Small Business Blog

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.

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The Wind and the Sun

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.”

So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give in despair.

Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

“Kindness affects more than severity.”

The Two Mortgage Brokers and The Mortgage Referral

Two mortgage brokers were quibbling over who was the better salesman. They decided to validate their banter by pursuing a sales lead. The second mortgage broker said, “Let’s each follow-up on this sales lead and whoever can get the prospective client to refinance, is truly the superior salesman!”  The first mortgage agreed.

The next morning the first mortgage broker repeatedly called the prospect, emailed the prospect, and he even arranged a consultation where he gave his best pitch along with five pristine business cards. Despite the broker’s aggressive effort, the prospect became overwhelmed by his attempts and even questioned whether he really wanted to refinance at all.

That afternoon the second mortgage broker invited the prospect to lunch. He made a concerted effort to understand the prospect’s specific needs, he even discovered a few mutual connections, and when lunch was over he provided the prospect with a link to the small business directory which had a list of five references; colleagues and past clients the prospect could contact. Not only was the prospect eager to refinance with the second mortgage broker but he was looking forward to doing lunch again.

“A referral network affects more than a hard sell”