BRX Pro Tip: Building a Referral Network
Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, everybody’s dream in the small business arena anyway is to have a strong referral network. How do you go about building a referral network?
Lee Kantor: Yeah. Everybody, like you said, dreams of this. Everybody’s been to networking meetings where there’s a few people that are all in there and they’re all working together, and they’re all kind of helping each other be successful. So, how do you do that for yourself?
Lee Kantor: The first thing you should do is identify potential referral partners. These people, ideally, would be complementary service providers in your industry. They could be current clients or service providers you use. They can even be your competition. I would cast a wide net when it comes to this. And once you’ve identified these referral partners, it’s important to get together as a group and think about ways you can all work together.
Lee Kantor: There is strength in numbers, and especially if part of your methodology is to go to association and business group meetings and networking meetings. If you’re all in there working together, you’re going to get a better result. In fact, you can even divide and conquer. You can go to different networking groups and then kind of bring along your referral partners on their behalf when you’re there, and they will be on your behalf when they’re there.
Lee Kantor: Another thing to think about when it comes to referral partners is grab your referral partners, sit down and host your own events. Host your own workshops. That’s a great way to kind of lean on each other’s network and databases and your people to kind of, again, get more bang for your buck because you’re all working together. And don’t forget developing co-marketing initiatives. If you pull your funds and invest in joint marketing efforts, again, you’re going to get a better return.
Lee Kantor: But it’s important to identify a handful of other business people that kind of are on the same page to work together, because when you’re a small business person in a local market, you don’t have infinite resources, and this gives you a way to kind of access more resources and work together with other people who aren’t really in competition with you, but all of you will benefit by working together. So, identify a handful of those complimentary service providers in your community and work together.
