The challenge of ‘connecting with potential clients’ reminds me of when my friend James once said to me:

“John: Your solution is the problem.”

I don’t remember what it was about when he said it, but the concept stuck with me and I see it often now.

In this situation though…

The desire is to grow your business.
The challenge is that you need more clients.
The solution is to connect with potential clients.
The problem is that you find it difficult or don’t know how.

What I am suggesting is that the problem of you finding it difficult or not knowing how to connect with people arises because your solution is, specifically, to connect with ‘potential clients’.

You are putting your desire to have more clients and your desire to grow your business inside the act of connecting with people.

Having self-interest as part of your intention while connecting with human beings makes connecting more difficult.

In other words…

Your ability to connect with human beings is inversely proportional to your desire to acquire from them. 

When you are trying to ‘connect with potential clients’, you are inadvertently carrying a desire to acquire and thus making it difficult for yourself.

You may post rationalise this difficulty as ‘not knowing how to do it’ or ‘having fear’, but really this is BS.

You already know how to connect with people and you do it well when there is nothing you want from them.

A metaphor I like that has me completely disconnect from any desire to acquire when connecting is to think of it as untangling and repairing an old box of Christmas lights (fairy lights).

When I think about who I want to reach out to, I like to think of it as looking for the next knot to untangle in the fairy lights. I’m just exploring. Just looking for the easiest NEXT place to loosen things up.

When I connect or re-connect with someone, I like to think of it as pulling out an old bulb and replacing it with a new one.

I keep doing this until every knot has come loose and every person on the string is lit up – until every relationship is glowing.

The light of these now active connections provides me with a whole new perspective. Just like a string of lights does, having that many relationships active in my life at one time also gives me a magical feeling.

Being connected creates a deep sense of wholeness.

Finally, with all that new light, I am better able to see where and how I can serve.

COACHING QUESTIONS:

• Where are you making it difficult to connect with people because you are doing it with a specific intention in mind?
• Are you willing to just plug bulbs in – are you willing to connect just for the sake of connection?