At Mindmaven, we believe the best things in life and business come from our relationships – our network – or those we know and trust.
Think back on the best business opportunities you’ve encountered. There’s a good chance most if not all, happened because someone in your network thought of you at the right time.
Many of these business opportunities come in the form of referrals – and if you’re in a service-based business, those referrals are the lifeblood of your success. So the question is …
How do you increase the number of referrals you generate (and, as a result, the success of your business)?
In this post, we’ll share a simple 5-minute habit allowing you to do just that. But before we get there, we need to answer an important question …
What Drives Referrals?
We’ve asked this question hundreds of times and are always surprised by the answers. They usually sound something like this:
- “If you work hard, referrals naturally come.”
- “Focus on delivering a great experience, and referrals will follow.”
- Or, the most common, “I don’t know, they just … Happen, sometimes.”
And while we don’t want to diminish the importance of hard work or delivering great experiences, those answers don’t capture the whole truth.
Referral generation is a repeatable process driven by two factors.
Once you understand it, you can leverage that process to dramatically increase the number of game-changing business opportunities you encounter.
So, what are the two factors?
Factor #1: Timing
Timing is exactly what it sounds like—the specific point in time when someone in your network encounters the type of opportunity you want to hear about.
For example: If you’re a venture capitalist seeking to invest in early-stage startups, “timing” would be when one of your portfolio CEOs meets a founder who’s about to start fundraising.
The problem is we have no control over timing. You can’t “force” anyone in your network to be at the right place at the right time. That’s why the second factor is so important.
Factor #2: Mindshare
Mindshare determines how likely someone in your network is to think of you when they encounter the types of opportunities you want to hear about.
Continuing the above example: Your mindshare influences how likely your portfolio CEOs are to think of you (rather than the many other investors they know) when encountering a startup founder.
Simply put: The more mindshare you have with someone, the more likely they are to think of you in the face of opportunity.
Even more simply: More mindshare equals more referrals. So the final question we need to ask before moving on to our tip is …
How Do You Increase Mindshare?
This is a bigger topic than we can get into in this blog post, so we’ll just focus on the basics: The mindshare you enjoy with someone is driven by the quality and frequency of your interactions.
Immediately following a quality interaction with someone—whether it’s a lunch meeting, phone call, or email—your mindshare with them is 100%.
In other words, if they encounter someone who needs what you offer right after interacting with you, they’ll likely think of you and send the referral.
But mindshare decays over time. That’s why it’s important to have regular, quality interactions with the right people in our network.
This ensures your mindshare never drops below the threshold at which someone is unlikely—or even unable—to think of you in the face of business opportunities.
To explore this topic further, check out our recorded live session on How To Generate Referrals With 4 Network Relationship Management Strategies below.
Within this session, Senior Executive Coach Connor Drake shares how to identify your opportunity network, elevate your relationship management, become a masterful communicator, and leverage game-changing AI tools to positively impact your career and business trajectory.
But in essence, maintaining your mindshare means consistently delivering quality interactions to your network – which brings us to our 5-minute habit for generating business opportunities …
Simple 5-Minute Habit to Maximize Mindshare and Generate Business Opportunities
Maintaining your mindshare doesn’t have to be difficult, and we can prove it.
If you want to increase the number of business opportunities you’re generating from your network, adopt this simple 5-minute habit:
Send one email a day to someone you wouldn’t otherwise have contacted.
At first, that may seem too simple. But think about it …
If you practice this habit every weekday, by the end of the year, you’ll have sent around 260 messages you wouldn’t otherwise have sent.
And while there’s no such thing as a guarantee in relationships, in our experience, at least one of those emails will lead to a business opportunity you wouldn’t otherwise have experienced.
Make it the first thing you do each morning after sitting down in front of your computer. It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes, and the payoff can be immeasurable.
What Should These Emails Say?
Before we wrap this up, one more tip: Perhaps the biggest barrier people run into while adopting this habit is not knowing what to say.
After all, mindshare is driven by the frequency and quality of your interactions, so it isn’t enough just to add noise to someone’s inbox (which actually does more harm than good).
Your emails must provide meaningful, relevant value.
Our 5 Freebies Notion Template can help with that. With five distinct templates, you can easily reach out to anyone at any time – allowing you to focus on building relationships instead of stressing over what to write.
An Invitation to Reach Your Fullest Potential
We hope this article resonated with you and inspired you to challenge yourself to send one email a day to someone you wouldn’t otherwise have contacted.
This simple but powerful tactic is just the first step in unlocking your true potential.
If you’re ready to free up 12+ hours every week and reinvest that time in what truly matters – your relationships – we’d love to support you on that journey.
We invite you to schedule a free 1:1 consultation with one of our coaches and explore how we can help you maximize your impact and generate game-changing business opportunities.
During this call, we’ll identify your specific challenges and explore potential solutions to help you take your success to the next level.
