Yesterday I wrote about questions you can use for keeping the conversation going. If you follow my advice, your referral source meetings will be filled with the other person doing most of the talking. You won’t get much of a chance to get a word in.

Some of you will be deeply bothered by that thought. You want to talk. You want your chance to shine. You’re probably an extrovert.

Shining, however, might not be the best thing you can do if you want referrals.

I heard a great line at a marketing conference a few years ago that I think is one of the great truths of marketing.

“An interested introvert can build better relationships than an interesting extrovert.”

And building relationships is what it’s all about. Good relationships generate a steady stream of referrals.

Sadly it can be tough to get an introvert to take action to meet people so they can  build those relationships. The hardest part of the process, for introverts, is taking the first step. If they can get themselves going, they’re often surprised to find that they generate more referrals than their extroverted counterparts.

Why? Because people like interested people more than interesting people. We love people that express interest in us. We feel special. We feel loved.

My hope is that more introverts will pick up the phone and schedule a coffee or lunch with an old law school classmate or someone they met in the bar review course. Maybe they’ll call someone they met at a recent continuing education course or at a bar association meeting.

And you extroverts should take a lesson from the introverts. Be interested. Get over your need to be a big part of the conversation. Let your guest talk. That’s the shortest path to generating the referrals you need to grow your practice.