A Prototypical Networking Superstar
My friend Bea Salabi is the absolute prototype of the successful giver. Bea, who owns a local mortgage lending company called Palm Lending, came into town as the owner of a new mortgage brokerage company that consisted of just Bea and one partner. A year later, Bea had three very profitable offices and over 30 team members. A huge success story.
Bea is someone who goes out of her way for anyone and everyone she can, from sponsoring a family of eight children, to serving on her local board of directors for Habitat for Humanity, to taking over 1500 local underprivileged children to the movies in one summer. And, please don’t think she does this with the idea of acquiring business: she doesn’t. (Although oddly enough, it always seems to happen.)
On the other hand, she also throws huge, lavish parties for her prospects and clients. From the parties, she clearly knows she’ll eventually receive business, and she really goes all out in providing an abundance of delicious food, a massage therapist, entertainment and many other goodies. Though this is part of her business public relations efforts, she’s just the type of person who goes all out when she gives: it’s simply part of her nature.
What I’ve found is that people very seldom have a successful business personality and a completely different, separate, non-business personality. Bea certainly illustrates this observation: she gives in high style, whether it’s for her business, for charity, or for friends. Come to think of it, for Bea, it’s all “for friends”!
Here’s a typical Bea story (one example out of dozens I could cite) of how giving purely for the sake of giving led to receiving many times over.
A local woman was having her house foreclosed on. A couple found about it through their church (the same church this woman attended) and came to Bea, saying they’d like to buy the house to prevent the foreclosure. They would hang onto the home, they said, until the woman was able to buy it back from them.
Bea offered her services for free, and did not receive a single cent from the transaction. However, as a result of her giving efforts, she received numerous referrals, which in turn ended up resulting in—are you ready for this?—over 25 closed transactions. And for these transactions, she did indeed earn commissions.
How did this all come about? Apparently, the couple turned out to be true Centers of Influence, and because they felt so strongly that Bea’s efforts should not go unrewarded, they began spreading the word about her. This is what happens to successful givers.
Be like Bea, and all the other ultra-successful networkers who know that the way to receive in abundance is to be a giver and connector, and to do so with your principle goal being simply to help the people in your network. Do this consistently, and keep adding people to your network, and you’ll become like a water pump that’s been correctly and sufficiently primed—and will receive a steady, gushing flow of endless referrals upon endless referrals.
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Bob Burg (www.burg.com) a popular speaker at company sales conventions, is author of the newly revised and expanded Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts into Sales. He offers free weekly Video Briefs at www.BobsOffer.com.