Debra Kasowski

Filling Your Pipeline with Quality Referrals

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Think about this: if you want to hire the best relocating company for your moving needs, you’d ask your colleagues, friends or associates to give you details of a moving company they recommend. It is the same with your business, to stay afloat, your business needs to be constantly getting new referrals.  Here are some of the things you can do to fill your pipeline with quality referrals:

Deliver on your promises

To gain quality referrals you need to be referable.   Give your customers high quality services that will cause them to give you unsolicited publicity.

Courtesy of ImageryMajestic/freedigitalphotos.net
Courtesy of ImageryMajestic/freedigitalphotos.net

Make your prospects feel special

Take a personal approach when you connect with potential customers. Make them feel special by sending them personalized emails, letters, postcards or direct messages on social media sites.

Collaborate with other specialists

The easiest way to get referrals is by holding collaborative webinars with specialists in your area of business. Partnering with specialists will help your nurture relationships with potential customers which can help you generate high-quality referrals.

Do not wait until the drought season before you ask for referrals

Do not wait for your pipeline to be dry before you ask for referrals.  For your business to have high quality referrals, create a consistent referral system. This is how you can create a consistent referral system:

1) Exchange referrals with credible service providers

Ask your affiliates or business connections to refer your services to their clients as you refer their services to your clients.

2) Show gratitude

Send thank you messages or complimentary gifts to your referential sources.

3) Create multiple referential methods

Some of your clients may not be comfortable with asking people to use your services. You can ask this type of clients to write testimonials about your services. You can create links in your emails that can be easily used to share your content on social networking sites.

4) Ask for referrals

If you are uncomfortable about asking for referrals, you will have a hard time having high quality referrals.  You are in business, so let people know that you have competitive services to offers. If you generate website traffic mostly from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, ask people in your network to re-tweet or share your messages.

Remember you don’t have to wait until your pipeline is dry.  Do one thing each day to make sure you fill your pipeline with quality referrals.

How do you fill your pipeline of referrals? Share this post and comment on how build your pipeline made a difference in your business.

 

What Do You Mean You Can’t Teach Effort?

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Today I was waiting at the deli and one employee was busy serving customers and the other was standing with her back toward the customers staring at the clock for a good 3-5 minutes. The other employee asked the girl if she was okay and if she was could she please help serve the awaiting customers. She proceeded to put on the plastic gloves and with a big sigh she said, “I guess so”. Wow, that took the cake! As she started to serve me, she had a long drawn out conversation with her fellow employee saying that if she did not eat right away that she would die. Oh my goodness. I was ready to start laughing as the same girl did the same thing last week when there was a line up of customers. Her colleagues had to ask her to help and she reluctantly did. But this being the second time, I decided that perhaps this person needed some coaching, especially since her fellow employee was mouthing apologies to me on her behalf. I went to speak to one of the supervisors and they knew exactly who I was speaking about.

 What coaching do you think she needed? From my perspective,  she needed to:

        1.        Gain a greater awareness of how her behaviour was affecting  her colleagues and the customers.

        2.       Understand that her role was to serve others.

        3.       Prepare and eat before her shift.

        4.       Understand how important her role was to the store.

Number #4 is the most crucial one! Each person from the janitor to the CEO carries importance to an organization. Imagine what would happen if they were not there…garbage would pile up, no direction or delegation would occur, and no one would be served. If you do not believe your role is important, you are wasting your gifts and talents. The biggest disservice is to you.

You might say to yourself, “I do not have the natural ability that the other person has.” You may not but can you learn the skill? Can you improve over time? Can you work hard and give your best effort? The person, who gets noticed and remembered in the long run, is the person who puts in the effort consistently and gives their best at the time they do a task. Sometimes those with the natural ability – do not produce consistent results, they do not try to improve, and they do not give their best effort because they know they can get by. You cannot teach effort to another person. You can role model it but the pure desire needs to come from within. The intrinsic desire to give your best will get you to your prize faster than anything else. What you do is important!