Referrals Require Trust

Trust, I recently reviewed a book on trust, I am not sure how many people read it but I will say in the world of referrals, trust is the most important aspect of the referral relationship.

I read blogs and articles all the time talking about your elevator pitch, your message, your handshake, your networking activities and blah, blah, blah.  While all of this is great information for “Networking” and developing your “Word of Mouth” marketing it is not the thing that will get you the level of referrals that you are looking for.  The reality is when it comes to referring you,  I don’t care how good your message is, if your handshake is the best and you are the best networker in town!

What I do care about is this:  IF I give you a referral, when you are done with that referral will I still look good in the eyes of the person I referred?  My reputation, what people think of me and about me is important to me. The number one reason that people do not pass “Qualified Referrals” is the trust issue.  They do not want to risk their name.

With very little trust I can give out all kinds of leads, because my name is not closely tied to the lead, it will not have a major affect on me if it goes bad so I don’t mind taking the chance.

I had to learn this the hard way,  I referred a person to one of my very good friends, we will call him Joe Smith.  Joe owned a very successful printing company who employed several hundred people.  One day Bill asked for a referral to Joe, I did not know Bill very well but he seemed OK,  so I referred him to Joe.

Bill was late to the first meeting, Bill did not follow up after the meeting in a timely manner, in fact Bill dropped the ball in many ways with Joe.  The very next time I saw Joe was at a cocktail party and of course the conversation came around to business and here is the comment that Joe made to the entire group, “Don’t let Hazel refer you to any of the Yahoos in her network, what a joke.”  Ouch!  Not only was I hurt by Bills poor performance, my entire network was now unable to be referred to Joe who actually was in need of many more services that my network could have provided.

Lessons learned:

1.  Only “refer” those whom your know well and have a high level of trust with.  I do not have to worry about my reputation when I put the referral in the hands of one of my trusted referral partners.

2.  Stay involved with the referral.  Had I bothered to follow up with both parties during and after the referral I would have known what was going on and could have saved my reputation as well as my networks. All to often we pass referrals and never think about them again.

3.  Give feedback to the person you referred, they may or may not be aware of the issue and at the very least they should know why you are not going to refer them again.

Sometimes the best lessons are the hardest lessons.  If you are getting a lot of low level leads from your network, ask yourself what you need to do to increase your trust.  Take time to build trust with people and you will find that the referrals you get are of a much higher quality.

Word of Mouth is Always Working

People have to hear things and see things 7 times before they take action, so advertising is important and PR are very important to your business.   but I agree that word of mouth is a powerful way to build your business. It is ALWAYS WORKING, it may not be in your favor, but it is always working. 

Here are a few things to remember about word of mouth.

1. In order for WOM to work well for your company or you as a person, you MUST have a clear, concise message that others can carry easily and repeat to people they know. For instance, I have a friend who reviews property taxes for commercial buildings, if you are over paying then she will file an appeal and get you a refund of the over payments. That message is too long…here is the message that everyone carries for her….. Denise takes the pain out of property taxes, you should call her.  Simple, easy for others to remember.  Most business people have a muddled message.

2. WOM is the most dangerous form of marketing, in that you cannot control people. They may carry the wrong message or a negative message.

3. Word of Mouth is always working, it just may not be working in your favor. Negative WOM travels faster than positive WOM.  Dr. Misner discusses this topic in the book, Truth or Delusion.

I remind BNI members and Referral Institute graduates regularly that WOM is always working. It is important for them to keep the message simple, consistent, and positive. A great message backed up by poor service or a poor image is going to create Negative WOM.

Who are Your Best Clients

Spending time to identify similarities in your clients will make a major impact on your business.  For instance, if you discover that many of your current clients are low income producing, yet use much of your time and energy you will be able to shift your energy to attracting a different kind of client.

When I owned an insurance agency, I had one client that produced about 30% of my income.  As I began to track how much time I was using to keep this client happy, I realized that I did not really like this client, they were difficult, demanding and taxing. They used more that 80% of my time just to keep them happy. At the same time the rest of my clients were getting less than 15% of my time, they were responsible for 70% of my income, and they regularly sent me referrals.  While the big client, sent me nothing but headaches.  As I shifted my focus, spent more time with the clients I liked working with, and developed better relationships with them, I began to make more money and enjoy my business again.  When my difficult client left for a lower bid, I did not feel the pain.

What I learned from this experience is not everybody is or should be my target market.
I understood the best target market for me were more clients like the ones I had.  Businesses in the blue collar industries, like tool and die shops, and manufacturing companies who themselves had a niche market in the auto industry.  When I understood that, I was able to build relationships with other people who wanted to do business with that target market.

Who are your clients?
Where are you spending your time?
Who are the clients that take little of your time but bring you consistent income?
How much income is each of your clients responsible for?  (track the money)
Are you being referred to the clients you want or are you getting anybody?

The more time you spend identifying your target market, the more successful you will be at training referral partners to find those target market clients for you.

Chaos in the World of Business Networking

Referrals, leads, word of mouth, buzz marketing, viral marketing, networking, seven second introductions, elevator speeches, referral groups, business networking and social networking.  It all blends, causing confusion, misunderstanding and a muddied mess in the business world. 

You see it everyday, one networking event after another, business cards being passed, people shaking hands, and those ever so famous seven-second introductions being pitched.  It’s the same people at every event, giving out the same cards, same pitch hoping for a different outcome. 

We hear about networking as a way to grow our businesses, and everyone calls themselves networking experts. If you put the words “business networking” into Google, you will get 186,000,000 hits  So called experts teach classes and workshops on how to do better seven second pitches, how to hand out their cards, what to do after the event, how to give more, and do more. 

Recently I ask a young man how he got most of his business, “90% by Referral” he stated.  When I ask what kind of system he had to generate and track that level of referrals his answer was; “I have a great yellow page ad that generates a lot of referrals for us.”  While having a Yellow Page ad will create a lot of visibility for you it is not generating referrals.  

What’s missing here?  What is the plan?  Where is the system?  People who are networking have no idea where their business is coming from, who their referral sources are, what target market they are connecting with, or even if they are networking in the right place.  When asked what their ROI is on all of their networking activities they will say things like, “Great” or “I have made a lot of business contacts and friends while networking”.  Rarely if ever do they really know the ROI.   

If business professionals are going to build their business by referral, there has to be a plan that goes beyond, what most networking gurus are teaching. Word of mouth does not mean business by referral, and Networking does not mean you will get referrals. 

If you really want to build your business by referral, you have to develop a plan, a system.  Much the same way as you developed a Marketing Plan.   

Who are your customers, where do they live, what do they do, are they other businesses or are they consumers? Companies spend thousands of dollars every year identifying their target market, their customers.  How much time have you spent, is your customer anybody who needs or wants your product or services:?  What do you offer to your customers, and why do they come to you?  Have you asked them? Who are your Referral Sources and what system do you have for motivating and training them? 

Networking is very valuable, but learning how to develop a system is more important.  Once the system is in place, and you know whom you want to connect with and whom your referral sources are you will then be able to choose the right places to network.   

If you’re going to build a house you need to take some time and do your preparation, lay out the design, build the foundation, then build the building.  Every step must be followed in the proper order.  The same holds true when you are building your business by referral.  Where is your plan, how is the foundation, or did you forget all of that and just start networking, hoping for best.  

Here are 5 Tips for building a foundation before you start networking. 

1.  Narrow your focus, having a clear Target Market is one of the most important aspects to building a business by referral.  Anybody, everybody, and small business does not constitute a target market.  

2.  Who are your potential referral sources?    If your target market is “Any small business that needs health insurance”, you will find that all you are able to generate will be random unpredictable leads from the people that you network with. 

On the other hand, if your target market is; “Family owned businesses, with 3-50 employees, in the manufacturing industry.” You will have a better chance of building strategic referral partnerships with others working in the same target market.  

3.  Know where you want to spend your time and efforts.  Building a business by referral takes time.  You only have time and money to spend, you can make more money but you cannot make more time, spend it wisely.  When you are networking look for those people who would make great referral partners and begin the relationship process with them.  You do not need 2500 people in your database if you have 10-trained referral partners helping you connect with their clients and contacts. 

4.  Clean up your database.  Are there people in there you don’t even know?  When was the last time you contacted them?  Are clients, contacts, prospects, clearly identified?  Do you have other ways of sorting, like support, information, and referrals?   

5. Create a system for tracking your networking activities.  How many calls did you make? How many notes did you send?  How many hours did you spend out networking?  What events did you participate in?  Who did you give referrals or leads to?  What gets measured gets done, tracking is one of the most important things you can do, but often the most neglected. 

Don’t get caught up in the Networking madness until you have a plan.  Do some work first, build your foundation, identify who you want to network with and where you want to network, then get started. 

Hazel M Walker

Referral Strategist