The suggestion is, the more people you meet, the higher your chances of pulling in new customers and growing your business. But this rarely works in reality. 

There’s no shortage of business networking events and meet-and-greet groups, but all that seems to happen is an attendee takes your business card and teases you with a promise to refer you to somebody in their network that might need what you do.

Apart from a dodgy sales email months later, did you ever hear from that person again? Probably not. 

And if you meet, the conversation often becomes one-sided, and you spend the next hour listening to how good the person you invited for coffee is (according to them, of course). 

These situations are all too familiar and it’s no wonder that referral partnerships (or strategic alliances) have an up to 70% chance of failing. There are many reasons why referrals don’t blossom, and some common ones include:  

1. Not dealing with the right referral partner, to begin with.
2. You didn’t see the signs that the person you’re dealing with was ‘all talk, no action.’
3. No clear agenda was set to guide your referral relationship from the outset.

That’s why you need to have a proven system to separate the ‘wheat from the chaff’ and start by creating a value-driven referral partnership.

What is a referral partnership (or strategic alliance)?

A referral partnership or strategic alliance is when two (or more) businesses or individuals enter into an arrangement to mutually benefit each other by referring potential customers to the other when a need has been identified within somebody’s network. 

The reasons for developing a referral partnership vary and can include the opportunity to enter into an emerging market, increase the value of a product or service, gain an edge over competitors, or simply build a consistent funnel of new leads flowing into a business. 

As an example, an accounting firm might look to bookkeepers and financial planners to form referral partnerships. Macquarie’s 2015/16 AFS Benchmarking Report states, “44% of accounting and financial services practices believe increasing referral partner activity is an effective strategy to improve profitability.”

How to develop the skills to build strategic referral partnerships

With a decent percentage of accounting and financial services believing referral partnerships are important, why is there such a high failure rate? 

Chances are, it’s the process (or lack of it) leading into and during the referral building stage that’s contributing to up to 70% of wasted opportunities. 

As Facebook founder and CEO once said, nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend (or referral). That’s why turning your referrals into intentional relationships is paramount to your success in business. 

So, before you being just randomly sipping lattes with a new referral ‘prospect’ each week, make sure you have a process in place first: 

1. Review and assess each referral prospect 

If time is money, you’re wasting on including people within your referral partnerships if they don’t have a strong network they can refer you to. To find out, you need to ask them: 

• What industries do most of their network come from? 

If you’re an Accountant and most of their network are Accountants, it’s going to have limited results. 

• Are the people within their network predominantly decision-makers in the business they work for/with? 

It would help if you got in front of the right people who were prepared to take action.

• How many businesses do your referral prospect refer work to? 

While there are no right or wrong answers here, you at least need to know and make a judgment if their answer will work in your favour. Referring to lots of other businesses might indicate your referral prospect is either good at what they do or untargeted in firing off referrals. 

2. Concisely understand your referral prospect 

As mentioned earlier, referral partnerships can become lopsided if it’s not “give and take.” Nobody wants to deal with somebody who abuses the arrangement without reciprocating. 

If they’re making 60% of the effort and you’re only putting in 40% (or vise versa), the partnership is doomed to fail. 

That’s why you need to understand your referral prospect first to build a relationship that benefits both parties. 

The best way to do this is to pepper them with questions politely: 

• Who are they, and what drew them to their business/career? 
• What product or service do they offer? 
• What problem does it solve? 
• How can they prove it? 
• Who are they looking to connect with? 
• Have they had referral relationships that didn’t work. If so, why didn’t they work?

While these three steps take the fun out of meeting for a piccolo and almond croissant, it will be the difference between a consistent and successful referral partnership or one that fails to deliver results.  

But a referral partnership is only as good as your ability to convert referrals into customers. 

3. Explain what you can offer (and point out your unique selling point) 

How many times have you run into somebody in business that does the same thing as somebody else? Chances are, your potential referral partner will think the same. 

Early on, they don’t know why you’re different (and probably don’t care) unless you educate them. Don’t just fall back on the “I’m professional and passionate about what I do” line and hope for the best. 

Business success sometimes comes down to being memorable, so make sure your referral prospect leaves with a compelling reason to remember you and a willingness to refer you on. 

Don’t be egotistical about your successes, but make sure your value and point of difference is understood. 

Implementing a sales framework to turn leads into customers 

If you have a solution to market demand and you’re an honest person to deal with, your referral partners will refer leads to you. 

But the breakdown is often caused by an inability to ‘sell’ your solution to a lead who, while being referred by someone they trust, still isn’t completely convinced of you just yet.  

If your initial meeting lacks structure or you can’t convert, word will circulate back to your referral partner, and they will be less likely to funnel you leads – they don’t want to burn their network after all. 

That’s why having a proven and easy to follow sales framework in place is vital to ensure leads drop into your sales pipe (not off the face of the earth). 

What is a sales process? 

A sales process is simply a system of repeatable steps that guide a lead into a potential buyer and then a loyal customer. 

Research by the Sales Management Association concluded that 90% of all companies that use a formal, guided sales process were ranked as the highest performing and also enable sales teams (or individuals) to be top performers. 

7 key elements to a sales framework

Generally, six steps need to be followed when executing a sales framework to drive growth: 

1. Identifying prospects 

When working with a referral partner, referrals should just come through without much effort on your behalf. But that doesn’t mean you can chalk-up the win. 

Now more than ever, potential leads are doing their due diligence on you (whether they have been referred or not), and will be judging you against others who offer a similar solution. 

It would help if you investigated who they are and know how you can benefit them and use it when in conversation. Throwing in casual comments directly relevant to their situation shows you’re already invested in their journey. 

2. Prequalify your prospect and book in your meeting

There’s no point conducting a lead or sales meeting with somebody who is simply window shopping of fishing for information. 

That’s why you need to pre-qualify your prospects and assess whether they are an ideal customer at the beginning before locking in a meeting with them. 

While business is much more than just making money, as a business owner or sales manager, there’s nothing more annoying or counterproductive than investing your time, energy and resources into people who will never buy from you anyway.

Be excited by genuine leads and respectfully decline those that are not. 

3. Start your appointment by establishing rapport, setting an agenda and positioning the sale

Just like an athlete before a race, you need to be calm and focused heading into a sales meeting. Take at least 10 minutes beforehand to ground your emotional state and boost your energy so you can confidently work towards a successful outcome. 

In the meeting, make sure you build rapport by asking your potential customer warm questions and create a friendly environment (but not too casual) so your prospect feels at ease. 

Find some common ground and use it to your advantage:

• Do you know what football team they support? 
• Do they have kids? 
• Have they just come back from a holiday? 

Aside from asking questions (and genuinely taking an interest), you can also connect through body language and tonality too. 

A good sales meeting requires more than just polite questions, it needs an agenda to guide the sales meeting. By setting an agenda and adhering to it, all parties know what to expect and it allows your prospect to feel comfortable talking about their motivations for being in the meeting and will give you a clear indication of what they want to achieve. 

Finally, you need to position the sale to identify if your business is pre-sold (i.e. your prospect is ready to buy right now) or not pre-sold (i.e. they still need more convincing). This will flag how much credibility you need to build to influence the sale by reducing buyer resistance. 

4. Listen and diagnose their pain points 

Nobody wants to be spoken over or be sold to. That’s why when it comes to a sales framework, one of the best practices is to listen to what your potential customer is telling you. 

If you allow them to talk, they will mention what pain point/s they’re currently experiencing that you have a solution for. Ask lots of open ended questions here to understand what their current situation is and what their desired state they want to achieve looks like. What is getting in their way?

5. Present your value/solution  

Once you know your potential customer’s problem, you can subtly introduce the value you can add to their circumstance by explaining your solution. 

Don’t just go for the hard sell here. Make sure you use (i.e., refer to) what you’ve learnt from your potential customer until this point when presenting your solution. You want to take your prospect on a journey that engages their thinking and feeling.

Focus on things like: 

• Using visuals to get your message across and engage them in the process
• Examples from working with other customers on a similar problem 
• How your solution will benefit your potential customer (i.e., will save them 15 hours per week or $20,000 per year).
•  Outline your service offering and how you work with clients

6. Clarify your offer 

Now it’s time to discuss the next steps in your customer engagement process and how it works. 

It’s important to be transparent around your pricing and payment terms. It’s also a good idea to be ready to handle objections confidently on things like: 

• Costs
• The implementation of your solution 
• Delivery timelines
• Increases to your prospects workload (if any)  

The better equipped you are to counteract objections, the higher the chance of a successful sale. 

7. Gain commitments  

Now that you’ve handled any objections like a boss, you need to close out the sale (i.e., sign the agreements, pay the fee to proceed etc.) and inform your new customer what to expect from you moving forward (there are a number of techniques to ensure gaining a seamless commitment and we’ll explain them in a future blog). 

As a customer, there’s nothing worse than parting with your money only to have the company/business you gave it to go missing in action. Make sure your new customer is stepped through the next stages of the solution you will provide for them. 

With the emergence of digital marketing and people spending more time online, the importance of having solid referral partners can get overlooked in business.   

But that’s doing a disservice to your operation – people still trust people, and a referral from somebody you respect speaks volumes. 

The challenge is finding the right referral partners who can help organically grow your business (and allow you to help grow theirs). 

Over the last 20 years, we’ve been developing and implementing referral partnerships and sales frameworks that are proven to work. 

So, if you want to learn how referral partnerships can deliver consistent and profitable customers and grow your company, please get in touch.

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In some shape or form, every business has learnt to be adaptable. Many businesses discovered that there are more ways to work than the traditional 9-5 in the office. WFH became the new norm and Zoom catch ups replaced morning coffee breaks with colleagues. Whilst so distanced, the pandemic provided us a new way of communication, a path to stronger team relationships and a new perspective of what we consider important and valuable. Whether the pandemic was to your business’ benefit or detriment, this time gave businesses the opportunity to reflect on how they cared for their staff, how their business could run productively in alternate ways and how to shape their business model towards a customer centric approach through everything they do.

Although this year has seen an overdose of challenges, hardship and disaster, it is important to reflect on how it has helped you grow. It may not have been what any of us expected, but it has built us to be stronger and more resilient in times of need. Take a moment not to dwell on goals unreached, but to reflect on how well you adapted to a reality that was out of your control. 

Getting through this year in business and personal life should be something to be proud about. Looking forward to the year ahead, we will be wiser and smarter, making moves that are thoughtful and considered. 

We will have realised what we truly value in life and how we can shape our business around that to suit what we want. This year presented a reawakening for businesses to develop in new ways and the year ahead will surely be just as interesting to watch.

I hope you enjoy this holiday season and all the best opportunities to come in the new year.

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As we look to the year ahead, 2021 will surely present us with many more challenges, but with so much happening, will marketing your business be harder in the new year?

According to a survey done by Dun & Bradstreet, 70% of business respondents revealed that their marketing budgets have been reduced as a direct result of COVID-19. It was also uncovered that 76% of marketers were experiencing an “increasing amount of pressure to deliver leads since the COVID -19 outbreak”. With such financial loss that businesses have endured, it is no surprise that marketing budgets have taken a hit. This has caused a focus shift from new sales to retention. Return on investment has become the priority for many business owners as they need to ensure that they are gaining the most out of their spending. This increases the pressure placed on advertisements, promotions and sales to perform.

Not only will budget cuts present new challenges for marketing, but the inability for businesses to interact with their customers like they used to will also prove to be a hurdle. With so many regulations and restrictions that this virus has brought forward, companies are no longer able to host large marketing events like they used to. Many organisations can also only host a certain number of people in their place of business, making it difficult to engage new clients and operate smoothly.

For small businesses, it will be very difficult to engage new audiences without the marketing budget that they are used to. However, there are many ways to work around a low budget if you put your mind to it. Alternative marketing solutions could include developing new mutually beneficial strategic relationships with other like-minded businesses to recommend each other. You could also lean in to your current clients and look into getting meaningful referrals for your business. Another option is to consider if you need the assistance of an outsourced marketing agency to help you with fresh ideas and new marketing tools and techniques to assist your growth.

Nobody knows what lies ahead, but taking time to create flexible plans will help you stay on top of any new challenge in the year to come.

The post Will Marketing Your Business Be Harder In 2021 And Why? appeared first on Business Cut Through.

1. Remote workforce: how much of your office will be happy to go back to an office setting? Some people are finding they are thriving in working from home and as business owners you might agree.  Some people are just more  proactive, happy and efficient working from their homes. 
2. AI is going to shape the future of customer experience: We talk about AI like it is way into the future when in actual fact many businesses are already employing AI in their workforce as we speak. Every industry is different but maybe now is the time to be reviewing how AI could improve your client experiences. 
3. Businesses prioritising staff wellness: Burn out is one of the biggest issues our workforce is currently facing. With the lines of home and work blurred, many people are finding it hard to switch off. 
4. Bots galore: With less people venturing out to bricks and mortar businesses the increase in sales calls, and customer services requirements and [putting strain on smaller businesses] we will be turning to bots to save the day.  However, businesses must tread carefully when using bots, There are certain situations that demand a human touch to them and customers must always be offered the option of connecting with a real human being who can solve their problem. 
5. Embracing the gig economy: Many businesses cannot afford full time employees during this time and are turning to the high talent pool of freelancers. This is a great opportunity to work with talent on short term projects that do not require ongoing work. 

If you are not sure if some or any of these trends are going to effect your business, think again. Not adapting to changes in technology and ways of doing business will see you left behind with the typewriter.

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