2 Ways to Be Reciprocal

Do you ever find yourself receiving more referrals than you can hand out? Too many networkers often find themselves in this situation.

If you find yourself in this situation often, just know, there is no shame in that. Sometimes we are in professions where we are easily fed referrals from other professionals and sometimes we're in profession that receives more referrals from our clients. For the sake of this post, I am going to use the easiest scenario that I can think of.

We have a carpet cleaner and a realtor. A carpet cleaner can easily receive many more referrals from a realtor than a realtor can receive from a carpet cleaner. A carpet cleaner will be in the house when a realtor has a house going on the market and sometimes after the closing. Its very concevable that a carpet cleaner may on occasion have a referral for a realtor but I'm positive it's not very often. 

If you are the professional that doesn't have a lot of referrals but you receive a lot, here's 2 critical things that you can do for them so the relationship can be more reciprocal:

1. Be a Resource - When they call you and you get the job, make sure you make the other person look good. If they look good, then they are more likely will feed you more.

2. Make Introductions - Know who the person needs introductions too. Find out who their COI's are and make those introductions happen. If you can help them develop more COI's then they could receive referrals from them. 
As you can see, being reciprocal is still possible even when it seems impossible. Remember this though...if your relationship that feeds you referrals only feeds you because they want something in return, you're not in the best relationship. I suggest you move on. You create a reciprocal relationship because you want to, not because you have to.

~Clayton Hicks, H7 Network

Bio: Clayton Hicks is the Founder & President of H7 Network. He has spent the last 8 years refining the principles and processes of building professional relationships. At one point in his career he went on over 1200 1-to-1s with other professionals in the region over a 18 month period. He still completes almost 10 1:1s per week still today all while spending most of his time training his staff weekly and members on how to build relationships at no cost.  Feel free to ask questions below in the comment box so that he can be of service to you.