Are You Referral Ready?

Real estate and economic development projects indicate the future movement of commerce and consumer spending. Those projects could impact your business to some degree, and you can position yourself to gain referrals for future work well ahead of the competition. The real action happens behind the scenes.

By the time you read about some projects in the newspaper, brokers and bankers and architects and lawyers have been working for many months on various due diligence issues. You either learn to network with the few involved at the early stages of project development or you stand in line to compete with the many who come along later.

Regardless of your profession, you stand a better chance of being referred early in the project cycle. When you network and build relationships with key decision makers, you gain a competitive advantage by NOT having to compete. Word-of-mouth referrals favor the business that has connections before the details of an economic development project become public knowledge.

We all have friends, relatives, and professional contacts whose company we enjoy far too infrequently for whatever reason. When it comes to keeping score of our networking activity, greater emphasis is almost always placed on the addition of new contacts. New contacts are important, but budgeting time to maintain existing contacts is even more important.

The poet Rod McKuen once wrote ‘We can never have too many friends; only too many to properly take care of.’ Like a pot of boiling water, relationships can and will evaporate if ignored. It takes ‘work’, and blindly adding another layer to an already neglected network hardly seems like a strategy for long-term success. If your idea of networking is always adding more bodies, you reach diminishing returns much sooner.

Networking is not only building relationships, but maintaining them as well. Both require time and energy. Invest wisely in your existing network, and give yourself the opportunity to add new contacts along the way…but only to the extent that you are prepared to manage the whole process.

Have you ever asked yourself why you do what you do? Obviously you have other choices, but people respond positively to professionals with a true emotional connection to their work.

Think about the recently divorced woman who put herself through law school to fight for the rights of other women going through a similar experience. Her story resonates with people and with her clients. Her story wins business. If you don’t have a compelling story, you consistently lose business to people who do.

Simon Sinek reminds us that “people don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it…the “what” only serves as proof.”

When your emotional connection to your work becomes part of the way you market and talk about your business, you appeal to people on a very human level and differentiate yourself from other people in your profession who are simply going through the motions of “what” without daring to show the “why.”

Along with cash, benefits, and recognition, sales people respond to what kind of training is available when they evaluate opportunities. Think about your company, your referral sources, and what you have invested in them to help them become proficient at sending you business. As a result of the training you provide your referral sources, how motivated are they to continue bringing you quality referrals?

Untrained referral sources can still be effective, but always to a lesser degree than if you take the time to show them how to refer, whom to refer, and an easy or fun way to do it. Like any top salesperson, referral sources appreciate knowing what will make them more successful.

When you take the time to give your top salespeople more of what they need to be successful, you are investing in the relationships that drive your profitability. Your training strategy will pay off when you start acquiring even more of the kind of clients you want while lowering your marketing costs along the way.

Like a board of directors, a customer advisory board can offer direct feedback and insight into the company and its marketing strategy. Meeting with clients one-on-one has its benefits, but a group setting can be even more powerful. How many of your customers would appreciate being included on an advisory board? There is only one way to find out.

Listening to your customers is important. Making sure they FEEL listened to is even more important. For many people, a group setting provides a safer environment for honest feedback. By definition, any marketing strategy that does not include the voice of the customer will produce marginal results at best.

When you or your company turns free advice from customers into business strategy, marketing becomes a true reflection of what the people want. A customer advisory board allows customers to interact, and those genuine conversations fuel word-of-mouth referrals, customer satisfaction, and future sales.

Unless you are very new to business, you understand that not all customers are fun to work with. In fact, some are a real drain on your energy, your profitability, and your overall happiness. Your ability to attract the kind of clients you want starts with knowing and defining who they are.

As much time as you spend at work, you have the right to expect a certain degree of happiness. If your clients make that difficult, and you are in charge of deciding who is and who is not a client, guess where the problem is? As you grow in business, you become more discriminate. What used to be a search for new customers becomes a search for GOOD new customers.

If you can identify high pleasure, high profit clients, you can seek referrals from and market directly to these people to attract more of the clients you really want. You can also refer low pleasure, low profit clients to other service providers who are better suited to meet their needs. This will free up more time for you to service the clients you value more.

Do the people in your network know how to introduce you in person, on the phone, via e-mail, or in written communication? Personal introductions can be among the most effective word-of-mouth strategies if you train your network how you want them done.

Someone might know you, like you, and trust you enough to say good things about you when the situation presents itself, but that doesn’t mean they are actively looking for ways to get you the introductions you want. Handled improperly, an introduction can actually push potential business away. People like to buy, but they don’t always like being sold to.

Introductions are the difference between chasing leads and generating referrals. When you train your network how to make those introductions, you create a system whereby the message you want gets communicated and the prospects you seek actually come to you.

Most people have a dominant networking style: Laid Back (easy going but socially limited; waits to be approached); Involved (engaged in social activities irrespective of networking potential); Strategic (follows a plan to pursue networking and leadership opportunities); and High-Energy (personally and professionally connected in various community affairs). Which one best describes you?

Because networking organizations are guided by social energy, it is easy to find yourself in situations that have appeal but don’t necessarily fit your networking style. When this mismatch occurs, your results will be compromised.

Networking from a position of strength means defining and intensifying the style that already works best for you. To be Referral Ready, you consistently put yourself in networking situations that foster relationships based on who you are when you are at your best.

Help me help you!

Assuming you have a highly credible and trusting relationship with someone, chances are he or she will speak favorably about you to other people. But will they say the right things? Will they qualify prospects for you and open doors for introductions? Do they have the conversational skills to recognize and create opportunities for you? They will if you coach them.

An uneducated sales team can still open doors for you, just not as many and perhaps not always the right ones. Just as the key to sales is to spend more time with people who want to buy, the key to networking for prospects is to spend more time in front of those who are already pre-qualified and anticipating an introduction to you. The better you train your network, the more this occurs.

Train your referral partners to fluently use phrases that you listen for and conversation-starting questions that you might ask while you are qualifying a prospect for your product or service. For example, a commercial realtor might teach his referral parners to listen for these phrases:

• “I like my dentist, but I wish his office was easier to get to.” Chances are good that other people feel the same way.  An introduction would facilitate a discussion about the dentist’s satisfaction with the current location, and what alternatives exist should he or she want to move.
• “If we land that new contract, we’re going to have to hire more people.” Hiring more people often requires an expansion of space, and planning for that kind of growth is often done many months in advance.

On the flip side, the commercial realtor might consider teaching his/her referral partners these conversation starters as well:

• “Do you own or lease your building?”…the answer to that question opens a world of possibilities.
• “Are you planning on adding any locations in the future?”…because someone could be working on that for you right now.

When the right people learn how to listen to and start conversations on your behalf, you gain powerful networking benefits that multiply your potential results with minimal effort. If you take the time to train them, your sales force will become much more effective.

Formally or informally, networking is a regular activity for most business people. From health clubs and Toastmasters groups to structured meetings like BNI, networking happens, impressions are made, and relationships are built and developed. Sooner or later it is smart to ask yourself, ‘Am I getting a return on my networking investment?’

If you are not getting a return on your relationship time, it doesn’t make sense to continue doing the same things and expecting a different result. You are either moving toward your goal, away from your goal, or not moving at all. An honest assessment of your current networking activity is where it starts.

Make a list of all your current networking activities. Which ones are NOT working for you? Why? Which ones work well for you, and how do you define that? Do you prefer more socially-oriented or business-oriented activities? Try to determine why some activities are more effective than others.

By determining and eliminating what is NOT working for you, you free up time for activities that 1) you don’t really have time for now, and 2) could offer greater rewards. With the understanding that you tend to get out what you put in, position yourself to succeed with activities that you look forward to and support the kind of business and person you want to be.