Another example of tapping into so social resources

[John-Paul Hatala]

My wife and I were wanting to get our trees trimmed on our property. We got a couple of quotes and due to the size of them, were looking at 2-3 thousand dollars. This was something that I did not want to do and even worse, pay that much money. My wife was talking to one of our neighbors who she rarely saw and asked them if they knew anyone who trimmed trees. She thought that these particular neighbors would be a good resource because a year or so ago, they had talked about the importance of maintaining a healthy lawn and seemed to know a lot about the subject. She knew that the neighbor was not a tree trimmer but she thought that they would be the most likely to know someone who would be. It turned out that they did know someone and referred them to us. We ended up paying 50% less because of the referral.

This is a wonderful example of tapping into our social resources. My wife was well enough aware that the neighbors were into gardening and she made the linkage with the possibility of the neighbors being connected with someone who was a tree trimmer. A classic example of thinking strategically about your network. If we can do it in this situation, who knows where else we can do it. My wife was able to save us 50% by tapping into her network. Not only knowing people, but know something about them is the key. Who knows what else this approach could lead to.