Your colleagues want to refer you; you want to refer them.
While we tend to layer on new connections, most of you report to me you don’t even know or have evaluated many of them as partners, why not take a different approach?
Here’s an idea: like a gold miner, mine the great people your already esteemed colleagues are connected to on LinkedIn and ask them privately via messages, on LinkedIn or email, if the target is a good referral for you.
Friends of friends, or friends2.
Give them an idea why you can help the third party in a short paragraph (so they can turn it around and send off on your behalf), ask them to make an intro via LinkedIn.
You’d be amazed. But you have to ask. Nicely and intelligently.
Reciprocate too.
2 new clients today started out in this way.There are many more nuggets to mine!
