Let’s return to those steps in building a relationship.  Where we left off last week was the first one…Profile and Qualify.

Once you have done your up-front work – the consideration of developing a new referral relationship, you should move on to the second phase:  Assess Priorities and Problems. Make it a practice to find out what potential referrers see in their future. If they have goals and problems, you can likely benefit them and win their support. If they do have goals, you can provide information, introductions, direct help, and many other resources. Your best referrers will have a vision of success that will motivate them to seek your help. Make it a habit to discover goals and problems.  When you do, you will find ways in which you can be a benefit to them which will build that platform of trust and friendship from which you will ultimately be able to launch yourself into becoming the recipient of benefits from the trust you have built.

But, now, you must move to Step 3, thinking about where your relationship with your potential referrer is at the moment.  It’s time to Determine any Problems.  You need to ask yourself, “What’s in it for the potential Referrer?” remembering that you need them to sell themselves on the idea of referring.  In the garden of referrals, you are supplying your contact with the seed of an idea (wanting to refer to you) so that they can come up with the idea of planting that seed themselves and watching it grow.  In other words, you are letting them come up with the idea of helping you in this way.  Make him feel like he wants to do something for you because of the trust he feels in the relationship you are building.

Now you have passed from the Twilight Zone of referrals into real world where the two of you are now beginning to work together because your prospective referrer wants to and because he is beginning, as are you, to see the benefit in continuing with you in building a partnership.  Now it’s time to sit down with your new partner and move forward.  Draw a line in the sand. Agree on target dates for getting together to work on referrals.  Let them notice you writing them into your calendar and mention dates for follow-ups.

Watch for hesitation or backsliding at this point.  You may need to adjust his benefits…or even adjust what it is you are asking of your referrer.  They need to continue buying the benefits and, if they don’t, you may have to tweak the entrance to the path down which you need him to move.  Maintain a good relationship with the referrer…it is just as important, if not more so, as keeping customers.

In the next blog, we’ll begin the review process of what we have learned and, perhaps, even explore ways to improve or strengthen what we have learned.

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