I teach a series of Networking Classes to beginning Networkers here in Indiana.  As we were summing up the class I asked each student, what is the most important thing that you have learned in this program?  Shane Helvie, EyeDesign Graphics & Advertising Co., summed it up beautifully.  He said, “What I learned is to build a great network you have to learn to ask twice.”  “Ask, how can I help them, then ask for what I need.”  Right on target.

Asking others how you can help them and finding ways to do it, is how you will build credibility with potential referral sources.  Many times when you ask someone the famous question, “How can I help you?” they often have no answer at all, and if they do have an answer then it is the usual “send me leads” statement.  They have not really given much thought to what others can do for them.  In this case, you may want to make some suggestions on how you might be able to help them.  Remember to use the 18 tactics; here are a couple of easy ones that you can always put to use.

            Invite them to an event with you

Ask them to guest write an article in your newsletter

Send their information in your next client mailing

Introduce them to a possible referral source

Quote them in one of your articles as an expert

 There are a great many things that you can do beyond, giving a referral or a lead.  Be creative, look outside the box.  Once you have helped someone else, then you will be ready to ask the second question.

It is tough getting people to narrow their market and come up with a real target market.  Especially in this economic climate, as soon as we start working with clients on this topic they automatically begin to fear all that they might miss.  “If I say Doctor, I might miss out on all the Lawyers and Indian Chiefs.”  This is a prime example of scarcity thinking.  The truth is, the more focused your market the more specialized you become and the more valuable you are to your clients and referral sources.

After many hours of work, one client decided to really focus in on her target market.  She decided that Doctors were perfect candidate for her to work with.  She sold houses and we knew that most doctors bought more than one house, they were very busy and need the whole process to be seamless which she knew she could do for them.  She already had 3 doctors as clients and she knew that doctors talked to other doctors.  She went about spending her time, energy and money pursuing this one clear target market, today she as many doctors as clients, her team takes care of many others in the medical profession and doctors have referred their friends to her.  She has branded herself with her target market, as the best person to work with if you are in the medical profession. 

What is your specialty?  How do you set yourself apart from everyone else in the industry?  Do your competitors seek you out as an expert? 

 When you have a niche, you limit your competition, because you develop the reputation as the “Go to Guy” for that niche and there are usually few players in that field. The fewer the players, the more valuable your product or service, you will find that even your competitors will seek you out to help their clients.  When that happens you both win.  That is abundant thinking. 

 Look at your target market, how can you develop a niche?  How can you set your expertise apart from the rest of the industry?  Break your business down into the smaller pieces, what lights you up?  What is the industry need or trend that you can service better than anyone else in your field?

If you want to make a million dollars help someone else make a million dollars.  I believe it was Zig Zigler who said that, or something to that affect. When you are helping others you are in turn helping yourself and it has the effect of ripples on a pond.  You have no idea how far reaching your help may go when you are passing referrals and making connections for others.

This week is Make a Referral Week, a campaign started to help impact the businesses around the world during this economic down turn one referral at a time.  I strongly believe that it will be the small businesses of the world that will turn the economy around, we are taking a new direction is society, more and more people want to work for themselves but not by themselves.  Networking and referring business to one another allows us to do just that, we can work for ourselves but we do not have to work by ourselves.

Today, stop what you are doing, take a look at your network and find a way to help others by passing a referral to them.  Take a proactive approach to helping others!

This is a Question that I got on Linkedin, I thought it was very appropriate for this blog.

 In my coaching practice, clients (especially new entrepreneurs) often tell me they don't want to nail down a specific target market because "everyone is a potential client" and/or they feel like they are missing out on business opportunities in other markets.

Have you nailed down one target market? If so, how did you go about making your choice? Did your target market choose you? How long after starting your business did it take for you to choose your target market?    Do you target more than one market? How do you balance your marketing?  Do you even believe that choosing a target market is essential to your marketing success? If not, please tell us why.

This is one of the toughest questions that I tackle with my students in the Referral Dynamics Program.  Generally, business people think with a scarcity mindset, always afraid that they are going to miss some business regardless of the quality of the business.

For instance if I am an Insurance agent who writes insurance on anyone who has a business, and then I am always running around trying to find anyone!  From the small one-person business who has very little money to the multi-million dollar business.  It is like shooting in the air and hoping that a bird will fly over.

On the other hand, if I am the insurance agent who is an expert in working with Attorney Firms who have one or more partners in the Central Indiana area, I know exactly where to spend my time and my money marketing.  IF a CPA Firm calls my office and ask me to write a policy for them would I say NO?  Heck no, I would do business with them.

Declaring a target market does not mean that you cannot or may not do business with anyone else, it just means that you will have a target to aim your message to and spend your money on.  When the time comes to recruit Referral Partners they will be easy to find and easy to train.

It allows you to develop yourself as an expert so that your target market seeks you out instead of you searching for them.  It allows your customers to create a buzz about you!  Take a moment and ask yourself the following questions........

1.  Who do I like to work with?

2.  What makes me the most money?

3.  What market do you have the greatest experience in?

4.  Is there a market less served?

Building yourself a strong target market will allow you to work less and make more money!

This is a Question that I got on Linkedin, I thought it was very appropriate for this blog.

 In my coaching practice, clients (especially new entrepreneurs) often tell me they don't want to nail down a specific target market because "everyone is a potential client" and/or they feel like they are missing out on business opportunities in other markets.

Have you nailed down one target market? If so, how did you go about making your choice? Did your target market choose you? How long after starting your business did it take for you to choose your target market?    Do you target more than one market? How do you balance your marketing?  Do you even believe that choosing a target market is essential to your marketing success? If not, please tell us why.

This is one of the toughest questions that I tackle with my students in the Referral Dynamics Program.  Generally, business people think with a scarcity mindset, always afraid that they are going to miss some business regardless of the quality of the business.

For instance if I am an Insurance agent who writes insurance on anyone who has a business, and then I am always running around trying to find anyone!  From the small one-person business who has very little money to the multi-million dollar business.  It is like shooting in the air and hoping that a bird will fly over.

On the other hand, if I am the insurance agent who is an expert in working with Attorney Firms who have one or more partners in the

Central Indiana

area, I know exactly where to spend my time and my money marketing.  IF a CPA Firm calls my office and ask me to write a policy for them would I say NO?  Heck no, I would do business with them.

Declaring a target market does not mean that you cannot or may not do business with anyone else, it just means that you will have a target to aim your message to and spend your money on.  When the time comes to recruit Referral Partners they will be easy to find and easy to train.

It allows you to develop yourself as an expert so that your target market seeks you out instead of you searching for them.  It allows your customers to create a buzz about you!  Take a moment and ask yourself the following questions........

1.  Who do I like to work with?

2.  What makes me the most money?

3.  What market do you have the greatest experience in?

4.  Is there a market less served?

Building yourself a strong target market will allow you to work less and make more money!

Everyone knows the economy is bad and getting worse.  This year, 2009, is going to be rough, many businesses are going to fail while others will launch and grow.

Marketing budgets are being cut, staff is being cut, and sales goals are being raised and you have to do more with less.  However, this is NOT the time to cut the Training Budget or the Membership Budget. 

Training - A successful sales team or business owner stays involved with continuous training, keeping their prospecting, and sales skills sharp. This is the one place that the small business owner pinches their pennies, finding no value in quality training. It is important to keep new material in front of both the business owner and the sales teams.  Now is not the time to stop learning more about how to be a more effective sales person, how to implement referral systems that will generate higher referred prospects and how to close more deals.  Most of the business world walk around with the I ALREADY KNOW About Networking and SALES mind set, but the truth is, most have barley scratched the surface of the potential.  It will be the successful sales person, who knows how to get in front of high-level prospects consistently, that will survive.

If you are not staying in the constant conversation of IMPROVEMENT then you end up like the US Auto Companies, wondering how the rest of the world passed you by.

Memberships - Business Owners and Sales Managers alike begin to pull back on the networking groups and organizations where their teams have been spending time. A better result would be to diversify the organizations and make sure that you and your team are spending time in the right places with the right people and measure their results.

Make sure you are spending your time in the right places, with the right people, doing the high value activities that will generate results.

Diversify, join close contact referral groups like BNI or  PRE, a service group like Rotary, and an open contact group like the chamber or Rainmakers or women’s group like NAWBO.  CAUTION:  More is not better, there comes a point of diminished returns, if you have sales team members split them up. 

Hold your teams accountable, accountability breeds results. Track your sales and track your networking activities, what gets tracked gets done.

Good networking takes good listening.  Unfortunately, most people believe that good networking is telling everyone about himself or herself.  What good is word of mouth if nobody is listening?

 Think about the last networking event that you attended, was everyone quietly listening, maintaining eye contact, asking valuable questions, and responding to you with more than just uh huh. 

Listening is the most important part of good networking, it allows you to learn what others are trying to accomplish, hear others express needs they may have, and be able to connect those who can help them.

 Following are 7 tips for better listening at your next networking event;

 1.  Maintain active eye contact.  Do not look over the persons shoulder as if there might be someone better coming into the room.  This sends the clear message to the person you are speaking to and that message is; you are not important, and I really don’t care what you have to say

 2.  Ask great questions.  People love to talk about themselves, so ask them, questions about what they do, why they chose to do it, how did they get into their business, and what do they love to do when they are not working in their business.  Stephen Covey says that you must seek to understand before being understood, asking questions allows you to understand a person better.

 3.  Find some common ground. When you ask about skills or interest, you will often find things that you have in common.  Common ground leads to good rapport with others.

 4.  Take notes whenever possible, you can jot a few notes about what you have learned on the back of the business card.  I always ask permission before writing on the back of another person’s business card.  Not because I really believe it will be a problem, but because when I ask, they always say Thanks for Asking and they remember that I honored their business card.

 5.  Stay engaged in the conversation.  People are often busy thinking about what they are going to say when it is their turn to speak.  By asking questions, commenting back, and making comments you stay involved in what is being said versus what you are going to say.

 6.  If the room is too noisy for you to hear, ask your partner to step out of the crowd.  Most open networking events are very loud and they seem to get louder as the evening goes on.  Ask the person you are speaking to if they will step to the sideline so that you can better hear them.  Again, this is another reason to maintain eye contact.

 7. At the end of the conversation give some feed back, emphasize something you may have heard or learned from that person. 

 God gave us two ears and one mouth, let’s use them proportionately.  Listen twice as much as you speak.  By doing so you will be able to connect more people, give better referrals, and become a better gatekeeper.

Buckminster Fuller tells us that Precession is "the effect of bodies in motion on other bodies in motion." When you get into motion with your referral partners, who are also in motion, focus on adding value, or as we call it “Givers Gain,” you’ll be doing more with less, you will be using new systems and achieving synergy throughout your Contact Sphere. Then watch the referrals come rushing in!

I studied this theory in a program I attended called “Money & You” which was originally written by Marshall Thurber and Bobbie DePorter based on the teaching of Buckminster Fuller.  You can check the program out at:  www.excellerated.com

To understand Precession I think I need to give you a number of examples that Buckminster Fuller wrote about in his exceptional book “Critical Path.” Bucky, as his friends called him asked the question “What happens when you drop a stone into water?”  Ripples go out at a 90 degree angle.  What he is saying is that there is a side effect to the original event and in the case of a synomy the side effect can be very large.

Another of his examples is the purpose of the honey bee.  When the honey bee gets up in the morning it must leave the nest to collect nectar to make honey. That’s the honey bee’s goal. But is that the true purpose of the honey bee.  No!  The true purpose of the honey bee actually is to pollinate plants, yes to keep life as we know it on earth moving forward.

 

Precession happens at a 90 degree angle to the direction of motion.  Bucky tells us this is a side effect.  So in the case of the honey bee, the side effect is the pollination of plants and flowers, and the continuation of life on earth.  As this was related to us at “Money and You” it is quite possible that pollinating plants is the bee’s true purpose.  Bucky ask us, if the honey bee has a true purpose, wouldn’t it be true that we have a true purpose?

Referral marketers are meant to be in motion.  Using our GAINS profiles, the VCP process and our tracking systems will keep us continually in motion. Precession in word-of-mouth marketing is the effect of you being in motion will have on your referral partners when they are in motion.

 

What would happen to your business if you stop being in motion.  There is no precession, no 90 degree effect, and no referrals.  Buckminster Fuller’s training lets us know that it in not the Goals we set, but the 90 degree effect that is our true purpose. One of the distinctions that we need to understand, we won’t know what that effect is while we are in motion, it can only be reported to us by an observer.

“The big lesson then, is called precession. The 90 degree resultants of the interaction of forces in universe teach humanity that what it thought were the side effects are the main effects, and vice versa." –Buckminster Fuller

The number of referrals you should expect to receive is dependant on the type of business you're in and the effort you exert to develop your network. Some professions receive more referrals than others. For example, a florist is going to get many more than a real estate agent. However, the florist will have to sell a lot of flowers to make up for one real estate sale. Hence, the type of profession can somewhat determine a range in the quantity of referrals. Having said that, the actual number that someone in a specific profession can get varies dramatically depending on their efforts to develop those referrals and the relationships they have fostered.

This variation depends on how they "work" their networks. You remember the old computer adage "garbage in, garbage out"? It means that if you put bad information into the system, you're going to get bad information out of the system. Well, one's networking efforts fall into the same vain. The results you can expect to get out of your efforts will be based on the quality of people you put into it.

Dr Ivan Misner recently conducted an Internet survey of business professionals in which he asked, "What percentage of your business comes from word-of-mouth or referrals?" Even he was surprised by the results. More than two-thirds of the respondents said they received 70 percent or more of their business from word-of-mouth. Only 14 percent said that referrals accounted for less than 30 percent of their business, and only 2 percent said they got no business from word-of-mouth! Clearly, word-of-mouth and referrals are critical to the success of many businesses today. The question is, how do you increase it?

First, consider professions that are part of your contact sphere. These are businesses that have a symbiotic relationship to yours. Contact spheres are the building blocks of your referral business because they help to build a solid base of repetitive referrals for you. Contact the Referral Institute for a more thorough explanation.

Next, you should diversify your networks. That is, you should participate in different kinds of networking groups so that you may have a diverse cross section of businesses and professionals as part of your center of influence.

It's important for you to understand that you must first build the foundation I speak of above before you can have high expectations for developing referrals. Based on research that Dr Misner conducted at the University of Southern California a number of years ago, he found that the average participant in a strong contact network or a business development network (groups that meet weekly and allow only one person per profession, and whose primary purpose is to pass business referrals) generated, on average, 4.2 referrals per member, per month, or roughly 50 referrals per person, per year.

Please note that there are many intervening variables to this number. In Dr Misner’s study, these variables included such things as length of membership, the profession they represented, the years of experience, the level of participation and more. One thing that didn't seem to make a difference was gender. Both men and women generated substantially similar numbers of referrals throughout their participation.

To summarize, the number of referrals you can expect will vary depending on your profession and your efforts in the networking process. However, on average, we've found that many businesspeople can generate more than 50 referrals per year via their participation in a single networking organization. What makes this number truly significant is that most people would agree that a referred contact is much easier to close into business than other types of contacts. I believe this is the reason that so many businesses say they generate most of their business through referrals and word-of-mouth.

Happy New Year to all of you! Our best wishes go out for a phenomenal 2008. Ivan and I and the rest of the Referral Institute team are excited to help you reach your referral goals this year.

Things are in high gear here at both the Referral Institute and at BNI headquarters.

We're scrambling with new Referrals for Life community members, new accountability teams, new mastermind team assignments, training seminars are being scheduled and all the other business of starting a new year.

We have some exciting things in store for you this year. With this

being our second year writing the referral blog for Duct Tape Marketing, we've learned a lot. We've made changes and added--and are adding--so much more to the referral training program.  Both Ivan and I look forward to serving you in 2008.