“How To Strategically Develop Your Referral Network. Tips From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
“How To Strategically Develop Your Referral Network. Tips From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
By: J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Chief Executive of J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group ™
Positive word-of-mouth endorsements, referrals and testimonials are extremely effective and powerful means to help grow your business. And in my experience it seems that solid strategic referrals are the most powerful. Therefore it would behoove you to include the development of a powerful referral network as one of the key elements of you strategic marketing plan. Your strategic thinking business coach heartily endorses developing a strong referral network and offers ten (10) tips on how to do that. The ten (10) tips are:
1. Clearly define your ideal or most desired clients. Develop a profile of these clients that may include such characteristics as: geographic location, type of industry, number of years in business, gross annual revenues, number of employees, etc.
2. Always be proactive and offer referrals yourself. An effective referral network operates at it s best when it is a “two-way street” with referrals flowing each way.
3. Be willing to share your knowledge by giving presentations free of charge to local service clubs, chambers of commerce, and other business groups and volunteer organizations. This will increase your visibility for you as an individual and for your business and it also offers the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and generate good will.
4. Commit to always doing a great job for your existing clients and customers. This is one of the most powerful strategies because of the existing positive relationship you have with satisfied clients and customers. These people are typically one of your best sources for referrals.
5. Maintain and enhance your visibility within the area where you do business.
It is essential that you become an active member of your local business community. Volunteering for select groups that align with your business interests will afford you the chance to develop relationships and personal bonds that can precipitate new business opportunities.
6. Join and become active in your business/industry/professional associations.
Select the organization that best fits your business fields and target markets.
7. Create an informal peer advisory board to afford an opportunity for you to be part of a group of professionals that are willing to provide strategic assistance to each other.
8. Use technology to maintain Top Of Mind Awareness (TOMA) with your clients, prospects, and key stakeholders. Stay connected to your market using he power of today’s communications technology.
9. Ask for referrals. Sounds simple and straightforward but too many business people do not do that and thereby pass up some very strategic opportunities to build their business.
10. Always remember to say thanks, preferably via a written thank you note, for referrals you receive.
Your strategic thinking business coach encourages you to use strategic thinking in the development of referral network. If you would like to learn more about the power of an effective referral network, how to build one for yourself and your business and how a strategic thinking business coach can facilitate and guide you in that endeavor, please contact Glenn Ebersole today through his website at www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at jgecoach@aol.com
How To Strategically Develop Your Referral Network Tips From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach - To learn more about this author, visit Glenn Ebersole's Website.
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“How To Strategically Develop Your Referral Network. Tips From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
By: J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Chief Executive of J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group ™
Positive word-of-mouth endorsements, referrals and testimonials are extremely effective and powerful means to help grow your business. And in my experience it seems that solid strategic referrals are the most powerful. Therefore it would behoove you to include the development of a powerful referral network as one of the key elements of you strategic marketing plan. Your strategic thinking business coach heartily endorses developing a strong referral network and offers ten (10) tips on how to do that. The ten (10) tips are:
1. Clearly define your ideal or most desired clients. Develop a profile of these clients that may include such characteristics as: geographic location, type of industry, number of years in business, gross annual revenues, number of employees, etc.
2. Always be proactive and offer referrals yourself. An effective referral network operates at it s best when it is a “two-way street” with referrals flowing each way.
3. Be willing to share your knowledge by giving presentations free of charge to local service clubs, chambers of commerce, and other business groups and volunteer organizations. This will increase your visibility for you as an individual and for your business and it also offers the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and generate good will.
4. Commit to always doing a great job for your existing clients and customers. This is one of the most powerful strategies because of the existing positive relationship you have with satisfied clients and customers. These people are typically one of your best sources for referrals.
5. Maintain and enhance your visibility within the area where you do business.
It is essential that you become an active member of your local business community. Volunteering for select groups that align with your business interests will afford you the chance to develop relationships and personal bonds that can precipitate new business opportunities.
6. Join and become active in your business/industry/professional associations.
Select the organization that best fits your business fields and target markets.
7. Create an informal peer advisory board to afford an opportunity for you to be part of a group of professionals that are willing to provide strategic assistance to each other.
8. Use technology to maintain Top Of Mind Awareness (TOMA) with your clients, prospects, and key stakeholders. Stay connected to your market using he power of today’s communications technology.
9. Ask for referrals. Sounds simple and straightforward but too many business people do not do that and thereby pass up some very strategic opportunities to build their business.
10. Always remember to say thanks, preferably via a written thank you note, for referrals you receive.
Your strategic thinking business coach encourages you to use strategic thinking in the development of referral network. If you would like to learn more about the power of an effective referral network, how to build one for yourself and your business and how a strategic thinking business coach can facilitate and guide you in that endeavor, please contact Glenn Ebersole today through his website at www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at jgecoach@aol.com
How To Strategically Develop Your Referral Network Tips From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach - To learn more about this author, visit Glenn Ebersole's Website.
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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