So Much for the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything
DATELINE: Brisbane, Australia
If you’re awesome for long enough, referral business will flow. As I approach my 20th year in business coaching, the majority of my new clients and new projects (yes, even internationally) come via the referral of a client or colleague who knows how amazing I am.
But what if you’re not amazing … yet? What if you’re new to business, new to a market, or new to geographic area – can you still rely on referrals to grow your business? The answer is ‘Yes’ – and like any new product or market, the key is OUTBOUND activity not relying on INBOUND MARKETING to make payroll and pay the school fees.
And this approach applies in any business, including B2C and digital online sales. You’ll just have to focus on the context of this week’s video and article, rather than the specific content which talks about the B2B and professional services companies I know so well.
Are you ending 2024 with insufficient business or deal flow? It’s not too late to do something before the silly season begins, and start 2025 with a tailwind. What are you waiting for?
Blackboard Fridays Episode #90 – A System to Instantly Find New Referral Channels
Happy Friday Blackboarders. I work with a lot of professional services companies. A lot of B2B relationships and a lot of individuals who are responsible for both bringing in work and delivering it by passing that work on to their team.
Just like you and I know, they know, that referrals are the best way to generate new clients, new leads and new opportunities. They’re not necessarily going to give you the highest volume for that activity portion but they generally convert much faster and at a much higher rate.
So I was sitting with one of my clients recently, and they said, “Jacob, I understand that, but I just don’t know that many people. We’re fairly new into the business.”
They had repositioned themselves away from a corporate environment, into a situation where they were responsible for bringing in clients to this professional services company.
For the first time in their life, they had to go to market and actually do lead generation and sales. They didn’t know who to talk to or where to start, and so we ran this exercise. Creating an instant referral network by creating a long list of people that they could go out and meet with immediately. Here’s the conversation that they went and had. Stay tuned to the end and I’ll tell you the results.
Expand Your Circle and Build Your Network
They did have some client relationships. Even if you don’t have client relationships, you will know some people in your target market, and you can substitute them in the central circle here. Now they went out to the client and they asked the following questions.
They said, “I want to work with more businesses like you. You have a lot of different service providers who obviously help you and have helped you grow your business. Those service providers will also know other awesome businesses like yours, so I’d like to meet them. Could you please share with me, the name of your bank manager. Who your lawyer is. Who do you have to do your accounting and do you have a different bookkeeper? Have you got, or have you worked with in the past, a good business coach? Have you maybe got an insurance broker or a mortgage broker, or a financial planner, or somebody who’s helped you with that aspect of the business?”
You can go through a long list of any of the different suppliers that work with your client, or your target client. Because they will also work invariably with a lot of other ideal clients for you. And then you say, “Mrs. Client, Mr. Client would you feel comfortable just sending an email introducing this person to me, and asking me to please give them a call?”
Now again if you’ve got a half decent relationship with the client, they’re not going to say no to that. You’re not asking them to make a referral, to make a hard sell, to really lie about who you are. You’re just asking for an introduction and you’re taking responsibility for the follow up.
Own The Next Steps
That’s a critical part of any referral by the way, is making sure that you have the responsibility to follow it up, rather than the ball being in the other persons court. You’ve got more interest in doing it, so you’ll make sure it happens.
So my client went and did this, and suddenly he now has seven meetings booked. Not with people who might be a client, although some potentially some could be, but with people who themselves have a whole list of people that they know who might help.
My client is now going into each of these and is starting the strategic referral channel process. He knows that some of these won’t work, he knows that the accountant might end up being a prickly control freak who doesn’t want to open up his books. And that’s okay, cross that person off.
But the business coach and the lawyer, or the financial broker, or whoever it might be that he gets on with best with might have some opportunities for them to do some events together, to do some guest blogs, or might even be able to start introducing him directly.
Suddenly he’s gone from, “I don’t know anybody”, to “I have all of these meetings booked”. “I’m creating opportunities, and I’m looking for benefits to help these other businesses as well as my own.” I’ve seen this work in the past in a way where we add even more relationships and connections in.
You can create this circle of referrals, this golden circle of network who are each working together, building relationships, not just with you, but with each other to create even more referrals. Again, it’s critical in that situation that these people do get along, they are aligned, and they are all working with the same type of business.
Who Can Connect You?
It’s unlikely that from one client you’re going to get a perfect storm of all of those different people. If you’re struggling, if you’re not sure who to go and talk to, and you don’t think that anybody cares, go and have a chat to one client. Ask them a half a dozen questions, and the next thing you know you’ll have activity, your diary will be booked, and the referrals that come from that will flow.
With Love,
Jacob Aldridge
International Business Advisor
WhatsApp +61 427 151 181
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