEO of BNI, the world's largest referral organization
with over 3,100 chapters in 17 countries around the world. His new
book,Masters of Successcan be viewed at www.MastersofSuccess.biz. Misner teaches business at
Cal Poly University, Pomona and resides in Southern California with
his wife and three children. He can be reached at misner@bni.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are
those of the author, not of Entrepreneur.com. All answers are
intended to be general in nature, without regard to specific
geographical areas or circumstances, and should only be relied upon
after consulting an appropriate expert, such as an attorney or
accountant.