For me, this is it!  This is exactly what networking is all about.   Why spend time networking just trying to sell to the people you meet when you can do so much more with a simple change in focus, a plan, a genuine desire to help others and not too much extra effort?

The real distinction here is the difference between the attitude of a hunter and that of a farmer.  Let’s examine those differences so that we can understand the need to develop “Referral Networking”.

I’m sure as you read these words, you’ll recognise this situation.  Your at a networking event and you meet, or get introduced to, a certain individual.  This person seems friendly as you start to chat but you quickly start to realise that he’s not especially sincere.  You deduce this from the fact that he doesn’t really listen to the answers you give to his questions.  Or worse still, he answers them for you!

And then it happens.  As quickly as you ask him what it is that he does, he launches into his sales pitch without barely stopping for breath.  There’s no mistaking the feeling of being sold to – or at least having someone try to sell to you.

This is the definitive behaviour of someone with the mindset of “a hunter”.  If you’re like me, and most of the people I’ve ever discussed this with, you really don’t like this kind of “full frontal” approach.  Bizarrely, if you took the same tack with the people that approach you this way, they would be quite indignant about it!

I love people watching, and one of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that people are often highly critical of certain kinds of behaviour in others, even though they would quite happily use the exact same behaviour themselves, without giving it a second thought.

This kind of networker plays the networking game at level 1 and, probably, doesn’t get a great deal of reward for the time and effort that they put in to their business networking.

By stark contrast, someone with the mindset of “a farmer” sees things in a very different light, and behaves accordingly.  They realise that the average business person typically has in excess of 1000 contacts when you take into account their friends, family, acquaintances, clients, suppliers, business associates and members of any clubs or associations that they happen to belong to.

They realise that, if they build a great relationship with someone, a relationship that leads to a good understanding of each others’ business, that builds confidence and trust in each other – both personally and from a business perspective, a relationship that leads to friendship and a general desire to help one another,then there is so much more to be gained on both sides.

The ultimate aim of this relationship is to stimulate a level of confidence and trust where a natural progression is the fact that referrals take place between them.  In fact, if the relationship and mindset of both parties is the same then, not only are they willing to refer to each other, but they proactively look out for opportunities to refer to each other.

Where do these opportunities come from?

They’re all around us, all of the time.  But, primarily, they will come from the contacts we spoke of earlier in relation to those people that we have developed the right kind of relationship with.

They will come from their friends, family, acquaintances, clients, suppliers, business associates and members of any clubs or associations that they happen to belong to – as well as the other casual acquaintances that they will come across on a daily basis.

This is playing at level 3 of the networking game.  “Networking Nirvana”!   And it’s what we should all be aiming for.