Archive for the ‘Referrals’ Category

I was at a networking event the other day and one of the attendees exprerssed concerns at how difficult she was finding it to find new customers, not knowing where to advertise and who to create alliances with.   When we asked her who her ideal clients were she replied "Everyone" .

Therein lies the problem. 

One of the most common mistakes I see new small business owners make is thinking that they have to have "everyone" or "all business owners" as their target market. Contrary to what you may want to believe, the whole world is not your market. Even if everybody CAN use your product or service, there is a specific group with an intense need or desire for the benefits you offer.  
 Identifying your target market enables you to find opportunities and tap into them. It gives you the information needed to focus on the buyers that are interested in what you have to offer. This will save you both time and money and is absolutely critical in finding the right marketing opportunities and identifying and connecting with potential referral partners and forming powerful strategic alliances.. 

So if you are new in business, or even if you have been around for a while, if you find yourself saying "my potential clients are everyone or all small business owners, or all women..." etc.  Do yourself and your business a favour, STOP and work out exactly who your ideal client is..

How old are they?
Where do they live?
Are they male or female?
Are they married or single?
The list goes on..

The great thing is that once you have done that you will easily be able to work out where and how to advertise,  you will be able to spot other people who share that target market that you can create power alliance strategies with, and your referral partners will be able to easily recognise your ideal clients so they can refer them to you!

 

 

I don’t know about you but I don’t give referrals lightly. After all if I refer someone to another business I am putting my reputation on the line. I have to know you, trust you and have complete confidence in your ability to deliver to the highest possible standard before I will refer my friends, colleagues or clients to you.  

So I am constantly surprised when I hear people at networking events asking other attendees they have never met before to refer business to them.

Please if you want referrals, take the time to build a relationship. Get to know one another.  Focus on ways that YOU can help the other person. Work at becoming a trusted resource and advisor. Show that you are worthy of receiving referrals before asking others to trust you with them.

Why is it that we spend thousands of dollars on advertising to people on the other side of town but never take the trouble to introduce our business to our neighbours?

 

Here is an innovative idea that is currently being used by Jim’s Bookkeeping that can also help BNI grow their Chapters and referral base {and of course it's not limited to Jim's Bookkeepers or BNI members)

 

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This is the last in the four part series on making sure that you are generating endless rush of quality referrals for your business. Over the past three weeks we have looked at:

Trust: developing trust with your referral partners

Education: providing education tools that make it easy for them to refer potential clients to you.

Support: making sure that you have systems in place that make it EASY for your referral partners to refer business to you.

The last but certainly not the least important aspect of maintaining strong referral partnerships is recognising, acknowledging and thanking your referral partners for what they do for you.

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This is the third in a four part series of making sure that you are generating endless rush of quality referrals for your business.

Over the past two weeks we have looked at :

Trust: developing trust with your referral partners

Education: providing education tools that make it easy for them to refer potential clients to you.

The third element in the Referral Rush System is support.

Make sure that you have systems in place that make it EASY for your referral partners to refer business to you. Think about those business owners that you regularly refer business to. What is it about them that makes referring business to them easy? Some of the things that probably spring to mind include:

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The sad fact is that many people believe that a referred lead is as good as sold and all good selling skills go out the window!

Certainly a referred lead is often easier to convert than a lead that came from an advertisement. After all people prefer to buy from businesses and individuals that they know, like and trust. If a good friend referred you, then you have a little bit of trust. (Unless of course, they don't trust the person doing the referring.) But you still have to turn the lead into a client by showing them what benefits you offer and the best way to do that is through providing a free information or education product – this could be a booklet, e-book, CD or video.  Whatever works best for your industry or profession. 

Remember the idea here is to provide no strings attached valuable information, or even an experience of your products or services, not to ply your marketing message.

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Here are 4 quick questions to find out.

Trust: Obviously to earn trust you have to deliver outstanding service, but do you have strategies in place to speed up and capture the process?

Education: do you have strategies in place to educate your referral partners and raving fans on why and how they should refer you?

Support: Do you have strategies and tools in place to support and  help your referral partners and raving fans refer you?

Thanks: Do you have a thanks and recognition system in place to recognise and reward your referral partners and raving fans for referring you?

If you answered YES to all four of these questions congratulations you passed the referral strategy test.  If not check out my BLOG and start getting your SMART Referral Strategy in place.

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Wednesday, November 04, 2009 Referrals are one of the most well known forms of strategic alliance opportunity. But for many small business owners they can also be one of the most difficult strategies to get working effectively. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you give referrals lightly? Probably not – indeed I hope not.  I don’t know about you but personally the only time I give referrals is when I absolutely know, 110%, that the person is going to do an awesome job, usually when I have experienced what they do myself and been thrilled with the result. Otherwise the best you are likely to get from me is a qualified “Well I do know someone, but I don’t know how good they are…”  When you pass on a referral the person receiving the referral takes it on trust, they are confident that you are giving them a recommendation that they can rely on. As a result your easiest referral source are your existing customers.  Make sure that you do a great job and always under promise and over deliver and your customers will be delighted to refer you. But how many of your potential clients do your existing customers know and how do you generate referrals from people who are not your customers? Read the rest of this entry »