Keep Your Peas In Your Pocket and Make a Real Connection

The other day I was having lunch with a potential client and the subject of networking came up. This business leader mentioned that he had heard a number of positive things about my 8 Minute Ripple events and wondered how they might be different than the general business mixers and chamber luncheons he was accustomed to attending.

When we began talking about the 8 Minute Ripple and the fact that I specifically position the event to be about creating real connection between my participants and that we specifically request that people keep their business agendas at home, he was confused.

"But Steve if business people are there to meet other business people isn't it natural for one to expect that business is what people want to talk about?"

Not necessarily I answered but it is what is expected in "traditional networking" environments and hence why I tend to detest them so much.

Bottom line, when you meet someone for the first time and you ask or get asked that heinous question "So what do you do?" a defining moment occurs. In about the thirty seconds (sometimes way longer for audacious windbags that love to hear themselves talk) you have successfully narrowed your focus into a very finite category with very little room to grow if there is no immediate business connection.

I digress with this example but I think you will get the point.

New Guy - "So I love peas." business translation --- I sell insurance

Me - "I hate peas." business translation --- I don't need insurance

New Guy - "But peas are awesome." business translation --- But you need my insurance

Me - "Maybe for you." business translation --- No I don't now bug off

Uncomfortable silence ensues. This guy is now the freakoid that likes peas and because he likes peas and/or sells insurance the conversation has been narrowed down so quickly (what do you do and do you need what I have) there is no place to go with the conversation. It is now officially dead. Time of death....O'(I wish I Had Listened To That Harper Guy)6:30. Someone call the morgue stat!

Now what if you hadn't started with peas but something about what brought me to Austin or where I purchased my snazzy purple tie, or something that gave us a baseline for some communication that resembled two people getting to know each other? Instead our culture demands that we focus immediately on what this person can do for us or what we can do for them and if there is no immediate relevance its time to move on.

If pea brain and I had found some common ground....a connection point between the two of us and we took the time to build a little rapport, mutual admiration for one another, then when and if the subject of peas (or insurance) came up, he might have my full and captivated attention.

People there are no rules. How many of you are pushing peas when you should be pushing you. People connect with you. Despite what all the networking gurus and their fancy books say, connecting with people isn't a numbers or quantity game. It's an experience. Don't burn the experience and what might be an otherwise amazing future connection for yourself by popping your peas out before they have had time to cook.

Part Two and my client's reaction to keep your peas in your pocket in a day or two.


BTW.....we have our next 8 Minute Ripple happening on January 17th! Email me at steve@ripplecentral.com if you would like to come and NOT TALK ABOUT PEAS!

Ripple On Ripple Nation!

Steve

There are No Automatics In Life

It was a play that he had done probably a thousand times during practice, countless games and in his mind. Tony Romo, the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, performed that simple task so often that he and everyone else considered it automatic.

And it was…..until it wasn’t.

Saturday night I watched as my beloved Dallas Cowboys fell to the Seattle Seahawks 21-20 in their Wild Card Playoff Game. The loss was one of the worst in recent memory. It left me hurting as a fan and even more for a young guy named Tony Romo. The perfect snap, the botched hold and an entire season down the drain all in a matter of about three seconds.

Anyone who knows me knows that I live and breathe the Dallas Cowboys and I have for as long as I can remember. I am so silver and blue that rumor has it I came out of the womb with the shiny Dallas star tattooed on my tiny little dimpled butt. Yes, a true fan sent by God himself to forever support and root on “His team.”

Boy was I rooting on Saturday night! Let’s just say neighbors for three blocks knew the game was on and likely knew when and how it had ended.

Watching the game end like it did really, really hurt. However I managed to pull a lesson or two from it. Something I hope might make sense to you and by sharing it might assuage my pain.

Simple, everyday actions that we all take for granted and consider automatic can sometimes go erroneously wrong.

Something as simple as not returning a customer’s phone call because it is late in the day can cost you.

Taking your super star employees for granted and not recognizing them for their effort often enough can cost you.

Failing to say the words “I am sorry” when you screw up can cost you.

Not remembering to say “Thank you” to anyone and everyone who has ever purchased something from you, supported you or believed in you can and will cost you.

We all bump through our personal and professional lives I believe taking things for granted. We all have our “automatics” that we overlook and assume will always be there and go smoothly for us no matter what. If I learned anything Saturday night, there are no give me’s in life. I learned to remember that the automatic is not guaranteed and just when you begin to think it is that’s when life has a funny way of sneaking up on you to remind you it is not.

Saturday night was painful for me not only as a fan of Tony Romo’s and the Dallas Cowboys but a fan of life. It was a painful reminder that those things we take for granted can and will always find a way to break at the most inopportune times if we give them permission to do so. And by permission I mean….failing to place the proper importance on all the things we do…even the simple most automatic things.

Life offers us no automatics.

What I believe is Tony Romo will grow from this mistake. He will be back next year a better quarterback out there on the football field. His willingness to accept responsibility during the post-game news conference proves he will take this misstep and utilize it to motivate and inspire himself in the future. And I firmly believe on Saturday night, as tears filled his eyes and his heart was broken with the pain of the loss, he became the real leader of the team. Somehow in defeat and despite a huge mistake, he taught me something.

Saturday night’s game was good reminder to us all. The simple automatic things in life and in business can and will in a moments notice slip through our fingers if we let it.

Don’t.

Ripple On Friends!

Steve Harper

P.S. Check out our new website....we are still doing some editing but stop by and let me know what you think! www.ripplecentral.com