Slow Down

Remember that song, ‘Feelin’ Groovy?’ Well, I may be showing my age but my grandmother used to make us sing it to her in the car. One of the lines is:

‘Slow down, you’re moving too fast. You gotta make the moment last.’

This is great advice for business people when they are networking. So many people think that networking puts them on the fast track to new business. While you may get an opportunity out of one meeting, the odds are against that.

Why?

Because networking is about relationship building. It’s about trust and trust is developed over time. I think you set yourself up for disappointment if you think you are going to walk away with a bunch of referrals from an initial meeting. Not only that, but it’s a bad habit to get into. You can give people the wrong impression of you and actually create a situation where they refrain from thinking of you for referrals.

When someone asks to meet with me to get to know my business and give me the chance to get to know them, I consider it the first step. It’s the beginning of the relationship building process. I can’t at that meeting feel comfortable referring them and I can’t expect them to be ready to refer me. We haven’t gotten to know each other well enough yet.

Now, you can say that first impressions matter and that may be true. I may be able to discern that you are reputable, professional, and knowledgeable. But I don’t know enough to trust you with my treasured relationships. And don’t kid yourself – your relationships are treasures! If you want to keep them you need to protect them and value them.

I am fortunate to know a lot of people and have many relationships. Because I value them and want to keep them, I am very discriminating about who I refer to them and how. I respect their time and interests and try to keep from bothering them. So, I put more value on those established relationships than I do on the new ones I am building.

You should do the same!

You can have a desire to help people; that’s a good thing. However, that desire shouldn’t override your commitment to your relationships. Slow down. Give the new relationship a chance to bloom and solidify. Let the natural currents of relationships and referrals develop over time. You’ll know when there is a good fit and it makes sense to refer someone.

And if you are the person on the asking side, don’t ask someone for referrals at your first meeting. You don’t know them well enough to ask and they don’t know you well enough to give. In addition, you run the risk of making them uncomfortable and therefore, avoiding future relationship building with you. If you respect that the other person values their contacts you’ll understand how they need time to get to know you before they can feel comfortable referring you.

So, slow down and take the time to build those business relationships. And while you are doing that, find other ways to market and prospect your product/service. You can’t rely solely on networking and you can’t accelerate the referral process that grows out of networking.