In our Referral Pursuit class we talk about the types of referrals that you will accept in relation to how you value yourself. In theory we all want that personal introduction, but what really happens when we get the “they are expecting your phone call” referral?

I had this happen recently. I received a BNI referral online from a member of another chapter. It said, “Go ahead and call this person, they are expecting your call.” What to do? I didn’t know the BNI member at all, as a co-worker of hers is a member of my BNI chapter. She had passed along my referral request to her co-worker. For me it is easier to prevail among my acquaintances to get them to do what I want!

Even though the voices inside my head were having a hay day about what this person was going to think, I just decided that I was worth a personal intro. I replied to the original referral with the suggestion that a personal introduction would work better. Of course, the voices said, “You will never hear from this person again!”

You can imagine my surprise when just a couple minutes later I got an actual phone call from this person. She said that she would be happy to do so and just needed a couple possible dates. This is going to work out so much better and I will also get to know this other BNI member to see how I can help her.

My take-away from this is that I was letting FEAR take over. I was afraid of what she would think. Stupid! I am so glad that I just faced the fact that I had control over nothing but my actions. It worked out just fine.