Let's Talk Referrals!

Nothing beats a good first impression, except for a good follow up but that’s for another day...

Making a great first impression isn’t always easy, but it can make a huge difference to how quickly you can build a relationship with other businesses that will benefit both you and them. Today I wanted to share a few ideas on what would impress, or not impress me the first time we meet, either virtually or in person.

While I think this is not only great advice on making a good first impression, I think these are the things that will have the biggest impact – whether you get them right or wrong and I will be talking about virtual first impressions as well as real life.

How on earth do you expect people to give you great referrals if you don't know who they are?

Every business markets their products or services either through paid or free advertising sources, or both. Paid advertising includes things like print, TV, Radio or Billboards. Free advertising sources could be social media (though you can choose to pay to play on those platforms as well). If you have done any form of advertising or marketing, you probably knew where to market your products and services and how to market them to get the best results. We know where our ideal customers hang out, right? TV might not be a good fit for you, radio might not, but print ads is where you get the best bang for your buck it just depends on your business or profession.

In referral marketing, or relationship marketing, to be successful, you also have to know who you want to get as a new customer before even setting out to ask for referrals or create referral campaigns to attract them.

Asking for anyone or everyone and your message is going to get lost or ignored completely. Or worse you could end up choosing a market that means you get bad referrals instead of good or great referrals that you want. When you’re asking for anyone or everyone, you won’t get a great response. Everyone is not an ideal target market nor an ideal customer.

According to the book The 29% Solution, written by Dr. Ivan Misner and Michelle R Donovan,

“Networking is the process of developing contacts and relationships to increase your business, enhance your knowledge, expand your sphere of influence, or serve the community.”

Which means, the things we do that we would normally call networking, such as attending networking events, helping other people, giving referrals are actually the tools and systems we use in networking. What most of us lack, me included for the first 40 years of my life, was the process, system or strategy for networking to get those benefits.

Give thanks. Pay it Forward.

We all need to be in a good place and giving thanks for what we have and giving thanks to other people can make a difference in our lives as well as theirs.

Happy Thanksgiving!

While there’s no one pathway for discovering your life’s purpose, there are many ways you can gain deeper insight into yourself, a larger perspective on what it is you have to offer to the world.

The word “inspire” comes from Latin, meaning “to breathe life into.” This makes sense because when you’re working toward things that inspire you and that you feel passionately about, it makes you feel alive.

So, what topics and subjects can you talk about for hours? What makes you feel a fire in your belly? What’s going to launch you higher up the food chain into something bigger than what you are now?

This doesn’t mean that you have to declare today that you’ll be the next Steve Jobs or the next Oprah Winfrey; this means that it’s your job to start connecting to a cause that’s bigger than you but still congruent with what you care about.

“He who has a why can endure any how.” - Frederick Nietzsche

This week I decided to talk about your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Every business should have a USP, no matter how small and even if you are an individual or independent contractor. The USP needs to be about how you are different/better than your competitors. Your message, if done correctly, will resonate with your target market and help you get more of the right customers and referrals.

Today I wanted to introduce myself and why I do what I do and then start talking about the first steps to being referable, your brand. Without a brand that targets your ideal customers and identifies who you are and what you stand for, any referral asking or messaging you do my just end up going to the wrong people or even worse, get you the wrong referrals.