ChristianCustomers who come as referrals to your business are coming to you with a pre-set level of trust. They have been told by another individual whose opinion they trust that your business offers exactly what they are looking for. The only step required after receiving a referral customer is to make sure their trust in you is never misplaced. When creating your business referral network you should keep a few helpful tips and industry tricks in mind.
Try it
This might sound overly simplified but it is not. If you see an opportunity to expand your business network, give it a shot. Join committees, your local chamber of commerce, check out some seminars, and continually network yourself at every possible opportunity. You should soon find yourself with no shortage of business referral network possibilities.
Associate with Beneficial Mentors
If you know those who have experience with business referral networks it may be a valuable idea to seek out some mentoring from those individuals or businesses. Utilize your time with any mentors wisely by making notes each time you see a hiccup in your own business referral network programs or strategies and taking them to your next meeting with a mentor.
Do it For Your Team
Instill in your employees that the primary reason they should help with referrals is that when the team wins, they win. With struggling economies, increasing daily living costs and other elements that are killing businesses all over the globe, employees who seek out referrals are indeed, doing it for themselves, their team and overall, the business.
Offer Charity Donation Options Among Your Employees
Some of your team members may hesitate and feel concerned over the appearance of making referrals for reasons that may appear self-enriching. Offer your employees the option of choosing to donate their referral rewards to a local charity. Not only is this a community-based benefiting option, it also encourages those who may not have had interest in being an employee referrer previously.
In Name Only
Some of your employees may not have the time to do the research required to capture perfect referrals or to gather their contact information, addresses or other personal information. For those employees, be sure to offer an option where they can be considered for a smaller reward by simply providing the names of any they think may be qualified candidates for referrals. In many cases you will find that the top employees in your business are willing to work in this manner without any promise of reward for supplying those names. Hand these names over to your expert recruiters to follow-up and begin the process of selling.
Be Patient
Even if you are not new to a business, you are still a small fish in a big pond. Keeping that in mind will help you and your business move forward even when there are obvious setbacks in your network. Don’t get discouraged and keep hammering away at your business referral network until you have perfected it to suit your needs and that of your company’s.
Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture and Referral Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture and Referral relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.
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