Dear Referral-Seeking Friend,

   I start-off today with Oranges and the movie The Godfather. And yes, they both have a lot to do with you generating more word-of-mouth referrals for yourself.

   Did you know that in all of Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece movies The Godfather, oranges play an unusual role?

   No one really knows why. But if you rent the original film (or any of the two sequels), you can watch the drama unfold yourself. All because of a tiny piece of citrus.

   The fact is, watch and you’ll see that every time an orange appears on screen--either when someone one buys one, eats one, or just comes into contact with the fruit--they die, or an attempt is made on their life.

   It happens in the original movie, when Godfather Marlon Brando is shot right after he buys a sack of oranges. And, of course, at the end of the movie, when Don Corleone is sitting in his garden pretending to be a scary monster to his young grandson. He ends up dying with an orange in his mouth!

  When I first learned about this, the whole sequence got me thinking…

How Could Something So Innocent and So Unnoticeable Contribute to Such Bad Circumstances?

  Of course, we’ll never really know because it was just a movie. My point is, most of the time we don’t really recognize things until after they’ve happened.

  The same thing can be said of us as business professionals attempting to grow our client base.

   Most people don’t take the time to consider the most effective way to do this. Which leads me to what I really want to talk to you about today...

“The Single Biggest Mistake that Kills Your Chance for Consistent Business…”

   Referrals.

   Also called, personal introductions. And with every task of giving or receiving a referral there’s an underlying lesson.

   Let me tell you a story.

   You may never have heard of Brazoria, Texas before, but there’s a lot you can learn. Especially when it comes to increasing your referrals.

   Located just 20 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico and an hour south of Houston, some say it’s really where the state of Texas began. The Brazos River divides the county into two sections.

   The western one-third is covered by hardwood trees. The rest of the county is generally prairie land.

   Naturalists love it. They find abundant groves of pin oak, cedar, live oak, mulberry, hackberry, ash, elm, cottonwood, and pecan trees growing in the river and creek bottoms, while cord grasses, bunchgrasses, and sedges are all over the coastal marshes.

   In fact, when settlers first arrived, wildlife was abundant…

You Could See Deer, Bear, Turkey, Fish…

And All of the Cute Big and Little Animals.

   Now, let’s just assume for a second that you live in Texas, shall we?

   One Saturday morning after breakfast, you decide it would be nice to take the family out for an afternoon trip. A car excursion where you go out into nature, drive around for a while, see some birds, maybe an alligator or two, look around and relax a bit… and contend with the kids whining, "I’m bored, let’s go home."

   So one Saturday, after a morning of cartoons, you head out to the San Bernard Wildlife Refuge, where after entering, you pray that you don’t get lost in this big forest (actually, getting lost isn’t that bad. Being found is the problem.)

   Anyhow…

   While in the refuge, you bump into a Park Ranger from the Texas Forest Service, who points to a very remote portion of the refuge and explains how it may be several hundred years old.

   ‘Interesting,’ you think. ‘Maybe Sam Houston rested there on his way up to the Alamo.’ 

   And while daydreaming, the Ranger tells you that only recently did they discover…

The Largest Live Oak Tree
in the State of Texas!

     So large, in fact, this tree has a circumference of 32.2 feet. It’s a massive 67 feet tall and has a crown spread of 100 feet.  You couldn’t try to hug the tree, which is bigger in diameter than most cars.

   “It would have taken 8 people joining hands just to make a circle around it,” the Ranger says.

   And while you’re staring in amazement, you notice that all of the other trees can’t seem to match this one’s mammoth size.

   “About 8 feet above the ground,” the Park Ranger continues babbling. “It looks like the tree splits into two larger ones -- each could be a monster by itself.”

Now, What Would You Think?

     You’d probably think the tree is the largest Oak in the state. And you’d be right.

   Refuge officials, the Texas Forest Service, biologists and nature enthusiasts all rave about its imposing presence. And everyone wants to see it. You’d feel lucky to have even had the chance to come face-to-face with such a majestic gift of nature.

   “If it were in the city, cars would be backed up with people looking at it,” the Ranger finishes.

   Now, the park ranger is a pretty smart guy. 

   And it leads me right into the truth about building referrals. Or should I say, “the mistake.”

   Do you know what it is?

“Action Is the Antidote to Despair”

    The truth is we’ve all felt a form of business despair. Sort of like watching scoundrel poachers take a chain saw to a tree of beauty, like that oak tree.

   It’s a feeling that you’re working so hard... running to clients... off to appointments... back to the office... returning voice mails... running life’s errands... and getting so frickin' little results from all your efforts that you feel exhausted and burned out as you rot away in eternal I-95 traffic.

   Let me be more direct: If you’re not getting the referrals you want or deserve the mistake you are making is…

You’re Not Giving Other People Enough Reason to Talk About You.

   In my example, today, it was the excitement of people in the state of Texas about a wild oak tree. And they ran their mouth about it.

   No excitement, means no referrals.

   Yes, the single biggest mistake that destroys your chances for steady business referrals is not giving other people enough reasons to talk about you.

   Because people can only talk about you once they’ve had an experience with you.

   Sort of like that old oak tree, wouldn’t you agree?

   So ask yourself: How can I package my work in a cost-effective, highly-valuable way, that other people can experience what I do? 

   Can I donate my services?

   Can I do some pro-bono work?

   Can I provide a valuable ‘extra’ service to existing clients?

   Can I offer them something free for a limited time

   Experience.

Am I Getting Through To You Yet?!

   Quit sitting back wishing, hoping, and praying that someone might call you from a business card you gave them 3 months ago.

   Stop dreaming that someone will stumble across your company name in the Chamber of Commerce Directory and your problems of getting consistent clients will be solved.

   Don’t believe your false sense of reality that just because people have met you, they’ll remember you when they have a business need. In the words of a pretty intelligent person...

“Out-of-Sight Means Out-of-Mind, Bub!”

   You can’t explain it to others.

   And there’s no way you can appreciate it unless you saw it with your own two eyes and experienced it yourself.

   So I say again: The biggest mistake most professionals make that prevents them from skyrocketing their referral efforts is not giving others an experience with their work.

   Beginning today –- change your mindset. Visualize yourself as a 10-ton magnet –- attracting all the client referrals you deserve.

   No, I'm not some ultra-liberal naturalist. But sometimes you have to tell a story or two to make a point. Rock on, I say.