The Second step of the referral process is the smallest of all the steps, because it is the easiest of the five steps and one that most people are comfortable doing. That step is Knowledge. If your referral partners or power team members are going to pass you referrals they need to have knowledge of you, your business and how you do business. Who are your ideal clients and how do you help them.

Passing on the knowledge of your business is a pretty common practice. Go to most any networking event and you will hear everyone talking about their business. How they do it, where they do it and who they do it for. If you are going to get good referrals you have to follow each step in order.

When you give a bunch of information to someone you have not taken the time to build trust or credibility with it becomes wasted effort. They have a lot of information but they are not likely to pass you referrals. They will give you leads and information but they are not going to pass you the quality referrals you are looking for.  Passing knowledge of your to others creates word of mouth and/or visibility in the market place but is not the sources of referrals.

Take time on step one, build trust. Once you have done that, it is time to teach your referral partners and power teams members about your business.

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

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Jim Rohn

If we are going to be the best that we can be in this life, then it is important that you surround yourself with others who are striving to be the best that they can be. When you are developing referral partners this is also very important.

The relationship between referral partners becomes very close, when the relationship is working well you are meeting and developing referral strategies, sending your best customers to one another and building each others reputation. You are helping each other to succeed.

Ask yourself these 4 questions when you are looking for good referral partners.

* Do they have a positive and supportive attitude.
* Do they have a giving attitude
* Are they open to learning and growing
* Do they support you and your vision

Surround yourself with people who are going where you want to go. When you have people on the path with you it makes the journey so much easier.

Do you take responsibility for yourself and for your actions?  Even if you screw up by mistake, do you take responsibility for it?  Or do you cry to everyone, get others involved in your drama, make excuses, blame others, hideout, and avoid?

Amazingly more people behave as described above than those who take full, 100% responsibility.  This is not the kind of behavior that makes for a good referral partner.  It is important that we each take 100% Responsibility for what we do, both personally and professionally.

Integrity and ethics are built upon our taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions consistently, it requires that we speak up and say what is right, and when we are wrong.  Integrity and ethics are important to the referral relationship.  If your referral partners cannot trust 100% that you will act with integrity, ethics and responsibility they are not going to refer you business.

Ask yourself, do you take 100% responsibility or do you make excuses.  Do you speak up for what is right, or do you hope others will?  Do you divide or do you unite others?

What is the difference between a contact, a referral source, and a referral partner?  Do you know?  What is not knowing costing you?

There is a clear distinction between the three and most of the people out there networking today are working with contacts and referral sources, few have referral partners.  What would you business look like today if you had 5 people completely trained to send you level 14 referrals and up? It is possible.

Dan, Craig, Lloyd, and Aaron started out as contacts in each others database, then they became referral sources and happily began working with one each other.  Craig decided to take it up a notch, he convinced each of the others to attended a Referral Institute Program where they were trained to be referral partners for each other.  What is the big difference, referral partners are trained to generate pro-active referrals for their partners.  The Referral Institute, taught them to be partners and took them up a level.  Today, they work for each other in a pro-active manner!