Let’s begin this week with a look at building relationships through referrals.  Since this referral strategy building is all about relationships, you should pause and ask yourself the following four questions:

1. How will the referrer and the prospects they refer benefit? How will you benefit?

2. How much time might your referrer give you; what do you want them to do?

3. Do you foresee roadblocks? If so, how can they be prevented or solved?

4. Is this the way you typically think going to move you forward?

Considering these questions and the first round of answers, you might already see that building relationships through referral requires some forethought, some planning, and, most likely, some creative thinking.  In other words, in order to be successful with referrals as a means of gleaning new business, you are going to have to create a referral strategy.

Your referral strategy will include more than just one step.  Following are 10 suggested steps for developing that strong referral relationship:

1. Research to find the problems and priorities of the referrer. Find his/her ability to refer and desire in referring.
2. Brainstorm to find out what’s in it for them.
3. Whether or not they become clients, you never want to embarrass referring associates.
4. Set the stage by inspiring referrers through referral stories, client benefit stories, rewards program.
5. Give your referrer a gift, do them a favor, help with a problem, or refer them.
6. Be able to describe in detail your ideal prospect.
7. Prepare and make requests to refer.
8. Set up a return and report system.
9. Follow-up to move the referral process along.
10. Do the unexpected extras to build the relationship and to develop a comfort in referring.

It is possible to incorporate many of those suggested steps into your personal referral strategy.  Here’s how it might begin for you:

Profile and Qualify. Just like you profile and qualify prospects, you can and should profile and qualify referrers. To profile referrers, you might target specific professions, membership organizations, years in business, and willingness to bring opportunities like yours to others. When you consider developing a new referral relationship that may require your time and reciprocal referrals, qualify your referrer. Determine the contacts they have, whether they have influence, whether they will be accessible to maintain contact with you, and whether they have needs you can meet.

Take this week to review and consider what has been proposed here.  Think about different ways you might handle different situations – different sources of referrals.  Next week, we’ll move on from Profile and Qualify to several more important process steps that you will use to become an expert in gleaning referrals.

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