We all know people who seem to naturally draw people towards themselves and then there’s the rest of us. If you think it’s all just about popularity, then you’ve got so much more to learn and understand.
Yet let’s be optimistic about where you may be now because there is so much you’re going to gain as you begin to focus on how to build your influence and grow the size of the “circles” attracted and gathering around you.
A lot has been written about the causes of influence and amongst my favorites are the works of Dr. Robert Cialdini who authored the book Influence many years ago. In his writing, he puts forth six factors the build influence. Yet, amongst them, there are two major forces that I’ve learned are directly connected to your effectiveness in getting referrals… and I mean lots of referrals.
Long ago I learned that by consciously taking on the mindset of being a “giver” always led to dividends in all aspects of my life. As I teach in my referral training programs to professionals across all business categories, you need to make the commitment to always give early, give often, give back and give big. There’s lots of reasons why this is important in addition to how it makes you feel when you give something of meaning to a person.
More specifically, the consistent giver brings those two powerful influence building forces that Cialdini describes into play in a very powerful referral building way.
The first is the core human desire we all have to reciprocate or give back to a person who is a giver. It shows up everywhere… when you give consistently the receiver likely feels good and appreciative and in most situations will soon be wondering just how they can do something nice in return for you.
You know this… it’s like when someone buys you coffee at Starbucks or lunch and you say “it’s my turn the next time.”
In my building of a very successful coaching business, I would start each day wondering what special impact could I have on those I was due to meet that day. This caused me to better prepare to help the people I’d encounter and it also increased my influence (think building great “word-of-mouth”) and always attracted more people towards me.
To do this, I’d focus on gathering together lots of little things I could give away to enhance my relationships such as business checklists and planning tools, leadership books or interesting reprinted articles. Leaving these behind in a meeting with my name and branding on them meant I had an ongoing continuing positive “presence” with that person.
Just a few weeks ago I received a book as a gift from a former client who mentioned he was just saying thanks for all the books and gifts I had given him many years ago. Its been years since we’ve talked yet these powerful relationship building effects are long-lasting and very gratifying.
You’re in the spotlight!
The second influence driver I speak of is the uniqueness you take on as a dedicated giver in a world where very few people really are like you. That uniqueness is called the power of scarcity and illustrates the effects of your standing out in a crowd where very few people have that dedicated giver’s mindset.
We all know why gold or diamonds are valued so highly… it’s all about scarcity. The same goes for the givers in our lives who are few but really unforgettable.
The game changer for referrals
The powers of “reciprocity and scarcity” together are huge emotional forces in building your referral business. The more you give and cause people to want to “reciprocate” the more its twin “scarcity” joins to work together to elevate you above the crowd. This sets you up to begin to gather a steady, evergreen flow of referrals coming back your way.
There’s more to learn to most effectively turn on and capture the referral flow but with your focus on giving and standing out in your marketplace you’ve stacked the deck in your favor.
I smile when I recall a very seasoned Sandler sales trainer telling me how when I taught him to do these specific steps, it rapidly lined up dozens of new referred prospects for him to then bring into his “Sandler Submarine” sales process and readily turn them into clients.
As you think about embracing the mindset of a giver and turning this into a referrals winning lifestyle, take a look at www.engagepro.com. This tool provides you with a step-by-step roadmap to creating referral relationships and its economical and easy to get started.