Dear Friends & Colleagues:
This week’s excerpt from my new book, How To Win Client Business, is from Chapter 15: I Can’t See the Forest for the Trees. In this chapter, I provide practical guidance on how we go about building our professional ecosystem and developing trust-based relationships with those we wish to serve.
In addition to the text excerpt below, I’m providing a short 5 minute audio version as well – narrated by me. So, if you’d rather listen to a sample from Chapter 15 in lieu of the text excerpt, simply click here. (Note: If your preferred format is audio, the audiobook is now available on Amazon and is beautifully narrated by Barry Abrams – one of the best in the industry.)
Here’s this week’s excerpt. I hope you enjoy it!
Doug
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Chapter 15: I Can’t See the Forest for the Trees
Segmenting Your Ecosystem into Three Distinct Groups
Sometimes aspiring rainmakers struggle at first in building their professional
ecosystem – not so much the conceptual part, but the doing part. Most professionals
quickly grasp the importance of building an ecosystem of individuals who
care and support one another. And we understand the value in having 200 individuals
who can influence our careers.
The 200-person ecosystem idea is encouraging – it’s far less intimidating than
10,000 or 1 million people. But building relationships with several hundred people
is also a bit daunting. It’s hard enough to maintain close relationships with a
significant other, our family, and a handful of close friends. Relationships take time.
We have to nurture our relationships if they are to grow. How am I possibly going
to do this with hundreds of people?
One of the secrets to effectively building your ecosystem is to see it not as
one whole, but as three distinct groups. The first group is your inner circle; I call
this Tier 1. Tier 1 is comprised of the most important people in your ecosystem.
For most of us, Tier 1 is made up of a few dozen people, maybe 25 to 50 individuals.
These are the ones we are going to focus on and spend the most time with in
building a close relationship.
Tier 2 is comprised of individuals who are also important to us, but not to the
same degree as our inner circle. They are on the outer edge of Tier 1, and we’ll also
spend time with these people, but we won’t invest the same amount of time and
effort into building close one-on-one relationships. For most of us, there will be
roughly 50 to 100 individuals in Tier 2.
Tier 3 is comprised of the people who we need to know and who need to know
us, but we probably won’t have close relationships with them. This group is comprised
of somewhere in the order of 100 people whom you will stay in contact with
a few times a year.
When we think about our network as three distinct groups, it gives us a framework
to plan our daily time commitment to each. Doing so allows us to schedule
more time and attention to those closest to us and less time with those further away.
The three distinct ecosystem groups are:
- Tier 1: 25–50 people
- Tier 2: 50–100 people
- Tier 3: 100+ people
The Tree Farm Analogy
My father became a tree farmer in his retirement years. He has about 200 acres of
farmland in SC where he grew up. Over the past decade, he has devoted much of
his time to nurturing the pine trees that he has planted on his family’s farmland.
Nearly every week, he spends a day at his farm caring for his trees.
My dad jokes that he’ll never see the fruits of his labor – the trees will take
25 years to fully mature. This may be true – the 25-year part – but I think he has
enjoyed the fruits of his labor. The enjoyment for him is in the weekly stewardship.
He enjoys working on his farm, watching his trees grow each season, and seeing the
wildlife flourish among the new pine forest.
I think there is value in thinking about our professional ecosystem as a tree
farm and in seeing ourselves as tree farmers. The fruits of our labor may take many
years to fully materialize, but there is daily joy in caring for our ecosystem and in
watching it grow.
Imagine that you have a 200-acre farm – this is your professional ecosystem.
In the center of your land you’ll build a homestead – a beautiful farmhouse on 20
acres. Your home will be surrounded by a barn, a workshop, a vegetable garden,
and a few acres of fruit trees. This is where you will spend 80% of your days. You’ll
care for your homestead. There will be well-worn paths between the house, barn,
workshop, garden, and fruit trees. Your homestead is your inner circle, or Tier 1
ecosystem.
But there is much more to your tree farm. Surrounding your homestead is
about 50 acres of walnut trees that you have planted. There are also paths from
your homestead reaching out into the walnut trees, but these paths are less worn.
You care for these trees too, but it’s not an everyday or weekly activity. Perhaps you
venture out into the walnuts every few months to check on things. Maybe the wind
has blown down a few limbs or a tree needs a little special attention. Think of these
middle 50 acres as your Tier 2 ecosystem.
Finally, we have the outskirts of our tree farm. This part of your farm is
made up of about 100 acres of oak trees that you have planted beyond the walnuts.
The paths grow thinner still as you walk among the oaks. When was the
last time you visited these trees; was it last fall? You do make it a point to care
for these trees as well, but you simply don’t have enough time in the day to get
out here very often. Your focus is on caring for your homestead and the surrounding
walnut trees. Your outer 100 acres of oaks is your Tier 3 ecosystem.
When we think of our professional relationships as a tree farm, it becomes
clearer where we need to devote the majority of our time. Naturally, just like the
20-acre homestead, we’ll spend most of our time caring for the few dozen people
who will have the greatest impact on our career. We’ll connect with these individuals
every month of the year. Every few months, we’ll check in on our Tier 2 and
look for ways to be helpful. Once or twice a year, we connect with our outer circle
of colleagues to see what’s going on and look for ways to add value.
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