Have you heard of Alignable? Darla and Natalie recently set up an account, but are wondering if it’s worth the effort. After all, they’re on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn (the list goes on). Should they invest their time in another social network that seems similar to LinkedIn? Eric Groves, the Founder and CEO of Alignable, joins the gals to share WHY it’s worth your time—don’t miss it!

Prior to founding Alignable, Eric spent 10 years as a founding executive of Constant Contact leading their marketing efforts. He’s the author of ‘The Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing’. With over 25 years in the industry, he is an expert on engagement, email marketing, small business development, and much more.

• [0:46] You get what you pay for

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Alignable is an online referral network for small business owners. Eric describes it as a way to find new customers by building trusted relationships with each other. He’s spent a lot of time working with small business owners, and everyone said the majority of their referrals were from word of mouth. Eric points out that it’s not like advertising—you can’t just spend $500 on an ad budget and get more referrals. But Alignable is a place that can make that happen. 

Small business owners typically get most of their referrals within 5-10 miles of where they’re physically located. Alignable allows you to search for business owners in that radius—then introduce yourself and start building relationships. Darla endearingly referred to them as “The tinder for business referrals”. 

You can search for whoever fits your target demographic for clients: architects, general contractors, real estate agents, etc. Keep listening to learn the simple strategy to connect with the right people. 

When asked if Alignable could be compared to LinkedIn, Eric pointed out the main difference: LinkedIn was created with the original intent of helping professionals be recruited and hired. Eric stated that Alignable is more about finding a business opportunity. 50% of the 4.5 million users on Alignable are business to consumer and the other 50% are B2B. 

But does alignable fit into your marketing scheme? Eric tossed back a question in response: “When you think about your best source of referrals, what percentage of those referrals are coming from other business owners vs. consumers?”. Darla and Natalie responded that they get about 30% of their leads from referrals. 

Eric points out that if they took that 30% of their time and focused on building a referral network with people who would naturally refer customers to them, that they’d likely increase word-of-mouth referrals to 50%.

Eric goes on to share some specific examples of how users doubled and tripled their business, local versus national exposure, the client-facing side of alignable, and where they’re heading next. Don’t miss this engaging and informative episode!

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