Archive for sources of business
Economic Changes Call for Tactical Adjustments
Posted by: | CommentsEspecially Now, Relationships Are the Key to Good Referrals
In these uncertain economic times, my experience tells me that there are still people out there who need your services. But because they are more concerned with getting the best value for their increasingly scarce resources, they turn to the people they trust to introduce them to professionals who deliver value.
Said another way, referrals are how good business gets done when times get challenging.
Who are your best referrers?
Have you thanked them?
Have you reached out to find out how you can help them?
Are you relying on a small group of people to refer you or have you systematically positioned yourself to be the recipient of your perfect referral over and over again?
Or are you still relying on a random stream of referrals?
I’ve been advising my clients to get proactive. Especially now. Because even if only 25% of their business comes from referral, if that business dries up and goes to someone else, they are in trouble.
Take action now!
1. Audit your last 3 years of clients.
Determine to the best of your ability where each piece of business came from. What did it add to your top-line revenues? What did it add to your overall profitability? What source stands out as needing immediate attention? If it is a person or a firm, what’s the current state of your relationship?
One client who did this exercise noticed that there were several distinct groups of people who referred him business. He broke them up into areas – real estate, import/export and invited them to a luncheon at his office. He introduced them all to each other and had them share what they needed to be successful – resources, contacts, etc. He shared the same thing – and his practice grew 30% in under 6 months.
2. Connect with your referral sources.
Cement your relationships. You know what needs to be done. Do it. Don’t put it off. In the current economic climate, those relationships can be the access to your very best clients – because those sources have social capital behind their recommendations and provide social proof that you are the attorney with whom they should be speaking.
I spoke on the phone this morning with another client who had changed firms and never reconnected with old sources of referrals. She shared that just by picking up the phone and reaching out to people who used to send her cases, she increased her business immediately – one sent her a new case that morning.
Connecting frequently and consistently is the key to staying top of mind. Enlist your staff to help you make this happen.
3. Actively reproduce your best referral sources.
Take a look at the characteristics of your best referral sources. What is their profession? Do they belong to a specific professional association? Get clear about which are your best sources and begin recruiting new ones just like them. LinkedIn® is a great resource for this project. If you don’t know how to use it – Learn.
Think about what would happen to your practice and your pocketbook if you added a zero to the number of people who actively refer you your ideal client. Come up with a project to build 20-30 relationships who can keep you and your firm busy and profitable.
4. Develop a regular touch strategy.
I know you are busy. All professionals are. But the most productive have systems in place that allow them to accomplish the repetitive tasks that create continuity in relationship. The old adage “Out of sight, out of mind” can wreak havoc on your referrability. Set – or have your staff set – lunches at regular intervals. Get a system to regularly send out birthday and anniversary cards. Involve your support staff in collecting and sending clippings of pertinent articles or snippets of what they read in on-line news. The key here is to stay ‘top-of-mind’ while you deepen the relationship.
5. Train your referral sources
You know what you do. But do your referral sources? Really? Ask them what they think you do. You’ll be surprised at some of the responses. If your sources don’t know what you do and who is best to send your way, chances are referral quality is poor.
Most importantly, get clear which problems you solve that keep your clients up at night – from their perspective, not yours. “I’m a intellectual property attorney” is very different from “I help the creative protect and defend their million dollar ideas.”
Draft a document which illustrates what you do (not just a list of services) and for whom. Clearly articulate who your ideal clients are and then share that with your sources. Encourage them to do the same for you.
Building reciprocity builds relatedness. Relatedness is a trigger for referrals.
6. Develop a stable of professionals that you can refer – and refer them.
Referrals out can be tricky for some attorneys. The concern about liability is one I often hear from my clients. However, reciprocity doesn’t work if you don’t refer out. One of my clients dealt with his concern this way – when he passes a referral he uses this disclaimer – “I recommend X – s/he’s done a great job for my clients in the past. You should do your own due diligence, though, as s/he’s not always a fit for everyone.”
You do not serve all your clients’ needs. You can position yourself, in their minds, to do so by developing a stable of reliable professionals who serve those needs which you do not, and educating your clients as to their availability. Listen for opportunities to refer. Be known as a resource for your clients AND as a referrer by your key sources.
7. Repeat this process
Referral development is a process, not an event. Relationships are not event driven and credibility is something that is built – over time. If you have three to five hours a week – think lunches and breakfasts – you can easily roll this out over a year long program. It takes some planning and discipline, but the payoff far exceeds the perceived pain.
It takes something to alter results you are currently getting. The biggest hurdle you will have to conquer is the belief that you “don’t have the time” or that you are “too busy” to do something different.
The most productive and profitable firms have handled these conversations and developed the skills and the networks to consistently land the right kind of profitable business.
I encourage you to do the same.
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network 2 Networth
Your Outsourced Business Development Training Partner
Share this post :
Xobni – An Outlook Tool to Transform Your Experience of the E-mail Jungle
Posted by: | Comments
Inbox spelled backwards – it does just that. It turns your experience of your email on it’s ear. And it’s FREE
Instead of having to fish through thousands of emails in your inbox, or setting up complex rules – that sometime work, sometimes don’t work – Xobni’s add-on to outlook shows you all the key data related to your contact, the 
communication you’ve had with that contact, and the documents that you’ve exchanged between you.
All this happens outside of Outlook itself – in Xobni’s indexing process. This means that you can preview all of these pieces of the interaction jungle before you need to open any relevant communications.
You can easily search for people with their built in search bar and it calculate the pattern for when you receive emails from the contact. That way you know when you are most likely to catch them at their computer. The analytics tell you how many emails you’ve sent, how many you’ve received, and ranks the contact via the number of communications you’ve had. .
Are you interacting enough with the key people in your network? Quite an eye opener
Another very cool function is the "Schedule time with" link. It will check your Outlook calendar and open up an email with your availability for the next 5 business days so you can send it to your contact to set meeting. Very Handy!
Xobni also has a built-in LinkedIn function which allows you to click right over to a contact’s LinkedIn Profile.
All in all a very handy tool
A special thanks to N2N Student Toni Allen who called me raving about it’s functionality.
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network 2 Networth
Your Outsourced Business Development Training Partner
Share this post :
It’s about the relationship . . .
Posted by: | CommentsI had a great conversation today with a someone I consider a friend who also happens to be a past client . Some things he said really struck a chord with me – given what I’ve been teaching for years now.
Bill Bergdoll of Bergdoll Insurance has recently completely overhauled his business and business model, given the shift in the economy. He scaled back his operation to the bare bones and began to circle back around to talk with clients that his agents had brought in (network development). He discovered that many of them, while having a policy, only had an auto or a motorcycle insured by his agency.
Why?
Because the agents never really thought about the people with whom they talked as a person to have a relationship with. The agents were focused on the transaction.
He said to me "I want to call them up and let them know how much money they really left on the table."
In one conversation he found that a client had several homes, motorcycles, cars, boats, etc. He was able to help that client save a considerable amount on his overall cost of insurance.
Why am I talking about this?
Because many of you are leaving lots of money on the table. Heck, as I sit here, I can see I’m probably doing the same.
And that money that’s being left on the table represents value we can bring to our current book of business. The people we already spent the time, energy, and money to acquire. You don’t even need to think about developing new sources of business – it’s already there.
In business development, it is all about the relationship.
I challenge you to look at your book. Read the CAN – PAN – FAN article I wrote. Really audit your book of relationships. And see how you might be able to deepen the value you bring your clients.
Remember that in dynamic economic conditions, it’s the dynamic that profit.
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network 2 Networth
Deep Business Development
Share this post :
So Many Sources . . .
Posted by: | CommentsI met today with one of my students who has been in his industry for decades. He said something that I found intensely interesting – he was so confused and suprised about how he was getting business. He recently brought on a younger associate who was flyering and was getting business that way. “I thought that was long dead” he said to me.
It got me thinking – how many of you are confused and surprised about where your business comes from? How many of you are so busy trying to get business that you’ve forgotten to really look and see where your business really comes from?
We spent about a half hour really looking and came up with the following assessment:
General marketing – flyering, direct mail
Telemarketing
Referrals from past clients
Referrals from a specific set of industry partners
I asked him what his strategy was with each and he looked at me blankly. “What do you mean?” I just do whatever comes my way (not an exact quote – just the gist).
Sound familiar?
Imagine what could happen to your bottom line if you put some thought into your general marketing strategy – what tactics actually produce results? And are those tactics habituated or are they only there when you get to them? How could you systematize those strategies that work?
Do you consistently touch base with your past clients and offer them something of value? Are you at the top of their mind when they need what you sell? If not, why not? What could you do to habituate consistent past client follow up? What patterns could you put in place in your daily routine? And are you asking for referrals to people like them? Do they know that you grow your buisness by referrals? Or are you functioning under the hope that because you did such a good job that they are going to refer you in the future? Face it – if you don’t keep yourself in front of these folks, they forget you – they have lives of their own with problems that crop up every day. They aren’t thinking about you. You have to be thinking of them.
Have you identified key industry partners who could be referring you because you are a natural complement to what they offer? Have you considered how you could make them look good? Have you approached them to propose an alliance? Think about the impact of habituating contact with these folks – a steady stream of referrals to your perfect client.
Getting business is not hard. Getting good business is even easier. But you have to step out of the day to day operations of your enterpise and examine what you are doing in order to tap into the opportuinties that are right under your nose.
There’s an old saying in the insurance industry “That worked so well we stopped doing it.” What have you stopped doing that gets you the kind of buisness you really want?
