Three Reasons Networking Events Increase Your Referral Business
As every entrepreneur knows, referrals are the lifeblood of
small business. Events hosted by professional associations,
college alumni groups and your local chamber of commerce
are the perfect opportunity to expand your network of
professional contacts. Networking leads to a direct
increase in the number of referrals you receive for new
customers, earning you new business. Yet as a business
coach, I’ve learned that small business owners rarely take
the time to attend networking functions.
There are three key reasons that networking for referrals
makes good business sense-especially for entrepreneurs:
1. Referrals come to you pre-sold.
When a network contact sends you a referral, they’ve
already done a good part of the selling for you. This is a
fantastic concept if you don’t enjoy prospecting for new
business. With every networking event you attend, have a
goal of meeting new people whose business contacts
complement yours. With a robust network, you’ve got your
own pro-bono sales force enthusiastically working for you
seven days a week. You couldn’t build a better sales team
than that!
Tapping Into the Power of a Mastermind Group
You’ve probably heard the old expression, the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts. This concept proves
itself over and over with the exponential power of the
Mastermind Group. The idea of a mastermind collective was
formally coined in Napoleon Hill’s classic book, “Think and
Grow Rich.” Hill wrote, “No two minds ever come together
without thereby creating a third, invisible intangible
force, which may be likened to a third mind.”
Today, more and more people are harnessing the power of the
Mastermind Group to help them think bigger. This concept
can be applied to business, social causes, politics,
relationships, health, and artistic endeavors. Combining
the abilities of multiple individuals to solve problems,
brainstorm ideas, seek solutions, and develop strategies
creates greater results than going it alone as a “lone
ranger.”
The size of a Mastermind can range from two to eight
members. Any more than that can get chaotic. The group can
meet in person if they are in a similar geographic
location. Or if the Masterminders live in different states
or countries, they can also meet via a bridge line. The
members of the group make a commitment to show up regularly
and to contribute to each others’ success.
The types of groups can be as varied as your imagination.
However, compatibility is vital to the success of the
group. Members should have similar interests and/or should
be at a similar “level.” For example, participants can be
in a similar area of business like realtors or life
coaches. Or the group’s members can have a common goal like
writing a book, building an Internet subscriber list, or
losing 30 pounds.
Create Deliberate Relationships
“Bodacious” means to be bold, outstanding, and remarkable.
Take those attributes to work and you’re on your way to
building a fulfilling, bodacious career. Does having a
bodacious career sound exciting to you? It is! After
starting as an $8 an hour customer service rep, I rose
through the ranks of AOL, accepting four promotions and
surviving over six layoffs to become the head of corporate
training for 12,000 employees. Along the way I learned I
needed to be bodacious to achieve the career I wanted. Out
of that experience I created my “cheat sheet” of ten
essential Bodacious Career Builders. Here’s number two:
Create Deliberate Relationships
Bodacious Career builders know that in today’s business
world value lies in relationships. Everything is
introduced, evaluated, negotiated, bought, sold, resolved,
ended, and enjoyed based on relationships. The
technological advancements that have evolved over recent
years serve as both metaphors and evidence of our demand
for an infinite ability to make connections through
computers, modems, phone lines, and air waves, as well as
among people in organizations. Even with all this
high-tech stuff, it’s still all about people.
What I’m about to say flies in the face of all good girl
coding most of us have had embedded in our systems from the
day we first heard, “Now play nice. That’s a good girl.”
And it might make you so mad that it will cause you to stop
reading this article and move on to something else. I
certainly hope not.
But in the name of authenticity and full disclosure, I have
to tell it like I see it:Â To build a Bodacious Career,
deliberately seek relationships with people according to
who they are, who they know, what they do — and what they
can do for you.
Sounds horribly selective, doesn’t it? But it isn’t really.
Why Your Networking Is Not Working
Does this sound like you?
*Â You’re spending way too much time trying to network
online and are on networking overload.
*Â You’re trying to keep up with all the threads that
relate to your business in all the social networking groups
you’ve joined.
*Â You’re also monitoring all the discussion lists you’re
on looking for an opportunity to jump in and share your
pearls of wisdom with the others on the list.
*Â You’re afraid to keep track of the hours you spend in
online networking because whatever the number is, it’s way
too high.
*Â You’ve just gotten an invitation to join yet another
social networking group and while you’re very flattered,
you realize if you join one more group in an effort to
network your way to a full client roster, you won’t need
any new clients because you’ll be out of business
*Â You’re spending so much time trying to master online
networking that you’ve totally neglected the face-to-face
networking that has been working for millions of people for
centuries. (Come on, how do you think people built their
businesses before the Internet came along?)
I mean, seriously, how much time can you afford to take
away from your work to keep current on all the goings on in
all the online networking groups you belong to without your
business starting to spiral downward?
5 Great Ways to Find Referrals
While referrals are one of the most important sources of
new clients for therapists and coaches, how to get them
seems to be something of a mystery. Below is a five-step
referral strategy that can switch on your referral faucet,
or turn a trickle into a steady flow.
#1-Focus on Your Ideal Clients 
 Do you want to work
with men in career transition? People dealing with health
issues? Families in crisis? Females with eating disorders?
Newly retired individuals? You may serve a narrow niche of
clientele, or a broad swath. For example, your market may
be “stay-at-home mothers in their 30s who used to be
corporate executives with six-figure incomes,” or you may
help your clients deal with an assortment of issues, such
as: depression, addictions, marital issues, stress and
sexual trauma. It doesn’t matter for these purposes. What
does matter is getting clear: Whom do you serve?
#2-Discover Where They Gather 
 Where do the people
who could benefit from your services gather? If you’re a
therapist specializing in grief, for example, think about
mortuaries and churches. People dealing with addiction
issues might be found at AA or other 12-step meetings,
including Al-Anon. If you work with couples in crisis,
consider coffee shops, beauty salons, the offices of family
lawyers and mom groups.
Small business owners might meet at the local Chamber of
Commerce or at professional networking gatherings. People
concerned with their health and fitness might be found at
gyms, day spas or the offices of massage therapists,
personal trainers or holistic practitioners. Retired
people? Think volunteer organizations, travel agencies,
hobby shops, golf courses. Get the picture? When you’re
clear about where your ideal clients gather, you can take
the next step, which is to build a relationship with the
professional or person in charge at each of these locations.
How To Use Business Cards to Generate Leads… Fast!
Ever wondered how to get your business card pulling in
leads really fast? Here’s a couple of tested and proven
tips you must know.
It’s interesting…why do people want to SPLASH THEIR NAME
across the top of their business card?
The answer is simple…ego.
You should treat your business card as a mini advertising
billboard…and most certainly have an ATTENTION GRABBING
headline on the card! Imagine this….
Imagine if a company hired out on of those huge billboards
on the side on the road, and put the name of the person who
owned the business across the top of the billboard? EG. Do
you really think that people are going to want to read
anymore of what the billboard has to say? Lets say you
owned a business card printing service , and your name is
J. Smith … would your roadside billboard look better if
it said “1000 Free Business Cards if You Call and Mention
this Billboard”, or would you think “J.Smith” would attract
more sets of eyes?
Networking: admit you don’t know
When you attend a conference or other networking event,
you’ll meet people with a variety of backgrounds and
interests, and inevitably you’ll find yourself conversing
one-on-one with someone whose subject will totally stump
you. What should you do?
First, don’t try to wing it, because you’ll make mistakes
and look foolish. Why would you want to fake it anyway?
There’s no shame in not knowing about a topic you’ve never
studied. When referring to something that’s not too
difficult, you may have used the expression, “It’s not
brain surgery”, but did you ever stop to think that to a
brain surgeon it might be just as appropriate to say, “It’s
not accounting” or “It’s not desktop publishing” or even
“It’s not rock music”? Will Rogers once said, “We’re all
ignorant – just in different subjects”. Personally, I
believe the only reason I can’t perform brain surgery is
that I’ve never studied it, but that doesn’t mean I am less
intelligent or worthy than a brain surgeon, does it?
How Talking About Your Business Will Lead To Success
What began as just an ordinary night out with friends
turned into a lesson in business building and
self-motivation. You see when I started my own business
working from home I was naturally a bit wary. I’d never had
my own business before. I was the typical person who had a
job and put up with it. But that had changed and now I did
what I wanted to do. A new life was beginning.
The trouble was even though I knew what I was doing,
actually explaining it to other people was difficult. A
business publishing and marketing information products was
just right for me. But getting people to understand what I
did was the hard part. So usually I just didn’t bother. I
just got on with it quietly and enjoyed every moment.
But two conversations that night were to change all that
and now I take every opportunity I get to talk about my
business.
First I happened to meet an old colleague who I hadn’t seen
or spoken to for over eighteen months. He was the Training
Manager at a company I used to work for. The subject
naturally got around to work and to what I was now doing.
Education is the Key to Effective Referral Marketing
One of the few complaints I hear from small business owners
when it comes to generating business or leads by way of
referral is that too many of the referrals they are offered
aren’t a fit for the business. The referrals are either
unqualified, don’t need the firm’s offerings, can’t afford
the product or just don’t fit the typical profile of an
ideal client for the receiving firm.
If this is your referral reality, then you know that
chasing leads that don’t fit your target client can be a
grand waste of everyone’s time and energy. The primary
reason for this affliction though is that most small
business owners and independent professionals don’t take
the time to educate their referral sources.
The typical referral request may go something like, “Know
anybody that needs what we do?” “Okay, I know lots of
people, here you go. Have at it!”
Networking is like Black Jack
Copyright (c) 2007 Audrey Burton
Playing Black Jack (aka ‘21′) requires that you play by the
rules, or you ruin it for the other players. When the
dealer has a card showing between 2 and 6, you never risk
going over 21. That’s the rule. More times than not, you
will come out ahead and so will everyone at the table.
You need to know and follow the rules in networking, too,
or you risk upsetting everyone at the table! For example,
when you have 30 seconds to talk about your business,
respect that time.
When you follow the rules consistently in Black Jack –
combined with some skill – you win. When you follow the
rules consistently in networking – combined with some skill
- you win there, too!
