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 did a presentation today for the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, Business Growth Series.   I was asked the following question, How do you get connected to the decision maker of a company?

A good question and one that many people ask. The answer is simple, but it is not easy. Here is the answer for all of you who want to know the simple answer;   Ask you network to connect you.  There I told you it was simple, just ask.

Ah, but I also said, it was not easy.  Here is the rest of the answer.   There is a lot of work that must go into your network prior to asking and getting the connections.

1. You must develop your network – Too many business people spend all their time building these huge databases of people, constantly adding to it. They have very wide networks, but not very deep. Stop adding people to your network, take the time to identify the people in your network whom you need to really develop a relationship with. Go into your network and start working on building relationships.  See who is already referring you, find your key sources and connectors.  Spend time working in your network, develop the people you already know versus adding more people to the network.

2. Identify your key connectors. Who are they? In every network of people there are key connectors who will be able to connect you to a multitude of people you would not otherwise have the opportunity to meet. Build deeper relationships with your key connectors.

3.  Know who you want to be connected to.  This means you need to do a little homework and find out who this contact is you are after.  To often I hear “I want an introduction to the head of Marketing for the XYZ company.”    It would be more effective when asked this way:  ”I am looking for a personal introduction to David Jones, of the XYZ Company.”  Now your network knows who you want to be connected to and how you want to be connected.  They can easily look in their database and see if they know that person.   Most networkers never do the home work to identify who they want to know.

A few weeks ago I walked into a little shop downtown called Arts a Poppin. It was one of those places that sell all kinds of locally created art work.   As is always the case in shops like this, there were all kinds of unique items to catch my attention and beckon for me to carry them home.  As I picked up items, I wondered who made it and why?  What is the story?

On one shelf there lay these composition notebooks covered in vinyl covers of all colors.  None of them had really distinguishable designs on them, but they were high quality, very well made covers for composition notebooks.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I use a lot of composition books.  I carry them around with me all the time to keep notes, to do’s and idea in, so these covers interested me.  I picked them up looked them over and could not really figure them out.  Yes they were covers, nicely made, but the design or lack of design in the colors struck me as odd.  I noticed a small tag sewn on the cover that said, “Freakin Billboard” .  I also noticed the price tag of $19.99, I laid the one I had down and decided that I really did not need to spend $20 bucks on a vinyl cover for my $2.00 notebook.

Several days later I was invited to a party.  I met two women Ann and Beth,  we began to talk about what we did for a living.  They told me that they were into recycling, specifically they recycled Billboards.  Today’s Billboards are done in vinyl, when they are taken down they are thrown into landfills by the tons, so they decided to make “stuff” out of this water-proof material.  All kinds of stuff, messenger bags, purses and journals.  It was a fascinating story and as they were telling it, I thought back to the vinyl covered composition books at the shop.  Suddenly I realized those notebooks were their journals, Ann and Beth were “Freakin Billboard”!    Funny how small the world can seem sometimes.

The very next time I was downtown, I stopped into that same little shop, and I bought a vinyl cover for my composition notebook, the cost of $19.99, did not seem like that much because I knew the story behind the product.  You see the vinyl cover was just a vinyl cover until I knew the story, then it became something more.

Do people know your story and can other people tell your story?   Think about it.

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.

Friends who care about you are hard to find and should be held onto even when one screws up. There is always room for open honest communication and forgiveness. The hardest part is the open honest communication, and ASKING for Forgiveness then GIVING it!

I wrote the above statement and posted in on my Facebook Profile, because of the numerous comments I decided to write more here. The most important thing that we build in our lives are relationships, the people whom we call friends, those who help us, mentor, encourage and cheer us on. Now and then we screw up, do something wrong or hurt someones feeling and suddenly we find that we have caused great damage to the relationship. We may not have intended to do it, nevertheless we did. At this point we have a choice, let the relationship die or reach out and attempt to repair the relationship.

Repairing the relationship first requires open and honest communication. Both sides need to be willing to speak what is there without blame or excuses, to listen to one another. That communication should consist of 3 things.

Take Responsibility – don’t make excuses, don’t blame, just take responsibility. Part of taking responsibility is making sure you have taken steps not to repeat the action.

Ask for Forgiveness – asking for forgiveness is not easy. It is necessary if you want to recover your relationship. There is nothing more that needs to be said beyond “I take full responsibility for my actions and I ask for your forgiveness.”

Give Forgiveness – if you want others to forgive you when you screw up, and you will, be willing to Give Forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean that you condone the action, you just release the anger, upset and disappointment and move forward.

People who really care about us don’t come along everyday. We are all human and in our humanity we screw up, it is our nature, but it does not mean that we have to give up the friendships we have created.

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?

In his book Business By Referral, Dr. Misner discusses the importance of knowing what is important to the people in your network. He developed the GAINS Profile as way to help facilitate conversation that was productive for network members to get to know each other.

The G in GAINS stands for Goals. One of the ways that network members can help each other is by understanding what each are trying to accomplish, in this way we can take an active role in helping our fellow networkers accomplish their Goals.

Do you know what the Goals are for the members of your Network? Do you know what is important for them to accomplish this year? If you learn that, you will learn ways that you can give to your network, helping them do the things that are important to them.

These do not need to be limited to professional Goals they can be personal goals also. One of my Goals this year was to lose enough weight to go down another dress size and maintain that.   A member of my network is a marathon trainer and encouraged me to get involved with his marathon group. Assuring me that he would support me throughout the process and it would help me reach my goal. Indeed it did, with his support, education and persistence I met my goal and I have a desire to help Cecil accomplish his Goals.

Take the time, ask your network members how you can help them reach their goals. When we help each other we all achieve more.

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?

Every year for the last 5 years I have set a goal to walk the Indianapolis Mini Marathon. Every year that goal went unmet. This year, it is no longer an unaccomplished goal. Saturday May 8th I walked the 13.1 miles in the largest mini marathon, with 37,000 other people.

What made this year different than the other 4 years. Simple really, I implemented the same 5 strategies that I tell my Referrals for Life students to implement when building their referral system.

1. Support - I found a group of other people who wanted to achieve the same goal that I did. Having a team of people to support you and cheer you on makes a big difference in your energy, you motivation and your desire to achieve. When you are building your business by referral, you need a strong network that will support you in your endeavors. You cannot build a network of people who will refer you all alone, it is a person to person activity.

2. Education – I learned more about participating in a marathon. I learned about shoes and why they are important, how to eat right, what kind of clothing to wear in the different kinds of weather. As business owners it is important that we always seek out more education, allowing us to stay sharp and be able to grow our businesses and ourselves. No one is born knowing how to network or how to build a strong network. Get educated, learn the art of networking and the science of referrals. The more education you get the more successful you are. Learn more to earn more.

3. Accountability – Having a system of accountability was key to my training. When you add accountability to your learning you accomplish so much more. Accountability breeds success. If you and your network are not accountable to each other you will soon lose momentum. Hold each other accountable for greater results.

4. Training – Consistent use of the educational material breeds huge amounts of success. The training allows you to practice what you have learned until you are good at it. Having the ability to practice over and over again allows you to develop the networking and referral muscles. You do not want to practice on your referral or prospects.

5. Coaching - Above all else this is the one thing that set this year apart from all other years. Having a coach to guide, educate, support, and implement accountability made the biggest difference in may ability to complete the Mini Marathon. Having him tell me when my gait was wrong or if my tempo was off was invaluable and made the difference in my wanting to do the marathon and completing the marathon. Education without coaching is entertainment. Your Coach can tell you what you are doing wrong, how to do something differently or more effectively. If you are trying to build a business by referral you need to find yourself a qualified referral trainer – coach. You will be surprised by your results.

Creating a system that generates referrals for your business is like training for a marathon, it is simple, but it is not easy!

Sometimes it is good to hear the same thing from someone else.  Such is the case here.  Bill Cates is known as The Referral Coach and does a great job helping his clients get more referrals.  One of the biggest challenges that I have when working with Referral Institute clients is getting them to narrow their focus and understanding how important it is.

In this Blog,  guest Blogger Bill Cates does a great job explaining why it is important to Narrow Your Focus….

Weekly Referral Tip – Bill Cates

This issue of The Referral Minute has been prompted by one of our readers. He asks the question:

“We have started to gain some divorced women and a couple of woman business owners as clients. If we wanted to target this niche (divorcees, widows, and wealthy women in general), would this be a good idea? The ironic thing is that women are not really a niche as they comprise 51% of the population. Your thoughts and comments would be much appreciated.”

Before I address this question directly, let me remind you of why you should be thinking about narrowing your focus with a niche – if you haven’t already.

1. You bring more value to your niche prospects and clients. Niche prospects see the value more quickly and want to work with you. Niche clients experience your value and you become more referable.
2. You can create a reputation more easily in a niche. Most niches/affinity groups have formal and informal ways of communicating with each other. The more referable you are (the value you bring) and the more they know you are targeting their niche, the easier it is to grow your reputation and get your phone ringing with great prospects.
3. You can identify all the players. In many cases, it’s easier to identify potential prospects in a niche. For instance, using today’s internet search tools, you can easily identify all the owners of a business in a specific industry. You can identify all the high-level executives in a specific company.

Now back to the question.

While women in general may not be a very good niche, you can build a great business staying with woman, but being more specific. For instance, I have met several – very successful – financial professionals who have had great success targeting divorcees and widows. This is not ALL women, but a subset that usually have a great need for a good financial professional.

Because there are no associations or clubs (that I know of) for these women (maybe some support groups, however), it’s a bit harder to identify and contact this type of prospect. If you’re lucky enough to have a client of this type who belongs to some sort of organization that is populated by divorcees and/or widows, then you might be able to speak at some meetings, create some seminars, and write for their publications.

Another way to get more focused with this niche is with women business owners. There are many things I like about targeting women business owners. The main reason is that woman, in general, and business owners, in general, usually play the referral game more willingly and more frequently. I know of one successful financial professional in New York who says he averages 2.5 referrals per male client and 27 referrals per female client. Now that’s some pretty good numbers.

Unlike widows and divorcees, it’s much easier to identify your business-women prospects. There are many associations of woman business owners (like NAWBO – National Association of Woman Business Owners – they have local and regional chapters). In addition, they have many types of gatherings, events, publications, causes, etc., that you can leverage to build your reputation.

Many Kinds of Niches

Of course, there are many great niches. I’ve seen what I’d call “micro-niches” that can be great and even a fun way to build a business. Here are a few standard and creative niches:

1. Physicians
2. Surgeons
3. Dentists
4. Small Business Owners within a narrow industry group
5. Owners of Corvettes, Porches, BMWs, etc. (they have clubs)
6. Horse owners (they have clubs and associations)
7. Dentists that ride Harley Davidson Motor Cycles (Yep! They exist! A narrow and fun niche.)
8. Employees (or executives) within a certain large company in your area
9. Retired individuals from a specific company or industry
10. Teachers
11. Salespeople

There are many more. In fact, if you’d like to tell me your niche and why it works for you, I’d love to hear from you. Info@ReferralCoach.com

You can read more from Bill at  ReferralResultsBlog