Are You Referral Ready?

Your referral sources are a marketing team that may or may not be doing business with each other. If they are, you are building a virtual company of connected resources to drive consistent referral business to each other. Together, your ability to recruit new team members should benefit everyone as the links to related product and services are added to the chain.

Any time you refer related business to someone who is not officially on the team, you are missing an important piece of the puzzle. Their products and services might allow you to serve your clients better, but you do not gain the benefit of sharing networks and resources like you would if a more formal arrangement were in place. Even if his or her ability to refer to you is minimal, someone else on the team could benefit.

List your referral sources and analyze what other types of businesses would be great additions based either on their ability to refer or be referred to other members of the team. Discuss the options with your current referral sources and be very selective about who you invite to an informal meeting. Explain to them how you like to do business by referral, and evaluate how they might be able to contribute to the team. Pay special attention to non-competitive businesses that tend to be serving the same types of clients that you do.

Teamwork has been said to divide the effort while multiplying the rewards. When you introduce a new team member, you also introduce that team member’s set of contacts and the clients they servce. If they serve the same kind of clients as you, you have captured a whole new audience while also expanding the extent to which you can serve your own.