Referrals are the holy grail of the business community. Every business wants them, every business person is out networking in hopes of getting referred prospects for their business. Referrals come in different shades, just like the color red. The higher you can move the quality of the referral the less time you will need to spend it the sales process. Good referrals do not come quickly or easily. People must trust you if they are going to put their reputation on the line for you. After all, when you are being referred you are in essences borrowing that persons reputation and credibility.

If you want to move the quality of the referrals you get to a higher level here are 3 steps you can begin to implement with your network.

Build a deeper relationship with the person you are networking with. People want to do business with people they know, like and trust. Developing relationships built on trust takes time. Spend time finding out about what your partners are trying to accomplish, and help them accomplish it.

1. Know exactly how you want your network to refer you, then teach them how to do it. The more time that you spend training and being trained by your referral partners the better results you will get from them and they will get from you. If you want a face to face introdution then you must train your referral partners how to set that up for you.
2. Know who you want to be connected to. If you are telling your network that you want to be connected to anyone who, or everyone is a good connection then you are dropping the ball. Your network members want to help you but you have to make it easy for them.

Getting good referrals from your network requires work on your part, it requires time invested in your network, and it requires time to train your network. The more time you invest in the development of your network the more valuable the referrals will be when you get them.

I am writing a book with two friends, Frank DeRaffele Jr and Dr. Ivan Misner,  based on a 12,000 person survey. Many people left comments about networking, things they liked, were challenged by, or just wanted us to know. One of the most frequent comments that we have received is on the “Handshake”.

These comments show clearly that how you shake hands leaves an impact on your ability to communicate or get others to communicate with you. Just as how you appear has an impact, so to does your handshake.  Unfortunately, I believe that there is little attention paid to the handshake and the proper way to do it.  Here are a few of the comments that we received:

I communicate easier when I am greeted with a firm handshake from a woman rather than a dainty or limp handshake…limp means she has no idea what she is talking about. and cares even less about shaking your hand

You can’t judge a book by its cover (!) but you can judge strength of character & business development potential from a handshake.

A strong handshake indicates to me a no nonsense individual, straight to the point, lets get on with the business….and I have to say for the most part that is very true.

There is no doubt from my experience, that those with whom strong business links have been forged, have been with the owners of the firm handshake. Maybe the sub-conscious takes over. It is strange but it is true.

Understanding the etiquette of a proper handshake is key to your networking success as you can see above. Practice your handshake with those who will give you solid feedback.  Here is a very good article on the steps to developing a solid handshake.  Don’t let your handshake leave a bad impression.

One of the first things I work with my clients on is the proper use of “Networking”, as well as the best ways to use their time and energy when they are networking. Over the last 15 years, I have watched people spend many hours networking. As a matter of fact I was one of those people. It is exactly how I got the moniker, “Queen of Networking”. One day, my mentor asked me to begin to track all my time. Time that I spent networking, time I spent answering the phone, emails, working on projects, surfing the net, and so on. This was an eye opening experience.   I found that most of the stuff I was doing was not having a positive impact on my business bottom line.

60% of all of my activities in a given week were around networking. Going to the events, following up with every single card that I collected, staying in contact via email and phone calls, screening and fielding emails and phone calls from people who met me while networking, signing up for other events, driving to events, preparing for the events and so forth and so on. You get the picture; I was a very busy lady. Busy does not equal profitable.

Once we had a clear understanding about where my time was going, it was now time to look at how much of that time was actually having a positive impact on my business bottom line. What became painfully clear is while 60% of my time was spent, adding people to my database, and networking, networking, networking, 80% of my income was coming from 10-12 people, 200 where people whom I knew, supported and referred and the other 3000 names and contacts in my database were just that – names and unfulfilled relationships.

The most important feedback that my mentor gave me was simply this statement; “Imagine what your business would look like if you spent 60% of your time nurturing the 10-12 people who are helping to grow your business.” It was a statement that would keep me up at night.

Today you will not find me at every event and when I attend a networking event, I do so very strategically. I have a goal in mind, a purpose to be fulfilled and connections to make for at least one of those 12 people who were helping me to build my business. When I network for others, my own business grows with very little effort on my part. I have the opportunity to see “Givers Gain” in action.   Before you go to your next networking event ask yourself the following questions:

• Where is most of my business coming from?
• Which organizations are producing results for my business?
• Who passes me the most business?
• What are my goals for the event?
• Who do I need to help?
• How can my networking activities help my referral sources?
• What is my networking budget in both time and money?

Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus but networking is networking right? Last week I was talking to a BNI member, a young lady, about why it was important that a BNI Chapter have women in it. I told her that women were good at building strong relationships within their network. Her retort was simply, “Well that might be true but most of my referrals come from guys, in and out of BNI.”   That got me to thinking, is there a difference?

Women by nature are nurturers, traditionally in most families they were the caretakers of the children, the organizer of the family members, and often the caretaker for the elderly members of the family. While men were the bread winners, doing business, starting and running businesses. Over the years that has changed, and the roles are more equal, men and women both raise the family, both do business, own businesses and run businesses.

Is that change reflected in business-networking?   What is your experience with networking, do the girls do it better than the guys?

Digging your well deep is important if you are going to get the best water, or even the precious oil that resides there. Have you ever seen a well that is only 3 feet deep and 6 feet wide?  Yes, they call them retention ponds and even they are deeper than 3 feet.  They serve little purpose beyond managing run off water.  This is not water you can go out and drink, it simply looks nice in most cases.  To get the clear cold water that can enrich your life, allow you to cook, clean, create steam and run a civilization you have to go deep.

It works the same way with your network.  The deeper you go with your relationships the more valuable the results you will reap.  Unfortunately, networking has the bad reputation of more is better.  In most cases, I find that people pretty much know all the people they really need to know in order to accomplish the things they really want to accomplish, only problem is, those relationships tend to be shallow and not well nurtured.

If you want to get results from your network go deeper, here are 5 things that you can do to begin the process of digging your networking well deeper.

1.  Choose 5 – It is easier to focus on a few versus the masses, if you have built a large network it is important to take a look at your inner circle.  From that circle, choose 5 whom you would like to have a better networking relationship and think about those 5 people and how you can help them.  Make deposits into the relationship.

2.  Get to know them – how much do you know about your 5 people.  You should know what Goals they are trying to accomplish in their business, what they are most proud of accomplishing, where else they network or would like to network, what are they passionate about beyond what they do for a living.

3.  Ask “How can I help you?” – find out ways that you can help your 5 people.  Can you distribute material for them, make an announcement for an event they are having, display their business cards, or mention them in your newsletter/blog?   Making deposits into the relationship assures you of the opportunity to make a withdrawal when you need it.

4.  Stay in contact – When communication changes so does the relationship, being out of contact for long periods of time slows down the relationship process and allows relationships to go cold.  Leave the occasional voice mail reminding your network that you are there to help them, drop a note card in the mail and of course invite your 5 to events and network together.

5.  Take advantage of Social Networking Sites – Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter make it easy to keep up with your network.  Connect to them, read what they are posting, comment on their post and in general show them that you are interested in what they are doing and saying.   The Internet has made it so much easier to stay in communication for those times when you are out of the loop but still want your network to know you are interested in them.

All things being equal people want to do business with people they know, like and trust.  Going deeper into your network and building stronger relationships will reap you more rewards than constantly adding more strangers to the mix.  This week take some time to identify at least 5 people you would like to develop and start working on making deposits.

Have you ever ask a referral partner to introduce you to a contact they have only to be put off or not introduced at all? Did you wonder why? You might be surprised to know, that your referral partner did not have the same level credibility as the level referral you were asking for.

I once had a referral partner who boasted a very large database, we decided to sit down and do a little identifying out of each other’s databases. He had great contacts in his database but when I began to rate the level of referral I was looking for against the level of relationship he had with the contact, there was great disparity.

He quickly realized that his network was wide, but not very deep and he had some work to do to build higher levels of credibility with some of the people in his database. You see he spent most of his time networking, very little time working his network. Once, he had done some of that work, he became a much better referral partner.

Having a very wide network that is only an inch deep does not make you a solid referral partner. If you spend time, working your network instead of being out there networking you will create a much deeper network. One that will produce results for both you and your referral partners.

I regularly meet with prospects and help them understand how much business they are getting from their network and what is being left behind. It is very enlightening and they are always surprised by their results. Do you know your referral percentage? No? Don’t worry, most people don’t know. So, grab a pencil and a calculator and I will help you find your “Referral Percentage” here we go,

1. List 4 people in your network who have passed you the most business by referral this year. For instance Tom, Sue, Bill, Kim.

2. Now, for each person write the number of referrals they have passed you in the last 12 months. Tom=4, Sue=12, Bill=5 and Kim=8

3. Think about each of those people, how many people do you believe each of them know? On average, we each know about 250 people. So, Tom=300, Sue=500, Bill=800 and Kim=200

4. Next step, add all of the referrals you have received together, in our example it would be 29, and then add all of the network members together. In our example, it would be 1800.

5.Last step, you will need your calculator to complete the process, 29 divided by 1800 equals .016%

What is your percentage? Are you surprised? Did you have 4 referral sources? Many of my clients are shocked and frustrated when they do this exercise. It is possible to increase this number. The very first time I did this it was .010 and I was shocked.

Here is the real question, what are you going to do to change this percentage? What steps can you take to develop a higher referral percentage? Hint: Stop adding people to your network, instead start digging deeper into your network and develop stronger strategic relationship! Start with the 4 people you listed here and if you did not have four then work on the ones you have. When you are sure that you have increased that relationship, then move on to create a new one, until your have your “Four”.

If you would like a system for generating a consistently higher percentage take a look at The Referral Institute for help.

It’s almost that time of year again, the grass is greening, the temperature is climbing and my golf clubs are calling. I have cleaned up my clubs, got all the new balls I will need for the first game and bought my new shoes. I am ready to go.

Every year thousands of people hit the golf courses for fun and business. There more networking done on the golf course as there is during chamber meetings.. When done right it is a great place to build strong referral relationships with your networking friends. After all, you have an extended amount of time with one to four people.

There are a few rules that you might want to be aware of when you hit the course with your referral sources.

1. Leave your cell phone in the car.

2. Use your time building relationships; don’t try to strong arm a deal.

3. Know the rules and etiquette of the game.

4. Don’t over indulge in the booze, this will not build credibility with your referral sources.

5. Don’t lose your temper on the course.

6. No cheating on the scorecard, remember you are trying to build trust.

7. Off colored language, whining or making excuses on the course are not in your best interest.

8. Avoid religious or political conversations.

9. Arrive early to get organized and practice.

10. Dress appropriately in attire that will take you from the links to the clubhouse. Denims, sleeveless shirts and short shorts are not acceptable

Plan strategically who you are playing with; have your best referral source bring someone you really want to meet, and you bring that person your referral source really wants to build a strong relationship

Most of all, enjoy the day.

I teach a program called Referral Dynamic, it is an amazing program, and I love the results that our participants achieve as a result of this program.  One of the topics that we have a very spirited conversation around is competitors.  You see it’s my belief that there are no competitors, just opportunities for collaboration.

Here is a note that one of our students sent us about his experience with competitors after our discussion:

“When I was taking the Referral Dynamics class Denise, our instructor, suggested that I consider working with a company whom I considered a major competitor.  I told her that would be crazy since they were paid to do what I do.  One afternoon I called an old friend of mine who happens to be this company’s top sales person.  I explained to her what I wanted, and asked her if there was any opportunity for us to work together.  To my total surprise, she went on to tell me that there was more than just an opportunity, there was in fact every reason for us to work together.  I turns out, when her company sold a program, they then turned it over to an advisor to manage.  Today, this has become a very profitable relationship for my company.  What I once considered a competitor is now one of my top referring partners.

The moral of the story, “Don’t assume that you know everything that your competitor does or how they do it.”

• Do you know who your competitors are?
• How do you compete?
• Who is their target market?
• How aer you alike?
• How are you different?
• What is their strength?
• What is their weakness?
• Do you know their price points?
• Who are their top sales people?
• Where might there be an opportunity for collaboration?

You might find that whom you thought was a competitor is truly an opportunity.  Spend the time to do the work, you may be very happy that you did.

Have you ever ask someone for a referral or introduction to one of their contacts only to be put off or not introduced at all?  Did you wonder why?  You might be surprised to know that your referral source did not have the same level of credibility as the level referral you were asking for.

I once had a referral partner who boasted a very large database.  We decided to sit down an do a little identifying out of each others database.  He had great contacts in his database, but when we began to rate the level of referrals that I was looking for against the level of relationship he had with the contact, there was a great disparity.

He quickly realized that his network was wide, but not very deep and he had some work to do to build higher levels of credibility with some of  the people in his database.  Once he had done some that work, be became a much better referral partner.  Most people spend a lot of time adding to their network instead of building relationships with their network.  They are always collecting cards and adding them to their list, but they take little time to go deep and develop strong credibility with the right people.

The reality is for most of us, we already know all the people we really need to know to accomplish the things that we want to accomplish.  Get to know the people you already have in your network.  Spend time building credibility with them before you go adding more people to your network.