I was having a conversation this morning with Jugdis Parbhu (partner at PKF Ross Melville and an outstanding accountant, by the way) about how to get members in your BNI (or network) to regularly pass on good quality, third party referrals. We agreed the relationship is important, but there has to be something more…
I haven’t had much time to think about this, but I would put forward what I think are three steps to getting juicy referrals regularly:
1. Give your fellow members the tools to ‘sell’ on your behalf;
2. Motivate them to ‘sell’ on your behalf; and
3. Give them the courage to ‘push’ your barrow to their clients and contacts.
Tools
These could include your email newsletter to forward on, for example, but I would suggest it’s more a case of educating fellow members to listen for the opportunities and also equipping them with the right words to broach the subject.
It may also be giving them samples or other stuff that they can ‘give out’ – for example, a book or a business plan template for the third party’s own use.
Motivation
Motivating them to sell on your behalf is more difficult. People have to want to help you and promote you. That means they have to like you, trust you and be motivated or enthusiastic about you and your business and what it can do for their contacts. When we’re excited about something, we can’t keep it to ourselves!
But, how can you get somebody enrolled in your business and your life, when they already have their own priorities to worry about? Most importantly, whatever you propose has to be mutually beneficial.
One idea is to get them using your services, with great results. Perhaps making your services or products more accessible to your fellow members will encourage this.
Courage
As Jugdis said to me: “How do you suggest to a client that he may need a life coach? Some subjects are easier to broach than others…”
I believe that points one and two will by and large take care of point three. When somebody is equipped, trained and motivated, it’s far easier to take action.
If you can do all this, a two way, reciprocal relationship will be the natural by-product.
Warning: This method takes patience, tenacity and a real enthusiasm for people – if you can’t see it through, don’t begin.
Finally, there is a way to make implementation of this plan easier on yourself. Identify people in your chapter who share a similar client base (your hub) and undertake this activity with just them, so that you build a close family group (there’s no reason your hub can’t meet outside the chapter).
I would welcome any other ideas on this subject. Ideas anyone?
8 comments
Great accountants – and they have been our accountants since day one. Prior to buying the BNI NZ franchise I went to see the Russell Toplis, the senior partner and he gave me a lot of time and useful advice – so once we got underway we approached them to be our accountants. It was a classic case of what goes around goes around – or in other words “Givers Gain” 🙂
Great points Colin! I would also point out that you want to make it easy for your referral partner to think of you and refer you business. I’m a website developer, and I have taught my chapter members to look at business cards and when they see @ followed by aol or gmail or hotmail, that’s a good referral for me. Then I ask them to say to the person “I see that you are using something other than your company’s domain name for email. I have someone you should talk to.”
It’s simple, and people who haven’t seen me in years (former chapter in another city) still refer business to me because they remember. KISS – Keep it simple and short, works.
Good article.
Thank you for sharing the insights.
Yes Colin enthusiasm is surely the key. In fact courage gives enthusiasm so you do need to step outside the comfort zone to generate juicy third party referrals.
Graham I sat with Russell Toplis at NSANZ Awards dinner in December. A great chap & also the son of an accountant who I knew over 30 years ago!
Keeps smiling 🙂
Paul
Hi Beth – exactly, a great point!
I do public speaking and one of my exercises is to take a business card from somebody in the audience and read it during the presentation (high risk!) and invariably something about or on the card will create the opportunity to refer.
For example, i ask people how many visitors and or conversions they get from their website. Depending on the answer, I can usually suggest a referral.
Paul, I agree. Enthusiasm – and yawns – are contagious. You can choose to transmit one, or the other…
Pleasure Riyaz – I do like to hear myself wax lyrical. 🙂
🙂
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