The Reticular Activating System or RAS
First – know what you want. This can be a lofty goal or a simple need. As soon as you know what you want your brain, via the reticular activating system or RAS will start looking for it.
The Reticular Activating System or RAS is a bundle of nerves that sits in your brainstem. And its job is to regulate behavioural consciousness and motivation. It filters out unnecessary information, so the important stuff gets through. The RAS is the reason you learn a new word and then start hearing it everywhere or buy a new car and start noticing them everywhere.
How do we get what we need?
Second is the realisation that waiting for someone to give you what you want means you can go unfulfilled forever. Who here waited for a pay rise or promotion? Maybe you started your own business because your worth was unrecognised.
Third is asking for what you want, in the right way at the right time. As babies, we asked for what we wanted by crying. Mum didn’t always understand what we wanted but she was pretty quick in trying to figure it out. No one likes a crying baby.
Later in our formative years, we were discouraged from asking for what we wanted. Chances are we were told to “wait our turn”, not to “be rude”, “others are worse off” or to “be quiet.” This has taught us that we shouldn’t ask for what we want.
But there are times and places where asking is OK, even necessary. It can be in a relationship, with our employees, from our clients, from our bank, in a sales pitch or during our BNI meeting during our weekly presentations.
“The Ask”
In BNI, waiting and hoping for other members to give us what we want is a slow and sometimes fruitless strategy. We have all seen good businesspeople get very few referrals. If we are good members, have a good business, and are good people, we deserve to get referrals.
We have earned the right to ask for what we want. But we need to ask. This is why our Sales Pitch is sometimes referred to as “the Ask”. We must know the product or service we want to sell, the type of clients we like to work with, that we can serve well and be paid profitably for helping. If this isn’t clear every week, we aren’t going to get what we want. Who has ever thought “I don’t know what they do?”.
The Specific Referral Request
To dispel a myth, a specific referral request isn’t “who do you know”. It’s much more than that. To fire up the other members’ Reticular Activating Systems (RAS), you must give them as many clues as possible to reach down into their brains’ filing system or their phone contact list to introduce you to the right person.
Get as detailed as you can. It might take some homework but start with a type of client you have now that you want more of. Go as far as the name of the business, the name of the person in the business (or at least their position) and why you need to be introduced to them. If your target is a consumer, the type of consumer and where they can be found.
Do it every week, don’t just try it once and give up. It’s a long-run strategy that will pay results. And the results will pay off with the clients you want, not referrals for clients you don’t want.
Summary
We should never be afraid to ask for what we want and deserve. We miss out on so much by doing so.
