We proudly present Fable Fridays. This weekly installment will draw parallels between referral networking and some of society’s most cherished moral tales: Aesop’s Fables.
You could go to expensive seminars and buy up every book on referral marketing, but it doesn’t take a marketing genius to realize that Aesop got it right nearly 3,000 years ago.
The Miser and his Gold
Once upon a time there was a Miser who used to hide his gold at the foot of a tree in his garden; but every week he used to go and dig it up and gloat over his gains.
A robber, who had noticed this, went and dug up the gold and decamped with it. When the Miser next came to gloat over his treasures, he found nothing but the empty hole. He tore his hair, and raised such an outcry that all the neighbours came around him, and he told them how he used to come and visit his gold.
“Did you ever take any of it out?” asked one of them.
“Nay, said he, “I only came to look at it.”
“Then come again and look at the hole,” said a neighbor; “it will do you just as much good.”
“Wealth unused might as well not exist”
The Accountant and his CPA Referral
Once upon a time there was an accountant who belonged to a very powerful referral network. Every week he would gloat over the caliber of the professionals within his network but would rarely send referrals to them.
A competing CPA from the business directory, who had noticed this, began encouraging others in the referral network to send him new business. He promised them a timely and qualified business referral for every referral they sent him.
When the accountant noticed he was receiving less referrals, he called his colleague and told him about decline in new business.
“Did you always thank your referral source and send them reciprocal sales leads?” asked the colleague.
“Nay, said the accountant, “I rarely send new referrals back to my colleagues.”
“Then come and look at the phone book,” said the colleague; “these sales leads will do you just as good.”
“Referral relationships unused might as well not exist.”
