Are You Referral Ready?

Archive for the ‘Referral Ready Program’ Category

A mentor can be part of a valuable source of support for you and your business. Having several mentors is even better. And if you can formalize your mentor team to create a personal Board of Directors, you gain insight that you would not get alone while building outside referral sources who have a vested interest in your success.

 Entrepreneurial types are self-driven to overcome obstacles and business challenges. That drive is important, but groups tend to generate more alternatives and better decisions than individuals can on their own. It is important to know when to enlist outside help, who to ask, and how to stand accountable for working “on” your business as well as “in” your business.

 Identify 3-5 business people who are accomplished in their respective fields. Invite each one to meet once a quarter as a group for lunch. Select people from a cross-section of different industries whose interests do not conflict with yours and whose relationship with you is more defined by professional reputation than friendship. Make sure each meeting is focused on a specific business challenge.

 Rather than waste time struggling with problems outside of your expertise, you can build what some people call a “mastermind group” to help you generate outside points of view and connect you with additional resources. As a byproduct of this arrangement, you are also building a trusted circle of professionals who will hold you accountable, thrive on your success, and refer business to one another.

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.

Surely there is something beneficial about being in relationship with you that goes beyond a financial or business transaction. Your referral sources place value in those benefits. They accumulate over time and contribute to the depth and overall health of the relationship. As a result of the benefits you offer your referral sources, how motivated are they to refer you more business?

Reduced to transactional terms, a referral relationship can still serve both parties. But the human factor is what makes me choose you over another referral partner, and you can figure every one of your referral sources has the option to feed another business besides yours. It is their relationship with YOU that makes the difference. Strengthen the relationship and the rest happens naturally.

How you can show your referral sources–the people who are already inclined to refer business to you–the benefits of being in relationship with you? Could you introduce people in their company to influential people in your network? Could you help them secure a new vendor? Could you help them close a deal based on your recommendation or testimonial? Could you attend a trade show or function they were hosting? Try to come up with things you can do for each referral source that adds value to the relationship itself.

Sales people are attracted to compensation systems that offer both cash and benefits. Your referral sources are your sales people. They value their relationship with you, and the benefits of that extend beyond the last referral or the next referral. Perhaps in between is your best opportunity to demonstrate to your referral sources the real benefits of working so diligently on your behalf.

A win against the New York Jets this weekend means another trip to the Super Bowl for the Indianapolis Colts. Led by four-time MVP quarterback Peyton Manning, the Colts remember losing to the Jets just a few weeks ago in a game that featured a second-string cast of Colts and ended their bid for an undefeated season.

In an AP story today, Manning was quoted as saying “I think everybody realizes the opportunity and what’s at stake. That’s why I think everybody wants to have a good week of preparation, to put ourselves in the best position on Sunday.”

Imagine that. Putting all those hours of preparation into a game that will last only 60 minutes this Sunday. Film study, strategy sessions, on-field drills, play selection meetings, more drills. When the average fan watches his/her beloved Colts on Sunday, the execution (or lack thereof) is all they will see.

But should the favored Colts move on to the Super Bowl, the players will use cliches and sports jargon and fancy phrases to describe between the lines the relationship between their preparation and the final score. Joe Q. Fan will marvel at the highlights on ESPN, but the players will know the real reward came from the work they put in long before the game ever started, the plays they practiced 25 times on Tuesday and 25 more on Thursday, the extra reps in the weight room, the extra hour of film study that revealed how one player always leaned to the left when they ran to the right.

And should the businessman significantly increase his referral business in 2010, he knows it will be the natural result of preparation that put him in the best position to be successful. Opportunity + the right preparation = winning results.  And it should come as no surprise that that formula applies to sports, education, referrals, or life.

Are you Referral Ready?

Plaxo, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Ecademy are just a few online social networking sites that allow users to connect with each other around the world.

LinkedIn is the #1 business networking site with 15 million active users. MySpace reaches 39% of all adults, and Facebook has the fastest-growing demographic in the 25+ age group with 30 million active users and 350 million users overall. Because the online landscape changes so rapidly, these numbers are bound to be obsolete by the time you read this.

Social networking will never replace what you can do face-to-face, but it can extend your networking capabilities to a degree never before imagined. Without it, your networking activity will never be operating at full capacity.

Review some of the sites mentioned above or ask around to find out which ones people are using. Sign up this week for at least one site, adding your profile and contact information to facilitate discussion with other people or online communities. Like any networking strategy, involvement is what drives results. Rather than spread your time and energy across several sites, choose one and become a fluent and diligent user.

Whether you are networking for referrals, a job, a new recipe, or a strategic alliance in another country, social networking sites can help you cross geographic and cultural boundaries with the click of a mouse.

Networking will always involve human skills that can not be automated, but a networking professional in today’s electronic age should have at least one online resource in the tool kit.

Two commercials ran back-to-back last weekend.

The first one was for Bank of America, starring several attractive, clean-cut employees who talked about how great Bank of America was because they offered free online bill pay (who doesn’t?), convenient locations, cutting edge services (whatever those are), blah blah blah. The whole time I was making smart comments because it was just on the edge of BS and believability, and I can smell it from a mile away.

The second one was for the laundry detergent Tide. The commercial showed people involved in their Loads of Hope program, which has provided almost 30,000 loads of cleaned laundry for families affected by disasters.

The narration in the commercial matched these words from the Tide website: “In times of disaster people turn to the most basic of human needs—and one of those is clean clothes. The Tide Loads of Hope program provides relief by means of a mobile laundromat. One truck and a fleet of vans house over 32 energy-efficient washers and dryers that are capable of cleaning over 300 loads of laundry every day. We wash, dry and fold the clothes for these families for free. Because, as we’ve learned, sometimes even the littlest things can make a big, big difference.”

Then they cut to testimonials from real disaster victims expressing their appreciation for what most of the rest of us take for granted.

Bank of America might be a referral worthy company, but their advertising strategy suggests that they are not referral ready. If they were, they would understand several powerful things that Tide did to reach their audience:

1) Tide let other people do the talking. Real people. Real stories. Could just have easily been me or you or someone you know. No employees or paid actors. Just plain folk.

2) Tide touched people emotionally. Everyone is fewer than three degrees of separation from someone affected by natural disasters like New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. CNN makes disaster real for everyone.

3) Tide connected with a cause. Helping clean the clothes of those impacted by disaster is a great cause, and a perfect one for a company that makes its living cleaning clothes.

4) Tide did not promote their product. They just talked about their program. No cheesy assertions about being the greatest product under the sun. Just a “get-to-work” approach that shines under adverse conditions.

5) Tide did not make me skeptical. Because they didn’t try to sell me anything, or try to make another product look bad, or try to make me believe things that no one can really prove anyway.

If it compelled me enough to write about it here, you can bet it compelled others to go to the website, perhaps even inspiring others to join the Loads of Hope movement in other parts of the country.

Bank of America is talking at us. Their web site echoes this trait with one testimonial from the CEO of the company, but not a word in sight from their millions of customers.

Tide is talking with us. Which approach makes a company or product or service  more referrable?

When it comes to being referral ready, you can take Tide to the bank.

Sales guru Jeff Gitomer recently described an encounter with Drew Brown, the son of Bundini Brown, who was the long-time trainer for heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Upon learning that Drew Brown was actually sitting ringside during many of Ali’s memorable fights and workouts, Gitomer asked him what lessons he learned.

Among them was this one: “He was healthy. He ate and exercised right. Never a weightlifter, he just got in fight shape. Fight ready.”

Pay attention to those last two words. Brown suggested that Ali’s preparation was specific for the task at hand, appropriate for the demands of the sport, and equal to the unique challenges of his next opponent.

While most business professionals relish the opportunity to do business by referral, few actually take the time to create the conditions whereby referrals thrive. Only a handful are really doing what they need to do to prepare themselves mentally or physically for the challenge of reputation marketing and doing business by referral. Fewer still are actually connecting with the world in a way that naturally attracts referrals to their business.

In other words, they are not Referral Ready™.

To find out if you are Referral Ready™, take the quiz here.

Dating and facet-to-face business meetings both require people to gradually reveal more about themselves over time. Whereas dating is often the preamble to romance, business meetings are the mechanism for building profitable referral relationships. The rules that apply to both are more universal than you might think.

The lifestyle section of the local paper recently ran a story called “The Second Date: More May Be On the Line Than the First.”

Which I found incredibly redundant because by definition, a second date requires an additional investment of time, energy, money, hope, curiosity, attraction, and other human dynamics. More is definitely on the line. Return on investment is far from certain.

According to the article, “While the first date is akin to kicking the tires of a sports coupe on a car lot, the second date is like taking your potential dream rig for a test drive.” In other words, the article suggests that we use a different strategy with each progressive encounter when it comes to dating. My question is this: Could we benefit from treating 1-2-1s the same way?

For instance, the article goes on to say that before the second date…”you should have some idea of what you have in common as well as where you differ in terms of family values, career and personal goals, and personality. As more information is revealed, a better decision can be made about whether another date is the way to go.”

THE CHALLENGE: What if you committed to going on six “dates”—doing six business meetings with the same person. What if you agreed up front to a different strategy for each date, at the end of which you had to make a decision whether to see that person again or walk away. And…this is the best part…what if each dating strategy was planned in advance, so all you had to do was show up and execute the strategy. Think “The Dating Game” in a referral context, minus the anxiety of actually planning the date.

Choose one potential referral partner and agree to try these six strategies in sequence. It might take a month or two or even three, but the chances of building a long-term relationship leading to referral romance would increase astronomically. At the very least, you will know so much more about that person and be in a much better position to both give and receive referrals. In other words…you have nothing to lose.

Business Meeting #1: GOLF. Learn the other person’s Goals, Outside interests, Lifestyle, and Family situation.  Write your information in advance, and ask your partner to do the same. When you meet, exchange GOLF profiles and base your discussion on the most interesting parts of each other’s background. Try to establish commonalities and build rapport.

Business Meeting #2: Discuss biographical information about yourself in advance, and ask your partner to do the same. Agree in advance what type of biographical information would be fun and appropriate to share. When you meet, exchange information and base your discussion on the most interesting parts of each other’s background. Continue to establish commonalities and build rapport.

Business Meeting #3: Think about what types of professions you would like to make strategic connections with, and ask your partner to do the same. Complete this list in advance. When you meet, exchange lists and talk about ways to facilitate introductions to your top three.

Business Meeting #4:  Take turns asking and answering questions that relate specifically to the types of clients you serve and how you serve them.  Think of this as a training session to help your partner think, see, and qualify prospects the way you do.  This might actually take several “dates”, but the effort is well worth it.

Business Meeting #5: Have a discussion with your partner about the last 10 or favorite kind of customers. Why were they favorites? What specifically made them so enjoyable to work with? If I asked your favorite customer why they valued your product or service, what would they say? What product or service did you provide them with? Where could I find more people like that for you to do business with? What would I say to them when I found them?

Business Meeting #6: This takes time, but sharing a master list of rolodex contacts is powerful, especially if you and your partner do this work in advance. Review each person’s list and talk specifically about how to facilitate introductions to people on the list. Unless your previous dates have gone well, this strategy is not likely to be effective. People will not be open about who they know unless they are comfortable with who you are as a person and as a business man or woman.

Completing these six dates might take a month or two or even three, but the chances of building a long-term relationship that leads to referral romance would increase exponentially.

By our attitude, we decide to read, or not to read. By our attitude, we decide to try or give up. By our attitude, we blame ourselves for our failure, or we blame others. Our attitude determines whether we tell the truth or lie, act or procrastinate, advance or recede, and by our own attitude we and we alone actually decide whether to succeed or fail.

Jim Rohn

A recent survey of nearly 27,000 internet users in global markets asked consumers on their attitudes toward 13 types of advertising – from conventional newspaper and television ads to branded web sites and consumer-generated content.

When asked to what extent the participants trusted different forms of advertising, 78% said that consumer recommendations were the most credible form of advertising.

Word of mouth marketing is a worldwide phenomenon!

Word of mouth, for example, generates considerable levels of trust across much of Asia Pacific. Seven of the top ten markets that rely most on “recommendations from consumers” are in this region, including Hong Kong (93%), Taiwan (91%) and Indonesia (89%). At the other end of the global spectrum, Europeans, generally, are least likely to trust what they hear from other consumers, particularly in Denmark (62%) and Italy (64%).