TRACKING…WHY BOTHER?….BECAUSE IT PAYS WELL!

 Truth or Delusion? Unlike cold-calling, the referral process is difficult to measure. Delusion!

The key to tracking the referral process lies in knowing what to measure. An effective referral marketing plan should be measured in 3 categories.

• networking activities
• referrals given and received
• closed business

When you do not track the referral process, the lag time between participating in networking activities, getting referrals, and ultimately closing the resulting business inevitably creates a significant challenge. Without tracking the system, you cannot pinpoint which of your networking activities have led to the referrals which end up resulting in new business for you.

Now that we understand why tracking the referral process is important, let’s look at some examples of networking activities and see how we can measure this first category in order to evaluate our referral process. Actions such as sending an article of interest or a thank you note, giving a referral, and meeting for lunch are all great examples of networking activities. To measure the effectiveness of these activities, we can use a tool called a networking scorecard which is discussed in the book Business by Referral by Dr. Ivan Misner and Robert Davis. The networking scorecard allows you to plan your networking activities, track them, and then measure their effectiveness through a weekly point scale.

(TIP #1-In order to stay engaged in the process; reward yourself as you hit certain networking scorecard point benchmarks.)

The second category which must be measured in the tracking process is the referrals that are given and received. Measuring this activity allows us to manage each referral and to follow up with the referred prospects, as well as with those who have referred us.

(TIP #2-Our biggest opportunity in tracking this category is the ability to provide recognition to our referral sources and to ensure that we are not just takers in the referral process.)

The final category to track is the closed business that results from our networking activities and the referrals that we receive. Along with tracking our results, we are able to tie back to who is referring us the business, and what activities have been most profitable in producing business. When we track our closed business, we begin to see where our time is spent in order to produce the different results.

(TIP # 3-Consistent tracking will provide you with an accurate return on networking investment, the value of a referred appointment, and who are your most profitable referral relationships. Budgeting your time with the right activities and the right people will then become a networking art and a science.)

Though this way of tracking your referral process is an excellent one, it is not the only way to track. One question that I am commonly asked is:

“OK, I get it, I need to track my referral process, but what do I track it with?”

My answer to that question is: WHATEVER METHOD YOU WILL ACTUALLY USE!

We have participants that are tracking their referral process on copied pages from Business by Referral, others who have created their own spreadsheets, and still others using even more sophisticated tracking systems such as Relate2Profit.

What you measure you will attain!

Mike Macedonio is the President and Partner of the Referral Institute, the world’s leading referral training organization (www.referralinstitute.com). He is also a New York Times best selling author of, Truth or Delusion? Busting Networking’s Biggest Myths (www.truthordelusion.com).