I was speaking to a member of a local referral networking group recently and during our conversation Steve (name changed to protect the innocent) informed me that he didn’t think a recent visitor to his group would join. He proceeded to tell me that the visitor had told him he had a trusted contact who already did what Steve did (which was an electrician ) so would probably pass the business to him instead of Steve, which meant that Steve wouldn’t pass him business in return.

I asked Steve what the visitor did and what he thought of what the visitor had said. Steve told me that the visitor was a health and safety trainer and that it was probably true as there wasn’t a lot of room for reciprocal referrals in that relationship. Now here is the thing; Steve is right if he thinks the strength and value of a relationship is based purely on the ability of two people to pass referrals between each other.

There is however an added benefit that Steve hadn’t thought of that is not based on the two way passing of referrals.  Let’s imagine the visitor joins the group and demonstrates he can be trusted at what he does and he becomes an excellent member of the group who passes referrals to other members and they give great feedback for the work he does for their contacts, so that trust is established. Steve then refers this new trusted member to one of his clients to deliver health and safety training and true to form the new member does a great job and Steve’s client is delighted with the work done. Steve’s value to his client has just been raised up to a new level. Not only can Steve serve his client as an electrician he can also provide key support service to his client. If a competitor electrician now approaches Steve’s clients and tries to take work from him it is highly unlikely to happen as Steve does not only deliver good service himself but he has added value to his client.  The client is also more likely to recommend Steve to their contacts because of this.

Business is about people and relationships just as much as it is about profit and loss and it is important that by looking at the bigger picture it can give you bigger results.

Thanks for reading

Dave