How Just One Kind Word Can Lose You Thousands of Pounds in Referral Business
True networking is about forming personally engaging relationships that can have affirming professional benefits for the people you form them with, as well as, you hope, yourself.
I get most of my business through referral and networking.
I also love connecting people I like and respect to others so they can help each other. I do this a lot as I have a rich and varied network. And it's a real joy, certainly if it works out for them both. That's one of the fun aspects of being in business.
There should never be any expectation on the side of the referrer that it will benefit them. Hope, maybe. In fact, I always think the latter is like the former, but without the restrictions and rules, and is much healthier for it.
A sense of altruism is often just as rewarding as financial advancement.
But, there is one thing that anyone who refers someone should do, certainly without prompting by the person or people they're connecting.
Not doing so is like a scuba diver cutting off his own air tank supply while deep underwater.
This blog post was prompted by one such person who I met briefly at a large business event last year. He seemed like a nice guy. I asked him what he did and he told me. I then quickly connected him with two high grade people who were looking for the sort of help his business provides.
It was a magnificent match for both sides on both occasions and, all being well, would have earned this recruitment company founder a lot of money. And, modesty aside, that would have been thanks to me!
I expected and wanted nothing….apart from one thing which he never gave.
One kind word: "THANKS!"
As a test, months afterwards, I emailed him saying I hoped the people I had referred were useful to him and his business.
A month later I got this brief and charmless reply:
"Thanks Sean"
That was it. No full stop. No explanation of how everything had gone. And he hadn't even spelled my name correctly! It is, in fact, Seán.
Luckily, I know a lot of great people in business and in life who I am more than happy to continue connecting. And he won't be one of them who'll be benefitting.
He could well have lost thousands, if not tens of thousands of pounds in potential opportunities…and just because he had neither the manners nor the business brains to say just one word unprompted – "thanks!" – but also to develop what could have been a most rewarding long-term business relationship.
R.I.P. (Ruined Income Prospect)!
posted: 21 Feb 12