CONNECTING IS NOT ENOUGH: Ten Steps to a Simple Referral Strategy Part Two – Helping people refer you and following up

Connecting Is Not Enough with Andy Lopata

In the second part of his tips on putting a referral strategy into place, Business Networking Strategist Andy Lopata looks at how, once you know what you are looking for and who from, you can inspire people to refer you and how you formalise your approach to referral generation.

In tips 6-10, Andy will show you:

- How to help others refer you

- The simple structure that gives your message more impact

- Why following up is so important


Helping people refer you

Tip Six - Put yourself in their shoes

Do you get frustrated that you have built a network but don’t get the right quality referrals?

When you communicate with your Champions, you may make a lot of assumptions about how well they understand your business and how easily they can recognise someone in need of your help. You may be surrounded by people who’d love to refer you but have no idea how or who to.

When someone refers you, a conversation takes place that you are not part of. To ensure that enough of the right conversations take place, you need to put yourself in the shoes of your Champions. What do they need to know to:

- Recognise the right opportunities for you?
- Feel comfortable opening the conversation and suggesting your solution?
- Make the other person interested enough to expect your call?

Once you understand how to equip people to refer you effectively, you can be more specific in the way you communicate that information to them.


Tip Seven - Make it personal to them

Many businesses take a general approach to requesting referrals. They will make a broad request to as many people as possible, often along the lines of “If you know anyone else who might benefit from our services….”

This is a less than effective approach. Most people won’t bother; you haven’t been specific enough in your request to make it easy for them. Too broad a request will leave them needing to think about who they know who fits the bill. And many simply won’t do the work involved.

Instead, do the filtering for them, asking them for a specific connection they recognise easily. Look at each Champion individually and ask yourself “who do they know?” If you understand their network and what is easy for them to understand, you can then ask for the right connections, ones that they are comfortable making.


Tip Eight - Get your message right

The more specific the request, the easier it becomes to make it clear to people why the referral is so relevant. On the whole, people are motivated either by desires or by needs. Communicate clearly to your Champions the desires you satisfy or needs you meet and how that makes a difference to your clients. They will then find the ensuing conversation with your prospect so much easier.

Assuming that you are with the majority of B2B service providers, if your business solves problems for your clients, there is a very simple structure to the message you need to share with your Champions. Once you have identified who you would like them to introduce you to:

- Explain what problem they are likely to be facing
- Outline the solution you provide
- Make it clear how your clients then benefit as a result.

Use this model as a spine for case studies that illustrate how you have helped people in a similar position previously, but keep it simple and stick to this structure.


Following up

Tip Nine - Track the results

Word of mouth marketing and referrals should be as close to the core of any business strategy as other lead generation and business development tools. If you don’t track and measure your activity, how can you possibly know what works, what you should shed and how to improve your return?

I share a ‘Referral Book’ system with my clients that helps prompt referral activity, monitor what comes in and track the results. It allows them to work out how best to inspire different groups to refer them, ensure promises of referrals are followed up and measure what business comes in through referral.

A focused approach such as this also ensures that there is more focus on generating new referrals. Rather than leaving recommendation and referral to chance, the business can actively seek them, leading naturally to a much higher return.


Tip Ten - Say 'thank you'

Such an obvious note on which to finish. I was amazed at the amount of people who approached me after one talk I gave on referrals to tell me how they had forgotten to thank people for referring them.

If you don’t thank people, pretty soon they will feel taken for granted and stop referring you. Make them feel good and feel appreciated. If you make the experience of referring you a positive one, they will be more likely to do so again.

Even if a referral isn’t right or doesn’t come off, thank people. Let them know what has happened or why the fit isn’t right, but show that you appreciate the support. Pass it onto someone better suited to follow it up if appropriate, but let your Champion know and make sure they are comfortable with you doing so.

Don’t just thank people the once. Keep them in the loop as the referral develops and, of course, thank them again when it matures into business.

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Are you struggling to put an effective networking or referral strategy into place? Do you want to know more about how to ensure you get the maximum possible return from your networking?

Visit Andy's brand new website at http://www.lopata.co.uk/ for more resources and ideas about how Andy can help you.

Andy's new book, on how to generate an effective referral strategy, will be published in early 2011.

“In this book Andy Lopata demonstrates how so many businesses ignore potentially their most powerful resource – their networks. Andy’s in-depth, practical advice will show you how to both build and profit from the relationships in your network.”

Ivan Misner, NY Times Bestselling author and Founder of BNI and Referral Institute

Andy's Audio program, "Networking in Ninety Minutes," will give you the tools you need to make the most from your networking. Available in CD or mp3 format here.

Andy Lopata's newsletter archive
Andy Lopata's LinkedIn profile
Join Connecting is not Enough - Andy Lopata's Facebook Page


For more information, please visit Andy's TNNWC Bio.

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Capital, Traffic Building, International Customers and unique SERVICES.
The National Networker Publications™ produced by TNNWC Group, LLC
Resources for Business Planning, Development, Capital and Growth

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CONNECTING IS NOT ENOUGH: Ten Steps to a Simple Referral Strategy Part Two – Helping people refer you and following up

CONNECTING IS NOT ENOUGH: Ten Steps to a Simple Referral Strategy: Part One – The Groundwork

Connecting Is Not Enough with Andy Lopata

In the first of a two part article, Business Networking Strategist Andy Lopata looks at the simple steps you can take to develop your own referrals strategy.

In Part One Andy looks at:

- What a referral is

- Your ideal referral

- Where your referrals are going to come from

and leaves you with a simple exercise which will help you take your strategy to the next level.


Referrals are the lifeblood of any business, yet so many of us leave them to chance. While we might devote time and resource to advertising, email marketing, telemarketing, PR and direct mail campaigns, we take a more passive approach to referrals.

After all, if we do a good job, people will refer us. Isn’t that right? Yet how often have you gone out of your way to refer someone who has just done a ‘good’ job. Not exceptional, just what you’d expect?

We need to be more proactive than passive when seeking referrals. To help you, here are ten simple steps to implementing a strong referrals strategy.

What are you looking for?

Tip One - Understand the difference between a tip, lead, recommendation and referral

There are many different types of business information we can receive. There is a greater chance that the introduction will convert into business if the quality of the interaction between our ‘champion’ (the person referring us) and our prospect, is strong.

A tip is a piece of information that indicates someone needs our product or service; a lead will give us a contact name and number. In both cases there is still a lot of work to do and they are just the start of the sales process. At this stage our prospect knows nothing about us, we have just been told about them.

People often mistake recommendations for referrals. If I tell someone about your services and suggest that you can help them, I am recommending you. I’d then pass your number to your prospect and suggest they call.

If they do ring, that’s great. You will convert more of this type of inquiry than any other. After all, the prospect is already motivated enough to pick up the phone and place a call to you. However, how many opportunities do you miss because your champions have recommended you to people who don’t pick up the phone…and you never knew they existed?

So, tips and leads leave us with a lot of work to do. Recommendations leave us looking at the phone and waiting for it to ring. Referrals, however, make life so much easier.

There are three steps to referral heaven:

1 – Someone has a need you can fulfill, a problem you can solve or a desire you can satisfy.

2 – Your champion recognises this need and speaks to the prospect. Following that conversation, they are interested in how you can help.

3 – They are expecting your call.


Tip Two - Who is your ideal referral?

Ask many business people this question and they will struggle to answer. If they can, they will describe a typical client.

Let’s imagine for a moment that you need 100 clients in a year to meet your targets and you convert one in every three referrals into business. Therefore, you are looking for 300 ‘ideal referrals’ every year. Does that sound achievable to you?

Take some time to work out the most powerful introductions you could receive. They could be to clients with whom there is the opportunity to provide a range of services over a long period of time. They could be to people who speak to a lot of your potential clients and can introduce you on an ongoing basis. They may even be to someone like a newspaper editor who can provide you with good publicity that will help you reach thousands of prospects.

If someone asks ‘how can I help you?’, don’t waste the opportunity by not knowing how best to respond. Do your homework first and understand the introductions that will have the biggest impact on your business.


Where will they come from?

Tip Three - Recognise who's in your network

Think ‘referral’ and most people think of their clients. That’s a natural link, after all our clients are the people who know the value of what we deliver the best, so shouldn’t they be the people to refer us? They are. But they are not the only ones.

Other people look to networking events for referrals. You can meet people at networking events who may refer you, but you will still have to build a relationship first, inviting them into your network. It is from your network that you get the support and referrals you need. Events are just a way to build your network and make it stronger.

You are surrounded by people who might be in a fantastic position to refer you, but you may not have recognised that. Look back at your list of ideal referrals. Now think about the people in your network and who they know. Think of your friends, family, suppliers and old colleagues. Think about people you meet socially or parents of children who go to school with yours.

We pigeon-hole people based on our relationship with them and interact accordingly. Everyone in your network has a network of their own, however. If your relationship is strong they will probably be happy to help you... you just have to recognise how.


Tip Four – Know who to turn to for referrals

To decide who is best placed to refer you, look at three key factors.

1 – How much do they trust you and your business?

Will they want to refer and help you? Will they go out of their way to look for opportunities? And how persuasive and committed will they be when speaking to your prospects?

2 – How well do they understand what you do?

Can they recognise opportunities for you without your prospects spelling it out? In other words, can they tell from someone’s situation that they will have a problem that you can resolve? When speaking to your prospect, do they have a strong enough understanding to answer initial questions and arouse sufficient interest for the prospect to want you to call?

3 – Opportunity to refer

Do they speak to the right people? Are they influential in the right circles? After all, your mother may trust you and understand what you do, but is she in a position to be able to refer you?

Tip Five - Pick 5 potential champions

Now that you have a clearer picture of who is in your network and who is best placed to refer you, write down five names of people you think could be referring you but either aren’t at the moment or could do so more.

Don’t restrict yourself to the obvious candidates but challenge yourself. Who haven’t you thought of as potential referrers before but fulfill the three criteria above? If you asked them to refer you, how would they feel about it? Try to sense their gut reaction.

Give each of the five a score out of ten for the three criteria above. How do you think they would rate on each scale?

In the next five tips next month we will look at how to increase these scores, inspire those people to refer you and how to ensure that your new approach is both effective and productive.

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Are you struggling to put an effective networking or referral strategy into place? Do you want to know more about how to ensure you get the maximum possible return from your networking?

Visit Andy's brand new website at http://www.lopata.co.uk/ for more resources and ideas about how Andy can help you.

Andy's new book, on how to generate an effective referral strategy, will be published in early 2011.

Andy's Audio program, "Networking in Ninety Minutes," will give you the tools you need to make the most from your networking. Available in CD or mp3 format here.

Andy Lopata's newsletter archive
Andy Lopata's LinkedIn profile
Join Connecting is not Enough - Andy Lopata's Facebook Page


For more information, please visit Andy's TNNWC Bio.

---

Capital, Traffic Building, International Customers and unique SERVICES.
The National Networker Publications™ produced by TNNWC Group, LLC
“Empowering Emerging Enterprises”

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CONNECTING IS NOT ENOUGH: Ten Steps to a Simple Referral Strategy: Part One – The Groundwork

CONNECTING IS NOT ENOUGH: Walking in Other People's Shoes

Connecting Is Not Enough with Andy Lopata

In another extract from his forthcoming book on referrals strategy, Andy Lopata looks at how to make it as easy as possible for your 'champions' to refer you effectively.

Andy looks at:

- How other people view your prospects and recognise opportunities for you
- Whether someone is having the right conversations to be able to refer you
- How to recognise natural champions for your business


Once you have a clear understanding of the introductions and the support you are looking for, it's now time to take the other perspective. The flow and the quality of referrals that you receive depends a lot upon the quality of the message you communicate to your network and, in particular, their ability to recognise ideal opportunities to introduce you.

Having recognised the opportunity, your champions then need to be able to raise the prospect of a conversation with you and get the other party interested in taking your call.

Very often the way we see our customers and the work we do is different from the way other people see them. It can be a tough task to step out of our shoes and into other people's but that is precisely what you need to do.

Over the years I have heard many people ask for referrals to people who have specific issues that only others in their industry would understand. The over-use of jargon, the focus on technical detail and the in depth detail often serve to intimidate, or even just bore, potential referrers who don't have the expertise to understand the message.

If you are working with potential champions from within your own industry or sector, that is not a problem. They will expect to attain a deeper level of understanding of your clients' issues and the processes you use to deal with them. It certainly pays to look for people dealing with similar clients or resolving issues associated with those you resolve as they will be far better placed than most to refer you. We will look in more detail at this shortly.

If you'd like to develop a wider referral network, however, you need to change your tune.

Keep it simple and focus on the key messages people need to hear. Start to think how people in your network will recognise your potential clients; what clues can you give them?

It may be that you are connected to someone through personal or family ties, rather than through business connections. If that's the case they will be having different conversations with the people who might refer you than those they might have with your professional introducers.

If you deal with people's personal or financial problems, that might not be something that they share with everyone in their network, but there might be clues to the problems they will be facing.

If, for example, their business has grown rapidly, they've recently downsized, or they've set up on their own for the first time, they will be experiencing problems that everyone in that position faces. Use these obvious clues to help people in your network understand how to recognise the opportunities, then give them the information they need to take the next step.

The opportunity to refer

As previously indicated, identifying those people who are well placed to refer you, either because of their understanding of your marketplace or due to their exposure to your prospective clients, will help you develop strong sources of new opportunities.

People who understand your marketplace are able to speak the same language and recognise opportunities for you with ease. As hard as you may work to help your wider network be aware of who you help and how, those with experience of what you do will always have a greater depth of understanding.

I’m not suggesting that you simply write-off people who want to refer you, understand how but who might not be speaking with the right people. However, once you have confirmed that they really don’t have the opportunities to refer you, it may be better to focus your attention elsewhere.

At the beginning of a Referral Strategy coaching programme I asked one of my clients to identify five people who he felt would be good champions for him. By the third session it became clear that one of the five was simply not in the position to refer regularly. He had spent a lot of time with her, succeeded in building her trust, but she was not having the conversations that would lead to referral opportunities frequently enough.

He quickly came to the decision to keep in touch with her but focus his referral strategy activity elsewhere. It would be very difficult to commercially justify the time invested in building the relationship with her in terms of the referrals she would be in a position to provide.

Think about former colleagues who have moved onto other roles, suppliers who specialize in your market or complementary businesses sharing the same customer base for example.

If you want to get the edge on your competitors, you need to be creative about this. There will be obvious introducers in your industry whom everyone approaches. For example, within professional services there exists what I call ‘The Holy Quadruplicate’ of solicitors, accountants, financial advisers and banks.

Depending upon their area of expertise (for example, property lawyers may look more to architects and surveyors for introductions), when asked who is most likely to refer them, each of the four professions above will typically mention the other three.

That means that each of the four is continually being approached by the others with a view to establishing a referral relationship.

You can still stand out from the crowd when looking for referrals from obvious sources. As we have discussed, few of your competitors will have a referrals strategy and if they do, depending on the industry, they are unlikely to be focused on building deep relationships. While they may approach introducers occasionally, you can be speaking to them continually, getting well known within their companies and winning their loyally.

If you can think differently to your competitors, however, you can identify potential sources of referrals who they will never think of.

The process and the people

Why do people buy your products or services? What has driven that need?

Depending on the nature of your business, the chances are that you are part of a bigger process driven by a change in their business or their life. Needs often arise out of change and those changes can drive more than one need.

If, for example, you install telecom systems, you may have clients who need your services because they are moving offices. The process they are involved in, moving offices, demands more services than just a new phone system.

They may also require the services of commercial estate agents, property lawyers, surveyors, architects, office furniture providers, an office stationery company, printers, sign writers, IT network engineers, contract cleaners and more.

All of these businesses are talking to potential clients of yours at a time when they are most likely to need your help. Therefore, all of those businesses are potential champions for your business. They have the opportunity to refer you and are in a position to do so just as the need arises.

Some will be better placed than others to refer you, others will be more trusted. In the example above, the IT network engineer or the architect are probably best placed to refer the telecoms company in terms of their expertise being relevant and trusted or because of the timing of their work.

Run through this exercise across your business. Above is just one example of why someone might call in a telecom systems provider. List every reason why someone uses your products or services and why that reason may have come about. Then try to identify as many companies as possible who also service that need.

Once you have done that you will start to see some companies who come up time and time again. Those will be the people you most want to speak to and try to come to a referral relationship with.

An additional benefit of this exercise is that it will help you to recognise areas of industry or types of clients in whom you specialize. Once you are aware of your niche markets, it becomes a simple step to identify other suppliers to those markets with whom you can develop a cross-referral relationship. As your reputation in that market grows, so other suppliers will want to work more closely with you.

Another approach is to think of the people you deal with within your client companies and ask yourself who else deals with people in that position. If, for example, you tend to deal directly with the Finance Director of an organisation, if you can identify who else deals with finance directors, you know that they are in a position to refer you.

As with the example above, look for those who are most trusted and whose advice is most relevant to what you do.

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Are you struggling to put an effective networking or referral strategy into place? Do you want to know more about how to ensure you get the maximum possible return from your networking?

Visit Andy's brand new website at http://www.lopata.co.uk/ for more resources and ideas about how Andy can help you.

Andy's Audio program, "Networking in Ninety Minutes," will give you the tools you need to make the most from your networking. Available in CD or mp3 format here.

Andy Lopata's newsletter archive
Andy Lopata's LinkedIn profile
Join Connecting is not Enough - Andy Lopata's Facebook Page


For more information, please visit Andy's TNNWC Bio.

---

Capital, Traffic Building, International Customers and unique SERVICES.
The National Networker Publications™ produced by TNNWC Group, LLC
“Empowering Emerging Enterprises”

Forward/Share This Article With Colleagues And Social Media:

CONNECTING IS NOT ENOUGH: Walking in Other People's Shoes