Good Manners: Referrals & What To Do If You Ever Want Another One

I love to connect people and I especially love to see when my referrals work out and good/new/fun work & partnerships are produced. What I don’t like is using my time and brainpower to refer two people to each other and then never hearing from them again, only to discover that they’ve been happily working together on a billion projects and having an amazing time.

Here’s how referrals work: 
A person takes time and brain energy to connect two people who didn’t have access to each other before. Unless there’s an SRA (Sales Referral Agreement) involved, this service is given out of kindness and the desire to help people create better work together. If you want another referral from this person again you damn well better: 
1. Let them know what sprang forth from the introduction they made 
2. Say Thank You

Now I know thank-you notes (or emails) are a new revelation to some (there’s not enough room to get into how banal I think that is but I guess better late than never?) but frankly it is irrelevant to me how busy you think you are or if thank you’s or followup is your thing or not. The equation is simple: If you want me to apply myself towards your new connections and success you have to make it worth my while.

If I refer you to someone, I have an interest in seeing how it plays out. If you deny me that knowledge by failing to follow up, I have little evolutionary incentive to ever perform that service for you again. Unless money is exchanged, the only real incentive I have to refer you is the potential for that do-gooder chemical rush (probably dopamine) from knowing my referral was effective. Even if it wasn’t effective, your followup at least dignifies my efforts, i.e. still some delicious neurochemicals for me. Take that out of the equation and good luck.

Here’s a handy flow chart to remind you how it works. Basically, if you get a referral and let your referrer know how it goes and thank them, you will get more referrals. If you just disappear, you can expect zero more referrals and a respect demotion to boot.

That’s the latest from manners school. If you have experience with this scenario (or gripes on a different manners-related subject) leave your thoughts below!