I saw a lady complain about her tiny pineapple the other day.
She had grown it from the top of a pineapple she bought – and in so should be commended. It’s a two-year process.
But she didn’t seem to understand why it was so small compared to the one she had originally bought.
That’s probably because she didn’t understand the environment the one, she originally bought was grown in.
I remember going to Costa Rica in college and going to a pineapple farm.
It literally stretched for miles.
The beds were huge, with multiple rows of massive pineapple plants on each. And each 5 ft wide plant produced only one pineapple.
Oh, and they were growing in some of the richest volcanic soil in the world.
This lady’s plant was in a pot.
We got this big juicy client, ask them for a referral thinking we’ll end up with the same sweet deal, but it ends up not nearly as big.
That may be because the environment we cultivated it in was not the same.
Maybe the referral wasn’t experiencing the same level of frustration.
Maybe we assumed because it was a trusted referral, we didn’t actually have to nurture it the same way.
Maybe we didn’t provide enough space for the roots of trust to develop to the same depth.
Client referrals are fantastic.
But we can’t just assume that they are going to be as fruitful as the source.
We have to give them the same care in cultivation, and maybe even more.
#PrepareTheSoil #clientcultivationcycle #pollinatorpodcast #smallbusiness #marketing #sales #strategy #entrepreneur
