by Annie Johnson

Would you like to increase the number and quality of referrals you get? Building relationships is the key. It starts with your relationship with your advocates and continues through building a relationship with referred customers.

It’s like a courtship. You ask your friends to introduce you to single people they know because you know your friends know you and who might be compatible with you. They tell the other person about you and you about the other person. You may talk on the phone or via email to begin the process of getting to know each other. You arrange to meet, hopefully with your mutual friend there, too.

At this point, do you ask them to marry you?

Typically in referrals, that’s exactly what people do! That’s the point where most people ask for the sale. Although it takes more time to build a relationship first, it is more effective and productive in the long run.

Courting Referrals

#1 Train Your Advocate.
As in dating, you ask people who already know you and have done business with you to become your advocate and refer others to you. It might not occur to them.

Take them out for coffee or lunch and explain what you’d like them to do for you. Start with appreciating what a good customer/associate they are. Then ask if they would be willing to be your advocate. Tell them what you would like them to do:

· Be aware when someone else mentions a need for your kind of product or service. (Some people are good at this, but many need to be “trained” to watch for and respond to expressed needs. Talking about his may help you both to cross-refer.)

· Suggest that person might like to meet you and give the reasons why. (Explain what part of your business lends itself to referrals and what kind of customers could use your product or service.)

· Give that person your contact information and ask if you can contact them and how. (You want that person to have your contact information, but don’t rely on them to call you. Have the advocate find out the best way for you to contact them—and assure them that you won’t give them a hard sell.)

· Tell you about the referral as soon as possible. (Encourage your advocate to get back to you immediately. The other person has a need and will probably act on finding a solution. The sooner you know about it, the more likely you will be considered.)

· Set up a time when all three parties can get together, at least by phone. (This is like the blind date. It always goes better if the mutual acquaintance is there when you meet.)

Explain what you will do when he or she contacts you about a referral, which is to act promptly to arrange to meet with the referred customer.

#2 Begin Building a New Relationship.
Make it easy for your advocate to help you get in touch with the person referred. Take the lead in planning how you’re going to do that.

Learn all you can about the situation in which the advocate and potential customer talked about you. What is the specific need the referred person expressed that made the advocate think of you? What’s the timing? How would that person like to be contacted? Ask the advocate to introduce you.

When you meet, be interested in the other person. Refer to the conversation with your advocate only as a way of establishing a mutual connection. Look for other connections like a Chamber of Commerce, a sport or music, or a philanthropic organization, whatever might generate a conversation that helps you get to know more about each other.

Ask about their business. Be interested in what you can do for them. Remember you’re in the courting phase. If you can establish a connection, arrange to talk later—possibly about how you can meet the need expressed to the advocate. Ask how they would like this to happen.

Follow up on all your commitments. Send a thank you note or email.

#3 Thank Your Advocate.
Have you ever referred someone to a colleague and then wondered what happened? Don’t let your advocates hang out like that. Tell them how the referral turned out and thank them for giving it to you. Make this a good experience for your advocates and they will be more likely to continue recommending you.

-Thanks to Dan Wilkewitz of RealPro Real Estate & Mortgage 970.231.3714 for the concept of thinking of the referral process as similar to courting.
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Annie Johnson, owner of AA Limos, has built the company on a reputation for !st Class* Customer Service. *!st Class = astonishingly high quality. Show your out of town visitors how important they are – have a limousine pick them up. Call 970-587-9299 or 866-587-9299 (toll free) for reservations.

by Pat Weber

In my thirty years of selling my sales have never had a downturn during a recession. Have I ever HAD a downturn ever? Of course! I’d be lying if I told you anything else. But really, never during a recession. As a matter of fact I STARTED my business during a downturn in the early 1990s. Remember the Savings and Loan crisis in America? I didn’t really connect that with what that would mean to starting a business. It just never occurred to me that the timing would be wrong. So my first 18 months, built momentum to my first year on my own grossing $60,000.

Now it’s 2008 and there’s recession - the R word - talk again.

I’m telling you, if you are in sales, it doesn’t have to negatively affect you. It’s really up to you. You can choose to be a thermostat of sales results, not a thermometer. A thermometer measures temperature – like you finding your sales go up in a good economy or down in a downturn. A thermostat controls the temperature in your home – like you deciding to take some actions to regulate your own sales results.

If your thermostat wasn’t working in your home or office, you wouldn’t be uncomfortable with its ups and downs would you? Wouldn’t you do something to either repair it or replace it?

There are seven things I’ve found that top producers do during a recession that don’t have them falling victim to all the chatter. At least seven things to regulate your thermostat.

First, Step away from the talk. Any negative talk about this is going to pull you right into the vortex of a downward spiral. Take actions that get you away from the gloom and doom.

Second, Flex more muscles. Now is the best time to look at all the ways you get prospects – and start revving up the way that works best for you. Speaking in public, referrals, networking. What is it for you?

Three, Be renewed: relationships, resize, repeat, repackage. What avenues can you renew?

Four, Invest in yourself. NOW is not the time to have your head in the sand or turn the other way about new ideas and professional development. Research bears out: top producers invest more in themselves than the average, by about $5,000 a year.

Five, Treat yourself. There is so much truth in that clichéd expression, “Fail to plan, plan to fail.” Strategy – like resize, repeat, repackage, and tactics along with them, are important now. Stop from your constant doing and make time for some planning.

Six, Take a more global perspective. Weather is different all over the world. What is the size of your sales world that you could pay attention to a larger, smaller or different territory?

Seven, Follow up like your life depends on it – because it may!

Sign up to receive a FREE Report, FREE ezine and FREE Teleclasses from Pat Weber - America’s Sales Accelerator Coach, specializing in Introverts and Shy people at http://www.prostrategies.com/

By Jeff Levin

Have you ever experienced the power of a cooperative marketing opportunity? If you haven’t, you will decide to make this a major part of your marketing mix by the end of this article, … if you’re interested in long term success in business!

Cooperative Marketing is when…

A Bank offer’s a live Golf Swing Analysis to it’s customers from a local golf instruction school in their lobby.
A CPA arranges a series of FREE Business Workshops from a local Business Coach for their clients.
A Wedding Photographer gives their wonderful clients a FREE wedding shower cake from a local cake designer.

These are just some of the many different methods of arranging one of the easiest and most effective ways of growing a referral based business. Why is that so?

Well if you’ve ever analyzed any of the fastest growing business models that have ever existed, you will always notice that the creator has established a product, service or business opportunity where everybody wins.

As can be seen in the examples above, the Bank, CPA, and Wedding Photographer win, because they now have a way to continue to add value to their client relations that doesn’t cost them anything. The company presenting the business opportunity (Golf Instructor, Business Coach, Cake Designer) wins because it now has an extremely warm & targeted opportunity to be in front of the host company’s clients, and the client (now a prospect of yours) wins by receiving a gift & an opportunity to add value to their business or their lives!

Imagine if you had 3 other businesses that were excited to promote your business to the very clients you spend most of your time & money trying to reach - cold! How would your business look? Excellent. The secret to making this happen for you is written in bold above…

To make this situation really work - it has to be a Win. Win. Win Scenario!

Your alliance must win. Their clients must win. For you to win.

Cooperative Marketing really levels the playing field for small business to compete right along side large companies. Large companies spend a great deal of their own money promoting their business, because then can! If you are like most small businesses, you lack that capital, but what you do not lack is the human capital, the relationships that, if used correctly, can deliver far better results in the communities you have a vested interest in, than your corporate counterparts.

So let’s really bring the power of cooperative marketing into perspective….

Think about how you go above and beyond the call of duty for your clients. Now, think about how your current alliances do the very same to service their clients. So, what if you purposely arranged opportunities with the other high quality businesses in your area to promote each other in a way that your clients can appreciate & interpret it as additional value being invested in the relationship that you’ve worked hard to establish? Teaming up with one business is great! Teaming up with 20 is better! Using a great cooperative marketing strategy can deliver an equivalent effect to distributing 20,000 bulk mailers in your area, with far better results.

The most difficult part of taking advantage of this extremely effective strategy is finding companies that will allow you to have access to their database.

To do this easily, visit http://www.growthpod.com/ and get started by teaming up with your current referral partners.

There are Traditional methods of cooperative marketing available too.

Follow these steps to work towards landing a successful cooperative marketing opportunity:

1. Choose a business you wish to “cross market” to their database.

2. Explain to the business that you would like to give them something to give, with no obligation to their clients as a sign of customer appreciation.

3. If they choose to move forward, it is critical to take as much work out of the process as possible for the host company. Your offer must go out from the host company on their letterhead and signed by the host company.

4. To make it easy for them to say yes, offer to do all of the envelope stuffing and pay for the postage. If they are ok with you having a copy of their database, offer to take care of all of the administrative tasks, leaving them with absolutely nothing to do.

5. Another great way is to offer to do the same for them, with your database.

Action Plan: Make it a Point to have a minimum of one cooperative marketing campaign in action every month & watch the momentum in your business grow!

Be Outstanding!

Jeff Levin, Online Entrepreneur
Founder of GrowthPOD.com - The I Promote You. You Promote Me! Network

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Jeff Levin is the founder of GrowthPOD.com & a pioneer in online cooperative marketing. Visit http://www.growthpod.com/ to learn more.

by Jim Reilly

It would help if we were able to understand the way people behave towards each other. Understanding this would make life much easier, especially when it comes to interacting in a social and business environment.

In the 1920’s, Dr. William Marsden, a Psychologist, designed a system called the DISC Personality Profile. The DISC system places people into one of four different categories:

D - Dominant

I - Influential

S - Steady

C - Compliant

The DISC Personality Profile is a personality analysis that can be used to predict the behavior of individuals when they work on their own or with others. However, there are limitations…people seldom have just one personality. Everyone is dominant in one personality type but another may be close.

Read through the characteristics of the various personality types and you will start to learn how people can be expected to behave when you interact with them.

High D’s like to be in control…they like to be on top and give the orders. High D’s like to be innovative pioneers, have active minds and like to be stimulated. At times quality can start to drop, especially it they are involved with many activities at the same time. Typical high D’s do not like to get immersed in details…so, a good area to focus on is to have a checking system in place and set aside time to track performance.

High I’s like to have fun, are outgoing and very friendly. Typically they are good motivators and team leaders. To manage a high I, you need to win them over and be their friend. Keep in mind that the High I have great people skills and to get in the game, you need to be very sincere…never fake! Typically the high I (like the High D) does not like to dig into details and they can improve by being more task oriented.

High S’s are steady people and don’t like to be rushed. When everyone else is stressing out, they are calm. They like to think things over, thus avoiding quick decisions. The high S can plan things which is a great support for the high D. The high S can improve by changing their ways with respect to time…make quicker decisions and don’t look back!

High C’s have a tendency to collect data, facts and figures. Another perspective is that they like to do things very well, if not perfectly. The high C likes to work on their own and they often view their standards as much higher than any. The high C will want the high I to be less friendly and more task oriented, while the high I will think opposite. One area for the high C to work on is to be more confident in their approach to decision making and not fear arriving at a wrong decision.

Making sense out of this…

The DISC profile can give you a good indication of people’s behavioral styles at work. Why not help your team by helping them have a better understanding of their own personality style, as well as the prospects and customers they are interacting with. Give some thought on how this can help improve customer satisfaction and retention which in turn could be a major contribution to the revenue stream of your business?

Jim Reilly is a business coach and seminar presenter with ActionCOACH Business Coaching, the world’s #1 coaching firm. For more information on Jim’s upcoming events or to lean how Jim can help your team, visit www.actioncoach.com/jimreilly or email jimreilly@actioncoach.com