GIVE US A FASTER HORSE

      “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” – Henry Ford

     How do people create great things? By listening to others? By taking orders? Or by going into the slowed down slacker silence of a goof-off day of loafing...a glorious day wherein genius thrives and a new idea bursts from the right side of the brain to the newly-harmonized left?

     Most people don't create great things in their day. They are too busy doing too many things at once. Most of the people I coach start each day with too many things to do.

     I started coaching Renata by asking her how her life was. And she said too many things to get done and not enough time. That's a formula, I said, for a very miserable, frustrating life. She asked why and I said it was because she was trying to live in the future.

     Like a fly bouncing against the window pane trying to get into the house. Did you ever see the horror film "The Fly?" That's how most people live. Buzzing and pounding against the glass trying to get into their own future. They think it's a better place. Peace and quiet and open air. Wait for them, somewhere.

     But now? Now is a mess. Now is chaos. Now is a million things to do as Renata fumbles with her cell phone in her car not noticing the light had changed. She blew her mind out in a car! All from having too much to do. And not enough time to do it.

     But true mastery (not to mention happiness) comes from not having too much to do. It comes from only having one thing to do. Just this one thing.

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     HOW TO GET REFERRALS

     How do you get anything? You plant it, you water it. You give it light. You cultivate it. You watch over it. You weed around it. You give it more water. And it grows. Inch by inch. Row by row, referrals grow.

      But not for the past six coaches I have referred clients to. Do you know why? They did none of the above. None of it. They had too much to do to do any of that nonsense. They had too much to do and too little time. They were horror film flies buzzing and bouncing against the window trying in vain to get into their own futures every day...in vain! You know why it's in vain. (Secret: the future doesn't exist.)

      People don't get referrals because they don't reward referrals. It's that simple. They don't cultivate referrals. They don't water them. They don't even turn the soil over.

      I have a lot of people ask me for coaching these days and I like to refer them to coaches I know. But the coaches I know don't know how to treat referrals, so I keep referring to different coaches hoping I'll find one, just one who knows what to do. Are you that person? Email me if you are. I'll send YOU a referral, and we'll see.

      So I sent (we are changing names of course) Melissa a referral. She thanked me
and signed the client to a coaching contract. That was the last I heard. For me to know whether it was working out, whether my referral was happy, what was happening at all… I myself had to ask. It never occurred to Melissa to keep me informed. To let me know it was going well. To keep me in the loop. Therefore, when I had another referral to make I did not make it to Melissa. Not because Melissa didn't keep me in the loop, but because Melissa would NEVER know how to teach her clients how to get referrals.

     This isn't just with coaching. I talked to a business owner last month who said he got his best leads and best business from dentists. They referred people. I asked him what he does for the dentist when the dentist refers. He said he sends a nice card. Do you keep the dentist in the loop? Do you have the client referred get back to the dentist and thank him personally? Do you call the dentist three months later to let him know how you are taking care of his referral? (This is called watering and cultivating a referral.) No. Just that one card. That's it.

     What's wrong with the card? Everybody does it, so therefore it has no heart and no sincerity. It's what busy people do who don't slow down and become present to all the possibilities in their world. If a referrer keeps learning from you how the referral went, he will refer more and more people. Every client I have taught this to has THRIVED on referrals! Every one, every time.

    So this business started going back through their list of all the dentists who had referred people. They gave them written and verbal reports on how things had gone, and you know what? They started getting a wave of new referrals. People LIKE TO KNOW THEY ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN LIFE.

    If they referred someone to you, they want to know all about what happened. They LOVE knowing they made a positive difference in someone's life. Why not just send this thank you card? Because everybody else does that therefore it's meaningless. It's unconscious and robotic. It's self-focused. (It's about you. It's not about the person being served by all this. It's about you grateful for money, so it's basically sickening when you really think about it.) It's phony. It comes from a frantic mind trying always to get into its own future and never slowing down to be present to this precious moment. In business you get what you reward. But only always. How do you reward referrals? With genuine informative feedback...real news from real people being real with each other?

     So I referred another client to another coach I know. I heard nothing back. I heard, "Thank you" at the moment of the referral but nothing more. Even if the referral didn't work out, I would want to know that. Last week, even, this happened again. I referred someone to a good coach I know, and never heard back. I had to track the coach down and drag it out of him. How did that work out? Are you working with him? Why is this such a big secret? I know why. It's a busyness problem. Most people are too busy to succeed.

     That coach has no vision about how he might slow down, treat people in considerate ways, and grow his business like a beautiful garden. He is racing and pumping and pressing, trying to force himself through the glass into a better, kinder future. It's the ultimate time management mistake...having more than one thing to do.

      Just do one thing well. Just do one thing artistically, completely, lovingly and thoroughly. See what happens to your career.

       And when you're trapped in it, notice how sick a millions-of-things-to-do mind really is. Notice how ungrateful that mind is. And notice how broke that person is compared to how wealthy he could be. It's all related.

Comments

[Neal]

Excellent post Steve. I always learn something from your writings. Which book of your's would you recommend reading first OR is it based on my needs?

Thanks,
Neal

[Nancy Bishop]

I love your analogy of the fly hitting the glass pane. They even do this when there is a crack in the window. Rather than fly out the open window they will keep bouncing off of it. Maybe the fly is hoping if it just tries hard enough it will make a way out. Steve, your words are a great reminder about being present in our lives and tending to what is right in front of us rather than buzzing around aimlessly.
I will put this into practice personally and professionally. Thank you.

[Nick Payne]

Steve,

You are right on target about how referrals work. Interestingly the one business I always refer is my Dentist. He does a great job, has great staff, follows up with a thank you note after every visit, and every time I go he fills me in on all the people I've referred to him.

Nick

[Michelle Bauman]

Steve:

I always enjoy your ALL your writting and this post is no exception. I am inspired by the way you talk about cultivating referrals - but I have a question. As I coach, I experience the coaching relationship as incrediably private, confidential and sacred. I feel like the fact that someone has retained me as a coach AND the quality of the work we do together is confidential. My client may not want me to share that he has retained me as a coach. Similar, he may not want his or her progress reported to the person who referred him to me. This information feels like it's not mine to share. I am also an attorney and as I'm sure you know - attorneys are bound by very strict professional codes of conduct around client confidentiality - so perhaps I'm overly sensitive to issues of confidentiality - but I'd love to know your thoughts on this question.

Thanks for All,

Michelle