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“I’ve learned that 90% of my frustration comes from thinking things should happen faster than they need to” – Darrell Vesterfelt

Darrell is a good buddy of mine and was recently a guest on my podcast. (tune in here)

His guidance came in handy this week as I was not so patiently waiting to hear back about a proposal I sent out.

So how did I finally chill out and regain my patience? Along with Darrell’s advice, something else came to mind, the Law of the Harvest.

As you can imagine, this law applies to agriculture but it can also apply to building and nurturing powerful business relationships.

The law consists of four parts.

1. We reap what we sow
2. We reap far more than we sow.
3. We won’t reap if we don’t sow.
4. We reap even though there may be a delay from when we sow.

I’ll share examples of how this law has helped build my career and how it can help you as well.

We reap what we sow.

Have you ever received a random LinkedIn connection request from someone who just wants to “grow their network”?

That’s the equivalent of a farmer throwing random seeds all over the place with no idea of what they’re planting or what they’ll do with their crops in the fall.

Instead, have a strategy, regardless of how you decide to grow your network. And it all starts with asking yourself one simple question “Who do I want to know and be known by?”

Early in my career I wanted to know and be known by potential clients for my digital marketing consulting firm.

So, I applied for various teaching positions that would allow me to lead workshops for my audience on a consistent basis.

Fortunately, General Assembly (a school that teaches in-demand skills) hired me. At my peak I was leading up to four live workshops per week.

I could usually count on landing three or four solid leads as a result, but I was more surprised by the long-term effect.

Eight years later I’m still being contacted by former students who are interested in my services. And when they do, they don’t ask a lot of questions, they’re ready to buy.

Your turn:

Jot down who you want to know and be known by. Then determine the fastest route to reaching them at scale. For me, it was teaching. For you it may be some other channel or even just consistently engaging with their social media content.

We reap far more than we sow.

Along with sowing seeds, it’s important to realize there’s a multiplier effect involved with growing your network. Meaning, as you meet new people, they may want to spread the word about you to their network as well.

Make it easy for them to do so by being very clear about how you help people and sharing how others can get in contact with you.

When teaching workshops at General Assembly I asked students to take pictures while I was presenting and to share them along with their favorite takeaways on social media.

This way, their network would view these mini-testimonials from my students and perhaps reach out to me as well.

Eventually, I also included my contact information and a link to book a call on my closing slides.

That one addition tripled the number of leads I received per week.

Your turn:

Make it easy to share who you are and what you do by setting up Linktree or an alternative that will allow you to share all this information with one link. You can view an example here.

We won’t reap if we don’t sow.

This should come as no surprise; if you don’t put in the work, nothing is going to happen.

General Assembly was a great way to grow my network and capture leads but once in a while only a few people would register for my classes.

When this occurred the organizers would give me the option to cancel, I always declined.

Reason being, even if only two or three people showed up, I never knew what opportunities would arise from or through them. Plus, it was still better than sending cold messages to people on LinkedIn.

And it turns out some of my best connections came from those smaller classes.

Since less people were in attendance I was able to form a deeper relationship with the few people that did attend.

I found those relationships turned into business opportunities at a much higher rate.

Your turn:

Commit to growing your network and set a goal for the number of people you will connect with on a weekly basis. Stick to this goal, even when you don’t feel like it.

We reap even though there may be a delay from when we sow.

This year I’m going on a six city speaking tour in partnership with Verizon Wireless.

I’ll be leading keynotes on business resilience and innovation while also attending VIP dinners with various stakeholders.

How did I get this opportunity? The Law of the Harvest.

I’ll share the full journey.

• In December of 2015 I started teaching at General Assembly
• Two years later, Sharon Thony also joined as an instructor. She was super smart and I helped her out by passing along some advice and sharing decks for her to use in class.
• July of 2021, I got an email from Sharon asking if I was interested in creating content for Next Street, an advisory firm that helps their clients provide capital, customers, and services to small businesses. I said heck yes and began a relationship with Next Street.
• In July of 2023 Next Street offered me the opportunity to go on a six city speaking tour.

Let’s stop for a moment. You may see social media videos of me on stage during this tour.

It may look like things come easily to me and you may be wondering how you can get the same opportunities.

But now you know the full story.

I planted this seed at General Assembly eight years ago and I’m still harvesting the benefits from it to this day.

That’s not to say all great opportunities take years to pan out, but the most lucrative are often the result of a long-term relationship.

So if you want to start attracting bigger deals and future-proof your business, follow the Law of the Harvest.

Your turn:

Think back to a major opportunity you landed. Maybe it was a new job or an amazing client. Now, reverse engineer everything that needed to occur in order for this major opportunity to arrive.

This will allow you to see how the Law of the Harvest is already working for you, and will encourage you to continue utilizing it.

Thats it for now. It’s a rainy day here in Brooklyn so the family and I are going to spend the afternoon creating stop motion videos.

Have a great weekend!