8 Steps to Your Referral Golden Goose
A referral partnership is the most important business relationship that any business professional can foster. You want to develop these partnerships with people who have a generous spirit and an approach to the world that is full of abundance. After all, it is hoped that you will be living with this choice throughout your business career—and afterwards.
Your referral partner is your golden goose, always providing you with referrals, as you do the same for them. Your referral partners are special and rare people. Be sure to always take good care of them!
There are eight important considerations to keep in mind as you select the people you want as your Referral Partners:
1. Referral partners are defined as the close members in your network who you like and trust. You know and believe in one another’s businesses and you are raving fans for one another. They are in the Profitability or the # 3 Referral Phase with you.
2. The relationship has already developed to a stage where you know a lot about each other’s unique proposition to clients. You are raving fans of one another.
3. You share the same target market. Your ideal client is the same as your referral partner’s. This is a key point in a referral partnership. His/her ideal client is the same as yours – you offer different, and not competitive, services or products.
4. You have both embraced growing your business by referral. Both of you hold the concept of “Giver’s Win” close to your heart. And you know that if you want to grow your business, you need to give referrals to members of your network. You and your partner have a plan for growing your businesses together.
- They are givers by nature. They understand the law of reciprocity ~ the more you give, the more you enjoy life and reap its personal and material harvests.
- They would make good referrals for the people in your network.
- They want and can be inspired to help you
5. You both have a clear call to action in order that your referral partner can take your prospect to the next step, whether it is a complimentary consulting or coaching session or an educational seminar.
6. After 2 – 3 years of focused networking and referral-building, most committed referral marketers have a maximum of 4 referral partners and more than 8 referral sources.
7. You and your referral partners are capable of preparing a deal for one another for closure. Activities to set up this most desirable result include identifying prospects, qualifying those prospects effectively, explaining the value proposition of one another’s services or products to the prospect and, finally, arranging a meeting where all 3 of you attend. The likely closing rate of an opportunity which is prepared in this manner by your well-trained referral partner could be 80-100%. This is a much higher percentage than the already impressive average closing rate of a referral of 34%.
8. You and your referral partner share the same values. You are both givers and believe in the power of growing business by leveraging your network authentically. You both have an unique value proposition to offer your prospects and clients.
Sound exciting? It is. And well worth the networking, qualifying, sharing, communicating, collaborating and giving that are just some of the activities that lead to the development of a referral partner.