Ways of helping your advocates to refer you

I spoke at an event last night about the NRG Networking Advocacy Model*. The model suggests that effective networking is a result of building trusted relationships with your Inner Network. Others that share the same target market as you and provide a complementary service to yours. Over time you will actively refer and introduce some of these as you get to know, like, trust and rate them. Some of these will form your Advocate Network, the small group of people who regularly go out of their way to find introductions and referrals for you.

The speakers at the Referral Institute Conference last week all reinforced this view of networking. Sarah Owen addressed the subject of helping others to advocate you as you advocate them. The very act of advocating someone else is motivation for them, but only if they know! Unless you educate them on this and what you are looking for they will probably miss opportunities.

In your One2One interactions have you made sure they really know what you do and where? Can they pass on why you are good and what you love about your business? Do they know how you want to be promoted and who specifically you want to meet? Is there anything else that would make you stand out?

They may be saying things about you that you could use yourself.

*My previous post 'The Advocacy Model: Develop Advocates' has more detail and links to further posts on this subject.

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
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Asking for referrals

The subject of when it is right to ask for referrals came up at a networking meeting last week. In 'Are you stuck doing lots of networking with little reward?' I wrote about Mike macedonio's talk at the Referral Institute Conference on the VCP process (tm). VCP is the acronym Dr. Ivan Misner uses for Visibility, Credibility, and Profitability.

Mike emailed this 'nugget' to me afterward on this very subject:

"I do believe that in order to get referrals we need to ask. The key, however, is to know how to ask and when it is appropriate to make the request. When is the right time, you ask? The right time to ask for a referral is when BOTH parties are in the Credibility phase of the referral relationship. Networking should not be a system which ends up alienating your friends and family. Be conscious of the deposits you make into your relationships before you start “writing checks” or, in essence, ASKING for referrals from those you have relationships with."

As I wrote last week to be in this 'credibility' phase requires that each party knows each other and what they do and they perceive each other to be reliable and worthy of confidence. It's no good asking for a referral before someone even really knows you.

Just being part of a group does not mean you are known. You have to put some effort into building relationships. As I have written previously 'You don't get fit just by joining a gym' you have to follow a good process. I spoke to someone else last week who had been a member of a group for a year, but received no referrals. Part of the problem was he was not even known by many other of the others as he had only been able to attend one in four of the meetings! When you join a group make sure you can attend regularly and invest time in getting to really know the other members first.

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
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Networking and Sex

The theme of one of the sessions at the Referral Institute UK & Ireland Conference was 'Networking and Sex - The Perfect Combination!' Hazel Walker shared some great insights from the findings of research she has completed with Ivan Misner on the different approaches to networking between men and women. Her talk was all about helping men and women to network more effectively with each other. She shared some great advice on the subject of asking for referrals and expanded on the presentation from Mike Macedonio that I wrote about a couple of days ago (Are you stuck doing lots of networking with little reward?)

The research findings suggested that men can have a tendency to go for a referral before establishing a good relationship. On the other hand women can be happy to carry on with the relationship and never ask for a referral. So women need to learn from men about asking for referrals at the right time and men need to learn from women about nurturing relationships first.

Hazel used some great dating analogies to illustrate the different approaches between men and women. Her forthcoming book on the subject promises to be a great read!

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
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Referral Marketing lessons from the Golf Course

Another speaker at the Referral Institute UK & Ireland Conference earlier this week was Mike Holman, Referral Institute Franchise owner and former Golf Professional. Mike entertained and educated us with the lessons to be learned from golf that can be applied to your referral marketing. In golf you generally have a specific target and play 9 or 18 holes accordingly. Unless you have a real vision for your business you cannot see & share the targets that will help you get there. Successful golf involves alignment, balance, timing and practice. It's the same in referral marketing. Your network needs to be aligned with what you do, the balance of giving and receiving needs to be right. In 'Are you stuck doing lots of networking with little reward?' yesterday I wrote about the relationship building that needs to be in place before the timing is right for profitable referrals.

Mike quoted Gary Player on the subject of practice when someone congratulated him on a lucky shot. Player agreed with the spectator and said "Yes and you know the more I practice the luckier I get!"

See this great video of Tiger Woods for someone who puts it all into practice on the golf course:


Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
Get 7 networking secrets for business success

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Are you stuck doing lots of networking with little reward?

At the Referral Institute UK & Ireland Conference yesterday Mike Macedonio spoke about people who spend a lot of time networking, but who are effectively invisible. He spoke about the VCP process (tm) which is the acronym Dr. Ivan Misner uses for Visibility, Credibility, and Profitability.

Mike explained that you have to move through these stages in a referral relationship. This takes time, effort and commitment, but people often spend their time getting to meet lots & lots of people without ever getting to really know anyone. In practice profitability is achieved by going deep and establishing trusted relationships.

Visibility is only established when you know who someone is and what they do and they know the same about you.

Credibility is achieved when you each perceive each other to be reliable and worthy of confidence.

Profitability is when you are both consistently and proactively referring business to each other.

Does that mean that Visibility Networking is not important? No, you have to establish visibility first and that sort of networking will often be the place where you can introduce and find referrals for those in your Inner Network.

Read more about this in Mike's article 'Just Ask. Right? . . . No.'

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
Get 7 networking secrets for business success

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