The Code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.
The TEAM model for building your Introduction Based Business is a wonderful model, but models are reflections of reality that obscure some of the finer details. As such, the nuances of an individual situation when more closely observed may slightly alter the actions.
One of the ways I “Make it easy” for a potential client to introduce me to others is by doing research and creating a feeder list to help jog their memory and open up conversation, which then gets their neurons firing and by associative memory other people pop into their head. There are some agents and advisors who feel weird about doing this and when they feel weird it makes their clients feel weird and weird doesn’t work in this situation. So the Code would appear to say “do it anyway”, but as pointed out in “Pirates of the Caribbean” living to fight another day when you have the advantage is better than dying then and there.
The goal is to get the treasure of the relationship. That is what the TEAM model is designed to do. But maybe with this person you need more time to “Earn” (earn the right to ask for Introductions) because the person is skeptical or has been burned in the past or the complexity of the situation. I have a scenario where another agent and I T’ed up Introductions (Told them we were going to ask), and then had four meetings to collect data and goals and philosophies because of the particulars of this situation. Each time we told them we would ask but didn’t (the other agent had a close personal 30+ year relationship so the potential client wasn’t going anywhere), and when we did ask we received over a dozen super high potential Introductions in each of the next three meetings.
Sometimes you need to step back to get a running jump.
So stick to the Code, remembering that sometimes you need to break the rules to honor them.
