***The New Referral Network: Are You In?

My friend Brian told me story a few months back. He had asked his early twenty-something receptionist to dig up a phone number for him. After ten or so minutes, the receptionist had not returned. Brian went to the front desk.

"Have you found me that number yet?" he asked patiently.

"The computer hasn't finished booting up yet," she replied.

"Computer?" Brian questioned. "Well, what about a phone book?"

"Oh. We have one of those?" she asked surprised. "I never use one. I just look it up on-line."

And there we have it. The new generation of office worker who doesn't use a phone book and has no idea where they are stored in the office. It's real. It's happening right now and I am slowly becoming one of the people who is doing it too.

There's a phone book in my office somewhere but I'm just not sure where. I am fast becoming one of the on-line directory searchers. There's more of us than you may think.

Years ago when I sold radio advertising, one of my biggest competitors was Yellow Pages advertising. I learned all about how to sell against Yellow Pages and had some successes. However, what I am witnessing now is a new kind of advertising that Yellow Pages wouldn't dare compete with. It's word-of-mouth referral advertising.

Recently, I needed to get some video editing done. I had been dragging my heels on this one and it wasn't "top of the heap" priority but I was getting some requests for video. I just hadn't found time to get an editor. Besides, once I did find someone suitable, then I would have to interview, do background checks on their work and just feel comfortable with whomever I hired to do the work for me.

Meghan in my office took the bull by the horns and asked, "How come it's taking so long to get video done?"

I tried to explain to her that it was a priority but not high enough up the list to get it done. She said, it sounds like it might be her responsibility anyway and took the project away from me.

This is where I learned the dynamics of the new breed of worker and their 6-degrees of separation referral network. Meghan showed me how it works.

Her MSN sits open on her desk, all of her friends and acquaintances are on-line at the same time. She enters a query on MSN: something like, "Anyone know anyone who edits video?"

It was twelve minutes later when she had secured a video editor, negotiated price, arranged a meeting, gave a basic overview of the project and marked this project as "handled." Twelve minutes from start to finish.

My way would have taken weeks, would have involved making several phone calls after searching out cool names in the Yellow Pages and then spent how many hours viewing DVD's or VHS copies of projects already done.

Oh, by the way. I'm very happy with the quality and how easy it was to work with Jason, the video editor.

If you think for a minute, you are going to be able to train your new workers in the old ways of doing things, then you're just not seeing it. Change your attitude, change your mind and change your results. The new breed of worker doesn't work like we do, doesn't act like we do, doesn't think like we do and doesn't do what we do. They have one thing we never had growing up: technology. And they use it well.

Change you attitude on how the new worker doesn't have the same values as you and maybe you'll learn something about getting things done at lightning speed.