In my last post we looked at how to turn casual contacts into key referral partners, but what makes a true referral partner? Listed below are the six key criteria that need to be in place for a referral relationship to work effectively.
- You like each other and have the desire or could be inspired to help each other. A key ingredient for any partnership is that personal connection. If that is not in place, then any success will be harder work than it needs to be.
- They have the time, or are willing to make the time, to help you. For a referral partner to be truly effective, they must be willing to make the time to see what is happening in our business so they can stay up to date with what we are looking for and any changes we may need to update them with. This obviously works the other way too, we need to be able to give them our time to learn and understand the same for them.
- They are coachable. They have the ability and temperament to be trained by you to do the things you want them to do. This could be how they approach your key target clients and what you’d like them to say when looking to promote what you do.
- They have the resources necessary to help you. This is a key element in success. Resources could include things like; they are members of associations or organisations where your target market clients spend their time. They could have a good office with meeting room facilities or maybe financial resources. If I want to network with people at large non-profit events that are sometimes expensive because that’s where my Target Market clients are, then it’s not helpful if my referral source is always saying they cannot afford to engage likewise. Having good emotional intelligence is a key resource needed to sustain long term relationships. Some people are just not equipped to positively maintain the emotional intelligence it takes to develop and sustain a long term, dedicated, strategic relationship. It could show up as jealousy, gossip, passive aggressive behaviours, and the list goes on.
- They have access to and credible relationships in your target market. This is really important. As well as having the same target market clients as you, do they have access to the right people within that target market. Do they deal with the people you want to be connected to?
- They make good referrals for people you know. Do the products and services they provide match the needs of the people you know so you can refer them confidently?
These six criteria are key in forming a great long term referral relationship. It takes effort to develop these relationships however like most things of value in life the effort is worth it in the end.
Your action for this week is to take a look at the people in your network you have a credible relationship with and see how many of them you can develop this deeper level of relationship with. Imagine if you had just four or five people like this in your network, how many more referred clients would you get and what difference would that make to your professional and personal life?
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To your continued success
Dave