Leverage – we’ve all heard about the concept, but just what is it, and how can you use it to be even more successful.
Leverage is all about placing a relatively small amount of force to move a big object. The object in this case may be a large goal which you can either work really hard at by yourself, or use leverage to work smart and achieve it with significantly less effort and time.
So, how does it work?
Picture a long lever with your goal at one end. There must be a fulcrum – which is you. The forces you apply at the other end come from various sources (and it is the combination of these that make this concept so powerful).
These include:
Teams, Networks, The Infinite Network, Systems, Skills and Tools.
In this article I’m going to concentrate on Networks.
Networks – It’s not what you know but who you know, who they know and who knows you. Think of six degrees of separation. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, the theory is you could find a link to any person on earth by asking someone who knows someone, who knows someone…. till you find the person. Generally you’d need to go to a maximum of six levels in depth.
So, how can you put this into practice?
All of you know at least 200 people or more. If each of those people know 200 people, your combined reach is around 200 squared – which is 40,000 people! That’s pretty awesome in anyone’s language.
Now let’s leverage this! What would happen if you didn’t have to personally know these people, but just have access to some way of contacting them – such as your newsletter list.
Let’s use a real example:
As part of a consulting assignment, we needed to find a suitable candidate for a position with one of our clients. We’d gone down all the normal channels without success. Time was ticking – we had a deadline as the new hire needed to start before our client went on maternity leave.
We had an idea! We could send this email out to our newsletter list asking for help. I will admit, I did have reservations, (which lasted for about a minute), as I didn’t want my subscribers to feel that I was misusing the list. But we thought, “what the hell…”
We sent the email to around 1,000 people. The response was staggering. Within five minutes, the responses started coming back. PEOPLE WANTED TO HELP! Barbara and I sat glued to our monitors all afternoon as emails FLOODED back letting us know that they either knew someone, or would ask around.
Within 24 hours, we got about a 10% response.
By the end of the day, we had two candidates who could have been suitable!
Now, for whatever reason, these people decided not to proceed.
Now this is where it gets really interesting.
As none of the candidates had decided to proceed, we wondered what was going on.
Barbara came up with the idea that unless we “made space” in our client’s office – where this person would sit, nothing would happen. This is a metaphysical concept that some of you will be familiar with. Without creating space in your life for something new, how can it arrive?
We did this on a Thursday afternoon, came back to our office and there was an email from someone who had just come back into the country and was wondering if the position was still open! We interviewed her on Friday, and a week later offered her the position. She starts in two weeks.
Just to clarify, this person wasn’t on our original list – but someone who was, sent it on to her and she responded. This is the power of the network.
Major lessons we learned:
People want to help. There is a general attitude that asking for help is a sign of weakness. (I’ll admit that I have often succumbed to this belief). Frankly, nothing could be further from the truth.
Asking for help is actually a sign of STRENGTH. People will go out of their way to help you as it makes them feel good. Think about it… don’t you feel good when you do a good turn for someone?
There were a couple of examples of this that blew us away. I stress that we’ve never before had any form of contact with these people – other than them being on our newsletter list.
One person went to the trouble of giving us three leads of people who had wide circles. She then personally phoned each one of these people and told them to expect a call from me! In a week, she repeated the exercise with another lead.
Someone in the USA, searched google and found a site that could have helped – so sent them an email on my behalf.
Other people phoned me personally and gave me names and contact details.
Not one of these people asked for anything in return. If this isn’t going the extra mile, I don’t know what is.
The value of the additional contacts we’ve made from this exercise cannot be over emphasised. We’ve spoken to some wonderful people and have had the opportunity to create vastly different synergies which are already leading to new opportunities in areas we wouldn’t have dreamed about.
A number of people told me that they really valued the stuff we write and this was a way of them giving something back in return.
People also thanked us for trusting them with this request. They considered it an honour to help.
And the biggest lesson of all:
Give first and you will receive. We are free with our knowledge and wherever possible help anyone who asks. This was reciprocated thousands of times over. It has been a very moving experience. Thank you.
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