Briefs are 200 character micro-messages visible to trusted partners in your private referral network. A Brief is similar to a “tweet” on Twitter® with some key differences that help you strengthen partnership within your private professional network.
On Referral Key you exchange referrals with other seasoned professionals who are also eager to help you boost sales. Unlike other social media services, that make your information public, and often foster broadcasting promotions rather than intimate sales networking for small businesses; Referral Key Briefs are relevant and sales focused.
To post a Brief, simply type your message and click post.
Type “@FirstName-LastName” to direct a Private Brief toward a single (or more) associates. I.E. If you want to tell Steve Smith to meet you for lunch, but don’t want the rest of your network to know, you would type “@Steve-Smith”
You can attach brochures, documents, and files
You can Sync Briefs with other social media services to increase your reach and exposure.
Referral Key is the fun way to help friends, build referrals and grow your business. Unlike any other social or business networking service, every feature on Referral Key has been optimized to help you generate more referrals. Simply put, we bring new business to you!
Experienced professionals can become so entrenched within their specific industry that they lose the ability to effectively describe their services to the general population. Your referral marketing success is contingent on your prospects not industry insiders and competitors.
2. Lose the Jargon
Save the the acronyms and jargon for industry newsletters and colleagues, convoluting your message with superfluous detail and terminology may make you appear intelligent in an abstract way, but it will not land you the sale. You’d be surprised how quickly people will be put-off if you make understanding your services a big challenge.
3. How’s your pitch?
Seriously, you need a pitch. You may not be selling investors on the reinvention of the wheel but even an informal pitch is an incredible asset. Word of mouth won’t be very effective if half the people you count on advocating for you, can’t accurately relay the value of your services.
4. The worst type of referrals are the ones that never happen
Even something as straightforward as landscaping is subject to interpretation:
My fictitious pitch: “Referral Key Landscaping provides outstanding commercial landscaping services, specializing in tree removal, landscaping masonry, snow removal, and all aspects of planting and landscaping design.”
Good: Later on today your brother tells you he needs to redo his patio and might need a mason. Armed with the right knowledge you would say, “You should consider a landscaping mason. I know this great guy Chris at Referral Key Landscaping, he has commercial contracts with some very scrupulous clients but I bet he’d be willing to take a look at your patio and give a reasonable quote. I’ll tell him to give you a call”
Now imagine I take the assumptive approach when you ask me what I do:
“I do landscaping, cmon’ you know, lawns and stuff”
Bad: Later on today your brother tells you he needs to redo his patio and might need a mason. You don’t know any masons so you never refer your brother, I never get a sale, and your brother misses out on quality services.
5. Practice
If an attorney can effectively explain their legal services to a young child, they are golden. If a programmer can give their elderly aunt an idea of the opportunities and limitations of a complex programming language; they’re not only a good programmer but a talented business person as well. It’s easy to do a lot of back slapping and ego boosting over lunch with an industry insider. Seek out people who don’t have anything to do with your industry and see if they can absorb what you say and then accurately relay it.
The Test
Referral Key members generally fall into one of about 150 service industries. This is by no means a complete list but it will give you an idea of the diversity of small business professionals out there. Take a look. If you are unsure what just one of these service providers actually does, there’s a chance someone is looking at this list right now and may be unsure what you do.
Referrals are a vital source of sales for most small businesses. What separates the mediocre from the truly profitable referral marketers? Many pros are left scratching their head, wondering why some professionals seem to always have a mountain of new business while others sit around waiting for the phone to ring, you need to consider the referral marketing basics; the difference between mediocre and highly profitable referral marketing.
1. What is the quality of your business network?
Highly Profitable Referral Marketing: My business network is made up of top-notch service professionals I trust and whose quality of work I am familiar with. They refer people to me because they know I’m the best at what I do. We periodically reconvene to ensure we are both on target and continue to work toward our sales goals.
Mediocre Referral Marketing: My business network is an undefined cluster of people whom I have loose relationships with. I don’t personally know most of these people so it would be a bit uncomfortable to call them and talk referral marketing. I send out an email blast once in a while and hope for the best.
2. Do you regularly send referrals?
Highly Profitable Referral Marketing: I view referral marketing as a serious business activity and approach it with the same gravity as I would taxes, employees, and accounting. Everyday I am looking for more opportunities to refer people to other professionals I trust. Referral marketing allows me to leverage my most powerful asset; my reputation.
Mediocre Referral Marketing: I view referral marketing as a business-esque social activity. I expect people to send me business before I refer anyone to them. I sent one referral last month, unless an opportunity falls into my lap, I don’t bother.
Highly Profitable Referral Marketing: The people I refer are integral to maintaining my reputation amongst my associates. My long-term referral marketing success is contingent on my ability to create referral situations that are positive for both parties. It’s just as important that I refer quality prospects as it is that I am referring those prospects to quality professionals. I always follow up with both parties to ensure the referral was a success.
Mediocre Referral Marketing: I may refer someone but after that, it’s sort of out of my hands. My business associates should just be happy that I’m even sending people their way. If there is a problem they’ll let me know.
4. Are you organizing and tracking your referral relationships?
Highly Profitable Referral Marketing: I closely mange my referral marketing activities. To be successful I need to be able to answer fundamental questions. I want to know who’s in my network, which referrals are they sending to me and which am I sending to them? Are they following up on my referrals? Of the referrals I send and receive, which result in sales? Do my business networking partners feel the same way about our business relationship or are we totally out of sync? Which relationships need more attention? Are there opportunities to expand my network?
Mediocre Referral Marketing: I hand out business cards and wait for the phone to ring. I’m not exactly sure where my new business is coming from and I couldn’t really tell you how people in my network feel about the referrals I send them. I figure if there are any problems they can call me.
The small business environment is extremely competitive. When professionals decide to go into business for themselves they are figuratively saying, “I can provide a great service, one that exceeds the current offering.”
This D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) attitude created some very talented service professionals along with some fierce competition.
Attracting qualified sales leads involves more than just you and your prospect… there’s also your competitors. Identifying the competitive advantage in your marketing strategy is the key tosmall business lead generation. You must ask yourself:
“What barrier-to-entry does my marketing strategy have?”
In the entrepreneurial world, a new idea is often valued based on a competitor’s ability to duplicate that idea. Small business marketing follows the same fundamental principle; especially when marketing online.
For example, any small business owner can post ads on Craigslist. This neutralizes some of the advantage of marketing through Craigslist.
Television advertising is a good example of exclusivity in marketing strategies. On TV, money and scarcity are the barriers; every television program presents a different level in the barrier. Would Nike advertise during the Super Bowl if anyone else could as well?
Every marketing strategy is different so you’ll need to ask yourself this simple question: “How easy is it for my competitors to duplicate this marketing strategy?” If there is no barrier-to-entry then you may want to reconsider.
The biggest barrier-to-entry of a marketing strategy
Your referral network is unique and it’s yours. Competitors may have access to the same advertising opportunities, web postings and may even have their own referral network; but they can’t quite duplicate the dynamics of your referral system.
The advantage of exchanging referrals with a diverse group of professionals you know and trust cannot be leveraged by anyone but you!
We often think of an optimal referral relationship as an arrangement where you and another professional both benefit by exchanging an equitable number of qualified sales leads.
A big misconception among inexperienced referral networkers is thinking that clients are passed back and forth between businesses. Potential clients are not poker chips and the idea isn’t that you need to draw them into using your colleague’s services. In fact, most people don’t need to be sold on being referred at all; they prefer it!
“The advantage to working off a referral is that your realtor will receive a referral fee from the new realtor. This reinforces the notion that they will have a vested interest in finding you someone you can work with. They will also keep in touch with you to ensure you are satisfied with the referral instead of you having to deal with problems on your own.”
Trust is key and should always take precedence over numbers when it comes to the quality and size of your business referral network. With that said, the Achilles heal of many referral groups is that they are not diverse or large enough to meet sales expectations.
We are certainly not advocating inviting your 500 friends from Facebook to your referral network. When expanding your network you must maintain a balance between quality and quantity. It’s a balance that every individual small business owner must define for themselves. However, let’s take a look at two extremes-
3 Associates In your Referral Network
There’s certainly nothing wrong with having such an intimate networking group but the reality of the situation is that you probably aren’t going to recieve a new referral everyday from this group.
500 Associates In Your Referral Network
Other than an ego boost, having 500 people in your referral network is probably going to amount to a lot of time spent on strangers and a lot of missed opportunities with colleagues you know and trust. Remember, small business lead generation and a social networking are extremely different. If you aren’t serious about exchanging qualified referrals with someone then do not invite them to your referral network.
Here are a few ways you can expand your referral network without compromising its integrity.
1. Consider having multiple referral partners in a similar industry. For example, if you’re a real estate agent, why not have a number of loan officers on your radar? If you know they do good work, then inviting them to your network will only present more referral opportunities. Besides with Referral Key, you can choose to keep individual referral relationships private, so no one has to know their not the only show in town.
2. We often overlook our closest friends as sources of new business. There is a diplomatic way to take advantage of you and your friend’s professional connections without compromising your personal relationship. Use referral tracking reports to ensure you maintain a balanced referral exchange.
3. Check out other professionals on Referral Key’s directory. Gold Key members are able to take a look through the directory and find professionals with both customer and referral associate ratings. This may not nessecarily be the only factor in establishing trust but it could be a great segway into a phone call and perhaps some tentative lead sharing.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to the size of your referral network.
How many people do you activley exchange qualified sales leads with?
As intimidating as investment bankers may seem, they can be a key resource in your referral network. Although you may not see it now, investment bankers are good people to know especially, if you decide to sell your company. Here is just one example…
Network Wisely
Terra Kinder of First Choice Business Brokers in South Carolina is a business broker who happens to get many of her referrals from small investment banks. Just walking through the doors of an investment bank can create unexpected opportunities for mutually beneficial referral relationships. Your investment banker knows brokers like Terra Kinder and when it comes time to sell, she is the kind of player you want on your team. By working together, Terra and the banker help generate quality sales leads for each other while at the same time helping you, the small business owner, achieve your goals.
Building the Right Referral Relationships
Networking with a professional at a boutique investment bank, who often works with other small business, can be a hub of referral activity.
Building referral relationships with a banker early on, can lead to a better deal with a broker when you need their services.
1. Make a new friend
Whether it’s the security guard you say hi to in the morning, your morning coffee barista, or a fellow passenger on the train; most of us come in contact with new people everyday. Each one of these people has a unique story to tell and with a few open-ended questions; a 5 minute conversation can turn acquaintances and strangers into friends.
2. Probe
A truly perceptive person can pick up on a stranger’s needs in a matter of minutes. LISTEN, LISTEN,LISTEN. There’s nothing wrong with proactively looking for links of interest and finding solutions to help your new friend. In other words, if your friend at the sandwich shop is looking to purchase health insurance and you can point him in the right direction, it’d be wrong not to.
3. Send the Referral
Refer your new friend to someone who you know will not only do an outstanding job but, reciprocate by sending you qualified sales leads. Even better, send your friend’s contact information directly to your trusted associate so he can act on the referral in a timely manner.
4. Follow Up
Follow up with both parties to ensure the success of your referral. A good referral should have everyone feeling like they got a good deal… and some new friends.
5. Email This Blog to Your Friend
Now it’s time for your referral partner to return volley and if they need a little nudge… send them to this blog!
The recent rise of “pay to list your business” websites, hasn’t necessarily improved the quality of service for many consumers. The problem with many of these sites is that contractors and other service professionals are either given a listing or priority, based on their willingness to pay a fee, rather than their reputation. I’ve recently heard Craigslist mislabeled a “referral source” by a number of small business professionals. Anyone who’s experienced the long-term value of building a strong client base as well as a circle of trusted associates that send you referrals, will tell you that a response to a Craigslist ad is completely different than lead generation through a network of people who know and trust you.
“Many Web sites provide referrals for contractors, and Web users may assume those companies check out those contractors before listing them. Five on Your Side has found that is not necessarily the case.” Monica Laliberte Wral.com
I don’t mean to single out Craigslist either, in fact there are dozens of sites that do not qualify their contractors and service professionals. At Referral Key we take a democratic approach to ensure the right professionals are matched with the right customers. We allow any business to list in the small business directory for free. Furthermore, we allow both members of the professional’s network and past clients, to rate the quality of the professional. All of this information is visible to the public for absolutely no fee.
The dilemma with “pay to list” directories is that there is no accountability for either the client or the service provider. Your priority should be to get quality referrals before you get more referrals.
What is your experience with referral quality from online classified sites?
Over the last couple of months, we’ve seen a number young small business owners join Referral Key.
We often don’t think of high schoolers or even college students as being small business owners but you’d be surprised just how entrepreneurial and motivated the younger generation is. At a time when unemployed professionals are taking jobs that in more prosperous times, would have gone to young adults; many young adults are forced to think outside the box.
Lawn mowing, caddying, snow shoveling, dock-hands, and even web design are just a few referral based jobs that require good word-of-mouth and very little capital.
Young adults, who take an entrepreneurial approach to their financial future, may be walking away with more than just a little spending money. They are learning the fundamentals of good business; relationship building, developing a reputation, and following through.
Good referral marketing practices are likely to help you throughout life whether your landing the biggest contract of your life or carrying a second bag to the green.
You’ve staked out a fertile plot, planted the proverbial seeds and now you’re waiting to take in the sun. In other words, you’ve found a niche, developed a few strategic relationships, and you’re ready to drive revenue to your small business.
It can be hard to take in the sun during the winter just as it can be hard to drive revenue in a recession.
What can the trees teach us?
The Deciduous Approach
Deciduous trees are trees that go dormant during the winter months. (Maple, Oak, Birch). The deciduous approach to a cold season is to shed their leaves to prevent damage and conserve energy.
You can think of the deciduous approach to survival as an outbound advertising strategy. When times are good, the leaves put on a bright display and the money flows. But when winter arrives the tree goes dormant and so does the business.
The Coniferous Approach
Conifers are cone bearing trees dubbed “evergreens” because of their ability to stay green year round. (Spruce, Pine, Redwood). The coniferous approach to a cold season has been to develop resilient leaves(needles) that retain moisture and are able to stay on the tree for as many as 40 years.
From scorching heat to sub-zero temperatures, conifers survive in almost any environment because of their long term relationships with their needles. Coniferous businesses will survive any economic climate because of their long term referral relationships with their business associates and clients.
Whoever said, “Build it and they will come” obviously wasn’t a small business owner. One of the biggest barriers to growing your business is taking a passive attitude toward developing referral partnerships with people you trust. You can buy many business networking books and go to many pricey networking seminars and still have nothing to show for it.
Consider taking a few minutes to follow these 4 simple steps and you will have something to show for it.
1. Break the ambiguity of your professional relationships and formally invite colleagues you know and trust to exchange referrals with you. Your colleagues will likely be honored you’ve chosen them as a referral partner.
2. Make the first move. Actively seek opportunities to send your referral partners qualified leads. Think with your referral partner’s best interest in mind and you’ll be amazed at how quickly your partners will return the favor. It’s the old “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”.
3. Track your relationships to ensure your referrals are balanced and mutually beneficial. If you’re sending lots of leads but not getting your fair share, it may be a good idea to reach out to your partners to find ways of ensuring a more reciprocal arrangement.
4. Establish referral promotion campaigns to reward your customers and colleagues for sending you qualified leads. Nothing says thank you like a nice dinner or couple tickets to a ball game.
Guarantee YOUR business a referral tomorrow by sending one today. Visit Referral Key, and the customers will start knocking on your door!
Select a Cash Bounty Amount
Consider setting up a Cash Bounty that you'd be willing to pay to people who send you new business. It's free to setup and you control whether to issue the cash.
You have an expertise…
You’ve staked out a fertile plot, planted the proverbial seeds and now you’re waiting to take in the sun. In other words, you’ve found a niche, developed a few strategic relationships, and you’re ready to drive revenue to your small business.
