If your best clients think so highly of you, why aren't they referring others to you? It could be, your own actions are convincing them they shouldn't! Some of us try to demonstrate our importance by showing and expressing how busy we are, and we communicate our "busyness" in any number of ways. How do you communicate your busyness?

You could be projecting "I'm so busy" through something as simple as your word speed, or in how you enunciate your words.  It could be by comments you make about having only a few moments for a conversation or a meeting.  It could be by making or taking calls on your cell phone in the middle of meetings, or by leaving your pager on during a meeting.

Your busyness might be communicated by constantly looking at your watch. Or by the frantic or preoccupied way you drive when taking a client to lunch.  It could be by complaining about coming to work early, going home late, taking work home with you, working on the weekends or holidays, not having enough time for yourself, etcetera, etcetera. 

The I'm-so-busy signal might also be sent by a sigh in the middle of a conversation, by passing off clients' questions or their routine matters to someone else, by not being able to get the job done for days or weeks, or by leaving a client "on hold" for more than a few seconds.

There is nothing wrong with being busy.  Most business people are always looking for new or better business, and to be busy can mean that your business is successful.
But, looking busy has its downfalls.

When you always appear busy, the more often your clients see this, the more they may want to protect their own relationship with you.  They may, either consciously or unconsciously, want to protect both you and themselves by not making you busier with more referrals. 

Here's why. Your clients want to protect you so that your life doesn't get any more hectic than it already is.  They know that if they give you another referral, you will only have more work to do.  And, if they were to give you, say, three to five new referrals, not only would your life be made worse, you may not even be able to get to those new people in a timely manner—which would make you feel bad, the referrals feel bad, and your client feel bad.

Your busyness may even be setting up your best clients to be "sitting ducks" for your competition.  The more your clients are concerned about your busyness, the more likely it is they won't want to impose on you, by, for example, phoning you with questions about their account.  So-o-o, they may even be relieved to find someone else—anyone else—who is apparently willing to take the time to answer a few questions for them.  If that someone else is your competition, he is getting a chance to demonstrate not only competence to your clients but also that he has the time to really work with your clients.

In addition to protecting you, your clients may feel—again, perhaps unconsciously—that they need to protect themselves.  They may be thinking that if you don't have time for a relationship with them, you may not have the time to do a great job—to fully manage their account.  So, they watch your results more carefully.  And, they don't commit new money to you. 

Your clients also may be thinking, "If you barely have time for me already, I don't want to make it worse by having to share you with anyone else."  So, when you do ask your clients for referrals, they tell you they'll think about it.  Or, they give you the names of people who won't take up much of your time—either by becoming clients at all or by being the type of client who hasn't enough assets to require much management. 

Either way—whether your good clients mostly are protecting you or themselves—the result of your busyness can be a less-than-optimal relationship with your major clients (if not the loss of them altogether) as well as a lack of referrals to potential good clients.

And yet we know that it makes more sense for us to take care of our existing clients than it does for us to try to find new clients.  One of the most effective ways to take care of those clients is by sending the message that they are important to us.  We make others feel important—and connected—to us by taking the time to pay attention to them.

Now the question becomes, "With all of the things I already have to do, how do I send the message to my clients that I have time for them?"