referral strategy

When I speak to many organisations about their existing referral strategies, many of them complain that they are giving referrals to Partners but receiving nothing back. Others question whether they should pass referrals in one direction as that company many not be able to reciprocate. 

Many businesses pay lip service to word of mouth marketing (excuse the pun!), relying on their customers to refer them if happy. Few employ a proactive referral generation strategy, despite the quality of lead that referrals deliver.

I discussed the need for a positive referrals strategy in this short video tip:

Why do we pass referrals to other people? I have been asked that question twice recently. What motivates us to take up our valuable time and put our reputations on the line to connect two other people together, often without any discernible personal benefit?

Earlier this week I must admit that a tear or two appeared after the postman had been. No, it wasn't my income tax bill but an advance copy of my new book, Recommended: How to Sell Through Networking and Referrals, direct from the publisher, Pearson Education. 

I hadn't anticipated such an emotional response to a book landing on my doorstep, but when you consider that the project has been more than 18 months in the making, perhaps it's not so surprising. 

Finding and inspiring people to refer you is not always that easy. Losing the prospect of more referrals from established sources takes very little effort at all. 

I was out with friends last week. I knew that they had referred some very good business to a mutual contact of ours, and he had gone on to win the contract. I mentioned that I had spoken to our mutual contact the week before and helped him with some introductions which would help him deliver to his new client.

Complacency and assumption are two of the biggest challenges to any successful referrals strategy. We become complacent that our happy clients will refer us, as will the people in our referral networks. We assume that those people who are closest to us understand what we do and are able to recognise opportunities.

Very often neither are the case.

Many businesses struggle to understand how to sell to people in their network when the perceived wisdom (emphasised by people such as me) tells you not to.

This article originally appeared in The National Networker

In this blog last year I explained why my local health club's reliance on an incentive scheme to recruit new members was doomed to failure courtesy of their failure to get the basics of their delivery right. It looks like Dilbert's company are likely to face the same problems: