How Do You Give A Referral? To Give Or To Get?

How Do You Give A Referral? To Give Or To Get?

How you give a referral will be a reflection of how you receive referrals.

How do you give a referral? A better question to ask is –

Are YOU giving the referral to “give” or is your EGO giving the referral to “get”?

Let me explain.

When YOU give a referral to “give” value it comes from the place of YOU wanting to add value to both;

– the person that you are giving the referral to
– the referral (the person) that you wish to offer value to through your referral introduction

Both people that you are wishing to serve will get that value is being added. This is because YOU are coming from the place of wanting to add value and that YOU have no agenda other than to add value to both parties.

It is kind of like the movie “Pay It Forward” and if you have not seen it, put it on your list.

The idea of “Pay It Forward” is to perform three acts of unsolicited kindness with the only requirement being that each recipient of his goodwill must “Pay It Forward” to three other people. And so on, and so on, and so on… Without an expectation.

Before I go further, let me offer you my definition of EGO.

Some call it the Small Brain versus the Big Brain. And many of us have the Small Brain (EGO) wrapped around the Big Brain and most of everything we do is limited in some way.

EGO lives in the Small Brain that is about the size of a walnut that sits on top of the spinal column. It serves a purpose when a saber toothed tiger is about to tear you apart and it sends a message to the Big Brian to run like hell. If you can imagine 1 million years BC, back on The Plains of Serengeti when your ancestor woke up and had two thoughts for the day. Thought #1 was “what am I going to eat”? Thought #2 was “what is going to eat me”? The EGO’s main concern was the unmet needs of safety, security and survival. Today’s EGO has evolved by adding additional unmet needs to its list that include; approval, control, perfection, power, recognition, safety and the grand daddy of all unmet needs, worthiness.

So again, are you using the Big Brain or is every decision you make based upon the Small Brain’s unmet needs of; approval, control, perfection, power, recognition, safety and worthiness?

When your EGO is giving the referral to “get”, the EGO’s self serving agenda has the potential of really clouding and confusing the value that could be added to whom you may be trying to serve.

What I mean by clouding and confusing the value is –

Ever met a salesperson that you didn’t like? Probably. Was it because they were too pushy? Did you say under your breath “I wouldn’t by a ______________ from them if they were the last person on earth”? Was it because they seemed or their EGO seemed to have a hidden agenda?

My message to you is that all that they had going on below the surface was that they had an unconscious unmet need of approval or recognition that they were trying to get met. That is all. Forgive them for they know not what they do.

The point that I want to make is that they or their EGO had an agenda.

And if you apply the same analogy to a referral – having an agenda – an unconscious EGO based unmet need of approval and recognition below the surface and trying to get the unmet need met by giving a referral –

The referral will come across as having some kind of agenda –

The referral isn’t or doesn’t come across as giving and adding value. The referral will come across as getting and most likely getting some EGO based need of approval or recognition met at the same time.

Referrals that are based upon getting an unmet need of approval or recognition are often based on;

* “look how great I am”
* “look how great I am and you need this too”
* “look how great I am and I am always better than you and you need this too”

And this unmet need based referral, giving to get will likely end up – and I’ll leave that up to you to figure out.

Oh yeah! Remember – How you give a referral will be a reflection of how you receive referrals.

Don’t you just love to receive those referrals where the person giving the referral wants some kind of commission or fee?

Remember – what goes around, comes around.