Scarcity Mentality May Be Limiting You

Is your phone ringing off the hook? Do people you network with refer you frequently? If not, your network could be confused as to where you fit and what problems you solve.

Networkers notice a significant reduction in referrals when they broadly describe who they’d like to meet. Have you ever heard someone say something like “I am a financial planner and everyone is prospect”? Often this is done because a networker doesn't want to miss out on any potential business. They see scarce possibilities so they don’t want to limit who is referred. Unfortunately in doing so they paralyze potential referral sources. Can you refer “everybody”? Do you really want to refer to someone who is not a specialist?

If your goal is to meet everyone then you do not need to network. Just open up the phonebook and start dialing. Attend every event that you can. Every interaction will be one-to-one not one-to-many! There is no leverage in this model.

When we view opportunity in abundance we describe what we do and who we’re looking to meet in very focused and narrow terms such as, “we help professionalize group medical practices in CT”. From this, we know that this person consults with physician groups in CT to improve their performance. With this kind of description it is not only much easier for us to understand their skill set, but it is also much easier for us to help them make valuable connections.

When we briefly educate our community regarding our most valuable connections, we empower them to connect us. The influence in networking occurs through intimacy not generalization.

Last week’s post explored the downside of using the term “full service” when introducing yourself for the purpose of networking. Please refer to that post - “Full Service”, Really - for more detail on this topic.