Blogs make a difference. Blog frequency
April 28, 2010
Blogs make a difference. Blog frequency is directly proportional to customer development. Take a look at the numbers. http://ht.ly/1Eink
Thirty-one days is not enough time to cover everything there is to cover on referral marketing. We have barely scratched the surface of all that needs uncovered. The Referral Fusion 3.0 System encompasses four basic areas—your purpose and message, the available tools for communication with your constituents, the methods for contact, conversation, care, and community building with your constituents, and the methods for identifying, teaching, and rewarding those members of your community who are or may refer business to you.
I have resorted to several expressions around “who are you?” that seem to capture the entire process:
Speaking about your business:
“Who are you, and why should I care?”
About communications, and specifically about social media:
It’s not “what are your doing,” but “who are you?”
The basis of contact, conversation, care, and community engagement:
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
–Maya Angelou
Successfully creating and motivating your database:
“In order to you to get what you want,
you must first help others get what they want.”
—Zig Ziglar
Your Business:
- Referral Marketing is only as effective as the integrity of your business model and customer experience. Remember the Triple bottom line: People, Planet, and Profit.
- Your sense of mission needs to permeate everything and everyone involved with your operation.
- An honest self-assessment of your business, repairing “broken windows” will go a long way toward improving the customer experience.
- Being Green is more than recycling, it is how you treat your employees, vendors, and customers; engaging in sustainable practices, using locally produced product, and recycling
- Affiliate with a Cause. It not only raises your presence in the community, and your credibility as a business concern about more than profit, it gives both your customers and your employees a reason to feel good about going there.
The Communication Tools: Social Media and the Personal Touch.
- Social Media is only a series of tools. To be successful in using them, you must understand the protocols. One size does not fit all. And it is not possible to be all things to all social media users. In order to remain relevant to the search engines, currency in the social media is even more important than keywords. A recent Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn update is far more effective than a years old webpage.
- Depending on your business some of the most effective tools may be
- Your Website
- Blogs
- Linked In
- Especially participation in groups
- Recommendations
- Optimizing your profile page
- Facebook Fan Pages
- YouTube
- Email Newsletters
- Video Mail newsletters
- Recorded Webinars
- Live Webcasts
- Depending on your business some of the most effective tools may be
- There are specific management tools that can assist you in the use of these media such as:
- Hoot Suite
- TweetDeck
- Ping
- Salesforce.com
- Nothing can replace the personal touch of
- personal notes
- calls
- thoughtful items of value
The Referral Pyramid: Contact, Conversation, Care, and Community Engagement
Permission is the name of the contact game. Without it you have nothing. The object is to create engagement on the part of your constituents that moves them from the good will of being part of a community into being a referring advocate for your business.
To accomplish this requires a proactive program conversation and acknowledgement on increasingly intimate levels.
Creation, Care, and Feeding of Your Database.
Build, sort, and qualify your database. Identify those people that are in your corner and those that you would better off without, regardless of their patronage. Teach your advocates who are the best people to refer, but thank them always, for any referral they send you.
Thank you for your time and attention. Oh, I am always available for your referrals.
Rick Beeman, Conversation Maven at In Business for Good.
Systems: Organizational Tools and Techniques—Day 30—Powering Your Business with Referral Fusion 3.0
March 29, 2010
Systems
In establishing focus, setting priorities and good habits, there are several practices and techniques that can aid in the effectiveness and productivity of your work.
1. Prepare a “To Do” List prior to your business day. Some people do this the night before, at the end of the business day, while others do it first thing in the morning before anything else gets done. It serves as a mission statement for the day—especially if you are clear on the important as opposed to the urgent things that need to get done.
2. Block Calendar—Create a block calendar. A block calendar effectively defines a set of specific days and times for certain activities as “standing appointments.” For example, establish an hour in the early morning or late afternoon as exercise; have a prescribed time for email—usually after some time spent on projects requiring your full attention.
3. Power Hour—As a part of your Block Calendar, create a “power hour” every day. This is a time devoted to the important items, as opposed to the merely urgent. This time should be devoid of interruption; no phone calls, no people dropping in, only focused work. If you need to post a sign saying you will be available in one hour, then so be it. But this is your time to get done what needs getting done without distraction. During this time I shut my cell phone ringer off.
4. Timer—Often helpful for power hours and billable time in general is the use of a timer. This can be an egg timer, stop watch, or the timer function on your cell phone.
5. Begin the day with high energy requiring activities and wait on email and low energy activities. There are few circumstances when an email can’t wait for an hour or ninety minutes before it gets answered. Do the things that required the most focus at the time when you have the energy to be most focused.
6. Personal note cards and acknowledgement emails (or I use video mail) should be done in one continuous string. It allows you a rhythm that makes the process of note writing and emailing thank-you note more fluid. There are times I have found that at the end of the day I adopt an “attitude of gratitude,” that gets me in the mood to acknowledge people. Others may find the beginning of the day preferable.
7. Return calls at the same time every day. Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to answer every call as it comes in, or to return calls immediately. Your time can be much more effective if you were to devote a specific time in the day to place or return calls.
8. Social Media—Like email, social media should have some time devoted to it. If not every day, at least three days a week should have time spent responding to comments posting tweets, Facebook Fan Page updates, and Linked In Updates. With tools like HootSuite, Ping, and TweetDeck, these postings can be created once then scheduled to be posted as far ahead as one month. My preference is for HootSuite, I can post everything, including to my blog from HootSuite. Spend some time during the Social Media period responding to comments in the groups in which you participate (unfortunately this can not be scheduled in advance) and be sure to respond to comments on your own blog and Fan page.
Habit: Organizational Tools and Techniques—Day 29—Powering Your Business with Referral Fusion 3.0
March 28, 2010
Habit
Discipline comes with the development of good habits.
Good focus, the setting of priorities, understanding the difference between the important and the merely urgent, are the beginning. They can help you create a plan for a regimented call to action.
The more routine you create in your life the more creative and productive you can be. Why? Because the process of making decisions requires energy. This makes no sense to people who call themselves “free spirits.” They crave the spontaneity of ongoing creativity in “everything” they do. But even “free spirits” have routine. And it is the routine, those habits,that allow for spontaneity in the rest of their life.
To create discipline and effective habits is not easy, but once established, they are relatively difficult to break. An established habit takes no effort or energy to perform. It is automatic. Brushing your teeth has become automatic. Getting your coffee at your local coffee shop, for most is automatic —they know “your usual,” I am willing to bet. For regular exercisers, going to the gym is automatic.
Establishing a habit isn’t an immediate proposition. If it were, New Year’s resolutions could be achieved in a heartbeat. They are not. The usual pattern for addressing a New Year’s resolution is to make sweeping changes in behavior immediately. After a few days, the effort hardly seems worth it because you have sacrificed too many things you like in performing the one desired change.
Lou Tice, in an interview, acknowledged he was overweight. He wished he weren’t. But he attributed his excessive weight to a fondness for wine. He chose the wine. Zig Ziglar similarly recognized that he “chose to be fat.” How does one choose to be fat?” he was asked. Because he was the one who had control over what went in his mouth. At the point he decided to get to a healthier weight, he made different choices in what he put in his mouth.
He knew that dieting doesn’t work, because it is considered, by the dieter, a temporary activity in order to achieve a desired result. Once attained, the diet is suspended and the weight gets packed back on. In order to lose weight and keep it off, the menu has to change permanently, and a new lifestyle adopted. This is more difficult.
Habits are the result of gradual changes over a period of time, and the activity is maintained for at least 30 days. One of the most effective methods for changing habits is found in the Kaizan Way, a Japanese method of gradual improvement, whether for an individual or an organization. Change is not immediate, but incremental.
Continuing with the weight loss example, a woman wanted to begin a program of exercise after having spent much of her life as a couch potato. Today she is fit and healthy, but she began by simply standing up during commercials of her favorite shows. After doing this for a period of time, she began to march-in-place during the commercials. Eventually she was exercising during the entire program. And so the progression took place.
It is well documented that incremental change can translate into permanent change. And thus a habit is established.
I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am completely at your command.
Half the things you do might just as well be turned over to me
And I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed–you must merely be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done and
After a few lessons I will do it automatically.
I am the servant of all great people
And, alas, of all failures, as well.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine,
Though I work with all the precision of a machine
Plus the intelligence of a person.
You may run me for profit or run me for ruin
– It makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me,
And I will place the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.
Who am I?
I am habit!
— Author Unknown
Organizational Tools and Techniques:Focus—Day 28—Powering Your Business with Referral Fusion 3.0
March 27, 2010
Creating a dynamic referral-based business requires discipline, focus, patience, and a systematic approach.
Focus
I was there to offer her my assistance. The lines cut deeply across her face. She had developed nervous ticks. It was clear she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in recent memory.
As I began to explain the way I could help her give her board direction, raise the profile of her agency, and raise money through social media, she cut me off and said, “It sounds like you are asking me to do more work. It sounds like this will take a few hours of explaining things to you in order for this to happen. Well, unless you can write me a check for ten thousand dollars, I can’t do it. I don’t have time. I need to raise money.”
Her non-profit was in dire trouble. She was spending what little energy she had left trying to save it.
I dared to tell her the story of the lumberjack who was furiously chopping at a tree. Others around him were felling trees with ease while he kept swinging away with little success. Another lumberman was watching this. He stopped the lumberjack to point out that the tree could be cut down much faster if he stopped long enough to sharpen his axe. “I don’t have time,” was the retort, “I have to get this tree chopped down as quickly as possible.”
It is very difficult to focus when one is exhausted.
It is exceedingly difficult to be successful without taking the time to sharpen one’s axe before trying to fell a forest full of trees.
In business, it is necessary to stop occasionally and take inventory on how you and your business are doing—to think. Tony Schwartz, the author of The Power of Full Engagement, makes the point that the most successful athletes in the world create ways to rest even in the midst of a heated competition. It is this ability that separates them from the rest of the field.
According to Schwartz, sharpening the axe for business people also includes setting priorities on a daily basis. Building a “to do” list each day is a start.
He makes the point that this list should separate the important from the merely urgent. The important are those things that are necessary to accomplish if the business is to continue to progress toward its goals. The urgent or those annoying fires that other people demand you pay attention to, even though, in the over all scheme of things, they do not qualify as important. Focus on the important.
Refresh, for him, means taking a break regularly—every 90 minutes to 2 hours. It includes time to meditate, and to take a nap.
He then moves on to discipline and habits, but that’s tomorrow’s blog.
The basic program of Contact, Conversation, Care, and Community Engagement, is applicable to all of your constituents. So your basic referral reward program should be, as well. Make it known that everyone sending a referral will receive a gift certificate for dinner, or a bouquet of flowers, for example. [Please note, that the reward is for the referral—not a closed sale. Your referrer is not responsible for closing the deal, only for getting someone in front of you.]
However, rewarding your database is definitely based upon merit. Everyone receives the basic referral reward package. That being said, though, some are “more equal” than others. Like purchasing “packages,” where package “A” contains X, and B contains everything A contain plus something additional, etc., so operates the system of Contact, Conversation, Care, and Community Engagement when applied to members of your database.
When we were sorting your database, recall that the sorting was dependent upon the number of referrals any given constituent had made, or might make, if asked and shown how, not upon the volume of purchases.
Your A+ clients are A+ clients because they have referred more than one customer to you. Therefore, they deserve a higher level of Care than someone who may never refer someone to you. So over the course of a year, you will be in closer contact with your A+ clients than with your C’s. You may take them to lunch or dinner, rather than giving them bleacher tickets to the ballgame. (Unless they would prefer the latter.)
You may have a special additional event for your A+ clients, a better quality gift for their birthday—it’s up to you. The point is that encouraging people who are already engaged and referring will often have a better ROI than trying, or assuming, with enough encouragement someone who has never sent you a referral will suddenly become a referring machine with enough encouragement. Remember the story of Bill, upon whom I had invested so much time and effort, only to find he had a relative in the business to whom he was sending all the business.
You may do something less extreme for your B’s and C’s, although it is a good idea to invite you’re A’s to these events, too. Remember events are to raise the level of community engagement. Everyone ought to gather at least once a year.
Over the years Bill and I developed a good friendship. We were on the same committee at the Chamber, were in Rotary together, and were in BNI. He would often stop in to the shop to talk. Given how close he had been to me, I assumed he would be a good referral source, even though he didn’t buy very much from me. I treated him like an A+ client. I had taken him to lunch on several occasions, sent the best holiday gifts to his company, and never forgot his birthday. It was the whole A+ treatment. I was sure that given the right amount of attention, one day there would be a heap of referrals coming from him.
Then one day I happened to ask him, why he didn’t seem to send anyone my way. I knew he had a pool of people associated with him that needed what I had to offer. Did he just not think of me when the need came up? Had my service let him down? What?
“I have a brother just starting out in your business, so I send all of my referrals to him,” was his response. Although I had fifteen or twenty A+ clients, people who actually were referring business to me, I had let way too much attention get focused on Bill. Why?
I failed to qualify him.
There were a number of legitimate reasons for counting him an A+, given our level of association. But I never asked the question, “If you were to have someone need my services, am I the one you would send them to?”
As business people, we qualify customers every day. We check credit reports, ask questions about their motivations and about timing as to when they may purchase from us. We explore their level of sophistication regarding our product. We want to know if we are wasting our time on these people. So, we “look them over.”
This isn’t a question of customer service or customer experience. Obviously the level of client examination varies with the nature of our business. People “get” that.
When we want to do direct marketing or advertising, we try to develop as precise a target as possible. After all, money is tight. When developing a program of referral marketing, keeping account of our best, and our most likely referral sources, is critical.
Brian Buffini, the best real estate referral coaching company there is, Buffini & Company, has a pre-packaged speech known as the “Mayor Campaign.”
If you were looking for someone to help you buy or sell a home, would I be the person you would choose?
If the answer is “yes,” great, if “no,” then the follow-up question is critical—“Why or Why not?” Had I asked Bill this question, I would have saved a lot of time, money, and energy that I could have put into someone more likely to refer me.
There are several additional ways to qualify potential referrers. One of the easiest may be surveys. Surveys are easy to create through www.surveymokey.com or www.ConstantContact.com, two of many companies that offer free trial periods where you can post surveys for your constituents. Note, however, it should be a survey that includes overall customer service and customer experience questions, in addition to simply qualifying questions.
Be creative in your approach, but quality your database. You will be glad you did.
Separating the wheat from the chaff—Day 24—Building and Sorting your Database, Powering Your Business with Referral Fusion 3.0
March 23, 2010
Building a database may seem to some fairly easy and straight forward. As you look to sorting the database, it will become apparent that things are not as easy as they appear.
There are clients and there are clients, just like some employees are better than others, more loyal than others, more engaged than others, and (dare I say it?), more competent than others. Of all of those people that populate your database, there are some for whom you would walk over hot coals, most are little different than the next, and some who will drag you over hot coals just to see you suffer. People are different. Some are responsive, helpful, understanding, while others can sap the energy right out of you simply by walking through the door.
I will never forget selling women’s shoes at Bullocks in Century City. It was a high end department selling the top fashions. One day an older woman sat down. She had her eye on a pair of Amafli sling backs. I hadn’t noticed the magnifying glass she had hung around her neck when she came in, or if had had I assumed it was for reading. I got her pair after pair of shoes to try on. She held each shoe up to her magnifying glass, examining them for flaws—scuffs, scratches, uneven stitching—then rejected them, or offering to pay half price for them due to flaws. This went on for over an hour. I was on commission, and new. I watched in horror as my fellow sales people sold pair after pair of less expensive shoes to less demanding customers while I was trapped. There was never a sale.
The purpose of sorting your database is to help identify and encourage those people that have, or are most likely to, refer you to others. The best are these people are probably your best clients or employees. These are the people you would love to focus on, give more attention to, or hang around with. Fortunately, people tend to refer people like themselves.
Then there are those at the other end of the spectrum. If you are able to satisfy them at all, it has taken every ounce of energy, kept you from serving several other loyal customers, simply because they would not allow you to do what you do best. Unfortunately, people tend to refer people like themselves.
Sort your database into categories of actual or potential referrers (for the most part you already know who they are):
- “A+” for those who have actually referred you more than once.
- “A” for any who have referred you once
- “B” for those likely to refer you
- “C” for those you might refer you and are shown how
- “D” for those who cause you to hope you die before ever being referred by them
At the end of the process you will likely discover that the list of “A’s” is very short. That’s okay. There will be more “B’s,” even more “C’s,” And regardless of number, too many “D’s.”
Remove the “D’s” from your data base. Remove them now. Don’t even think about associating with their referrals. Remember, like refer like.
The rest need your attention.
The best need your special attention. They are there for you, to ensure your business survival. They have a vested interest in your success, and should be treated accordingly. They are part of your community, part of your business family.
The entire program of Contact, Conversation, Care and Community is to find, acknowledge, and encourage these people to continue what they are doing. In addition, you want to help them help you.
It’s who you know and how you treat them. Building Your Database —Day 23—Powering Your Business with Referral Fusion 3.0
March 22, 2010
Generally speaking, if I am going to buy anything, I either want to research the intended products, look for the lowest price online, shop at a store where there are no commissioned salespeople, or get a recommendation from a friend or trusted reviewer. In other words, I will ask somebody where they got an item or a service, and how they liked it. This kind of exchange happens regularly in person, over the phone (in all the forms that may take), or through social media.
Referrals are significant more than a networking colleague handing me a business card or a phone number and a name, say they heard this person was looking for someone that offers what you do or sell. That is a lead, at best. Admittedly, word of mouth is a form of referral, but is passive and unpredictable.
Advertising, public relations, and purchased leads may bring in business, but again they are neither predictable nor as effective as referrals.
Referrals = People directed to your business by members of your community. By definition, to receive a referral is to receive a recommendation. In fact the word referral shares the same root as reference, as in, “may I see your references?” A referral is the equivalent of a personal testimonial.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could develop a list of all those people who
- Have referred others to you?
- Are loyal customers who want to refer you?
- Might refer others to you if asked and shown how?
- Might refer you if given a little incentive or reward?
Just such a list of relationships defines the database for Referral Fusion 3.0. It is upon this base the entire program is built; referrers and referrals are generated, tracked, and acknowledged.
Your database may not only be customers, but friends, relatives, business relations, business network members, community members, or employees. These relationships can grow and develop into you private, voluntary, sales force.
The number of referrals received is a direct result of intentional activities to develop, enhance, and build loyalty within the community which comprises your database. Because, generating referrals is a pro-active activity on the part of a business owner. It requires a system of activities, a schedule or those activities, accountability, and documentation. It is the systematic program of Contact, Conversation, Care, and Community Building, that we have discussed thus far. In order to truly power your business with referral marketing, “building community” needs to turn into “generating referrals” on the part of your constituents.
