Did you think that was a little manipulative?

C’mon, admit it! Did you?

If so, you completely missed the point.

If you were to try to manipulate your contacts using this Swap & Drop approach (“swap” your business cards with them, then “drop” a special kind of a greeting card in the mail), you wouldn’t be able to get far. People are quite savvy and can see your plot right through.

The reason this method worked for me was because of what I call The Referral Intent. Simply put, I really did want to find out more about them and find a way to help them.

Zig Ziglar says that you can have anything you want in life as long as you can figure out a way to help other people get what they want.

Well, that is absolutely true.

Business owners and professionals attending networking meetings want referrals. This is obvious: They all do. That’s why they invest their time and money to go there. And most of them leave these networking meetings disappointed by the lack of results.

If you can find a way to plug them into your own network — however small that network may be at the moment — you will start building a relationship of trust, which will eventually result in more referrals for you. And how can you refer them if you don’t know that much about them or their business? That’s why it’s critical that you meet with them in person or on the phone and get to know them.

Alas, the technique that I gave you last time can be used to manipulate people. And some lowly life form of a salesperson may try that only to discover that this approach backfires and ruins their business — and rightly so.

I suggest you use it to add value to your network.

It’s your intent that defines the outcome.

I gave you the tool. Now it’s up to you to decide how you are going to apply it.