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In November 2011, I participated in a charity cycle ride from Angkor to Saigon. While taking a break from the trek and sightseeing on November 20th, I received a phone call. I considered ignoring the call, but instead took it. It was Elton John looking for a special first birthday present for his son, Zachary, who was born Christmas Day 2010.

He heard about Treehouse Life (my company) and our customized tree houses, and asked if we could build and deliver one by his son’s special day.  My answer, of course, was yes. We just needed to work through the design and contract.

By the following Saturday, we had the design confirmed. When asked how he heard about Treehouse Life, Sir Elton John said he received a referral from Gary Barlow, for whom we had completed a treehouse project over a year ago.

In the two weeks prior to leaving for Cambodia, I had attended the Phil Berg workshop on the power of “6 Degrees of Separation.”

Berg suggested that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth. He argued that these six steps of separation should be at the heart of our 60-seconds in BNI; we simply should ask for our "dream referral," and by six degrees of separation we would always get the connection. While Phil was talking, I wrote my next 60-seconds. Here is what I wrote, and delivered, two weeks prior to leaving on my bike tour:

"I went to the Phil Berg workshop. I learned about six degrees of separation. I would like to be introduced to Richard Branson.  I know that if I met him I could inspire him to see the benefits of Treehouse Life—and to want to give these benefits to his children/grandchildren. He would want to add a Treehouse Life treehouse to his hotels. He would want to have one for his employees to be inspired. He would want to put a photo of one of our treehouses on the front of his Virgin branded in-flight magazines. He would engage with all our values of family and nature. He will like Treehouse Life so much that he would want to buy my company.

“We have two levels of separation in this room, from me to you and from you to all your contacts.

“For Treehouse Life to have the third degree of separation, I need to give you a benefit for you to want to recommend my company. If you connect me to degrees three, four and five (which connect me to Richard Branson), just think how much business I could give to your company if Richard Branson buys my business.”

When I returned from Vietnam and attended the weekly Surbiton chapter meeting, I had a referral introducing me to Richard Branson along with his personal mobile phone number.

Asking for a "dream referral" works!

Watch Paul’s very successful ‘How to Build a Treehouse’ video which to date has had over 10,000 views.

 

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