How to encour­age the mem­bers of your weekly or fort­nighly net­work­ing group to recom­mend your busi­ness to oth­ers and vice versa.

Pre­pare the Way Forward

Before I start, here are some ground rules that each mem­ber of the group should adopt:

• Get to know the busi­nesses of your fel­low group mem­bers through One-2-Ones or even by test­ing their products/services yourself.
• Edu­cate people about your busi­ness in your 60 second and 10 minute presentations.
• Be spe­cific about who and what type of refer­rals you’re after avoid­ing the use of gen­er­al­ist phrases such as “I’m look­ing for senior man­agers” or “I’m want to speak to people who want to save money/generate more sales/grow their businesses”.
• Make your present­a­tion mem­or­able by being humor­ous, through the use of props or by telling a story.
• Change your present­a­tion for each meet­ing, focus on a dif­fer­ent product or ser­vice area. Don’t reel off lists of ser­vices or boar people rigid about your com­pany history.
• People buy from people is an old but accur­ate phrase. So make your­self like­able, someone who is known to help oth­ers and someone who is per­ceived to be an ‘expert’ in their field. Get this mix right and people will become enthu­si­astic about you and your busi­ness and as such, will pro-actively seek refer­rals for you.

Learn­ing about each other’s work is essen­tially “product know­ledge” which is some­thing every good sales per­son should have under their belts before they go out the door. So once you and your fel­low mem­bers become famil­iar with each other’s busi­nesses then it becomes easier to obtain refer­rals for one another.

Learn and Adopt New Habits

So, get­ting down to the nitty-gritty, some of the tech­niques that I have found to work include:

• Focus on a Mem­ber
  In your own mind, choose a fel­low mem­ber to focus on for the next week. For example, if it’s the IT per­son in the group: make it your mis­sion that week to keep your eyes and ears open for poten­tial “buy­ing sig­nals” from your cli­ents and associates.

  Such buy­ing sig­nals could the need for them to have a prob­lem resolved indic­ated by them say­ing “my com­puter is run­ning really slow” or “I need sort a new laptop out”.

• Agree a Call Back Time
  Once you’ve iden­ti­fied a poten­tial cli­ent for a fel­low mem­ber, explain that you know someone who may be able to help them. Do not give them the member’s card with the quip of “give this guy a call” or some­thing sim­ilar. Because they won’t and the poten­tial lead will die a death! Instead ask them if it’s okay for the group mem­ber (in this case the IT busi­ness rep­res­ent­at­ive) to give them a call. If a pos­it­ive response is received, agree a con­veni­ent time and then arrange with your fel­low group mem­ber to call the cli­ent at the pre­de­ter­mined time.
• Drop it into Con­ver­sa­tion
  If you reg­u­larly speak to your client’s you’ll have a fair idea of which type of ser­vices they buy already. Drop into the con­ver­sa­tion that you know an altern­at­ive sup­plier if they need one. If there’s an imme­di­ate need, they’ll ask you dir­ectly for a con­tact into that com­pany. I used this tech­nique recently with great suc­cess myself when look­ing for refer­rals for the com­mer­cial pho­to­grapher in one of my net­work­ing groups. Dur­ing an email exchange with a cli­ent that I knew to use external pho­to­graph­ers, I dropped in the comment:

“Oh by the way – I know you guys use pho­to­graph­ers, if you’re look­ing for an altern­at­ive sup­plier, I cur­rently work with a tal­en­ted pho­to­grapher who’s based not far from you. Here’s a link to his web site www.rogervmoody.co.uk Give me a call if you’d like an intro­duc­tion”.

Worked a treat, and sure as apples is apples, my cli­ent called me up and asked for more inform­a­tion which res­ul­ted in a good refer­ral for my pho­to­grapher associate.

• Get Refer­rals from Your Pro­spects
  When I go to see poten­tial new cli­ents I’ve also got half an ear open for poten­tial oppor­tun­it­ies for my net­work­ing peers. So even if I can’t help them dir­ectly with my own ser­vices, if I can sug­gest someone who may be able to solve another prob­lem they have which has come to light dur­ing my con­ver­sa­tions, by sug­gest­ing a pro­vider who can solve their issue; then at least I can still leave the meet­ing with my pro­spect still think­ing I’m a “great bloke” and someone who is “worth knowing”!

What Tips Have You Got?

If you’re part of a busi­ness net­work­ing group, what meth­ods do you find to be effect­ive when gen­er­at­ing refer­rals for your fel­low net­work­ing peers?

Post your com­ments below and share them with us all.

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