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1.  Define Your Referral Universe

There are good referrals and there are great referrals.  You need to be proactive in cultivating the great ones as a clear part of your marketing and sales strategy.  So who is in your referral universe?  Collect and segment your current list of contacts – include past and present clients, coworkers, partners, friends, family, etc.  First segment them by how fresh the connection is. Why is this important?  If you put down a name of someone you know that you haven’t spoken to in years, what do you think the reaction might be to a call out-of-the-blue looking for help?  Know how fresh or stale the connection is so you can figure out a relationship plan to maximize the new ones and breath new life into the old ones. Then segment them by industry or target companies, or whatever is meaningful to you. This gives you a roadmap for beginning to use referrals to drive your business.

2.  Understand and Communicate What’s In It for the Referral Source

Unless your source lives for the joy of putting people together, you really need to have a value proposition for them that has meaning and teeth.  Why should they help you? What will they get out of it?  How does it add to their business, their life, and their relationship with you?  How will you reciprocate?  I believe strongly in the “give-to-get” method, so step up to the plate armed with an individual value proposition and the quality of your referrals will soar.

3.  Invest the Time to Create “Connection”

Just asking to use someone’s name is an option – and it does warm up an interaction with a prospect a bit– but having a true connection with that name makes it hot.  Your real goal is to make that connection real and personal.  You want the other person to introduce you.  This means taking the time to nurture someone new that you’ve met, or to reacquaint yourself with someone, or to include a current client in your referral plan.  Get to really know them and their needs.  Be willing to help them out.  Show them how to refer to you by delivering a referral to them the way you would like one yourself.  Be patient, be consistent, follow-up and don’t have your hand out too early.  Earn the right to ask for a referral by creating a true connection with all of your referral sources.

4.  Keep Your Referral Sources Up To Speed

Once you get the referral, make sure you just don’t disappear with it.  Believe it or not, your referral sources do want to know what happened.  If they don’t, take their temperature!  It probably was just a chilly or lukewarm referral at best.  The hot ones, the connected ones, will want to be kept up to speed.  Don’t ask for more help – just keep them informed.  Why?  People love to know if they’ve really been of help.  Respect their efforts by keeping them informed about what their assistance resulted in.  If they know you are making good use of their connections, they’ll think of you again and again.

5.  Thank them in a Tangible Way.

Beyond a verbal thank-you, make sure they know you appreciate it by making your thanks tangible.  Return the favor with a reciprocal referral.  Write a hand-written note.  Send them a small gift.  Take them to lunch or dinner.  Invite them to attend a seminar or meeting.  Introduce them to someone they you know they would like to meet.  Offer to help them with something they are working on.  Extend the “give-to-get” full circle to “give back.”  One good referral deserves another and another.  Be both a source and a recipient for a referral strategy that works.

By Lisa D. Dennis

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