Become a contact point for your contacts!

A good business networking person will often become a contact point for all her contacts.

This means that you would have worked all along to constantly inform all your contacts that you are the person to ring if they need any services, products, solutions to run their business and their personal lives.

If someone needs a new business printer, they should call you. If someone needs an interior designer, they will ring you. And this must be for almost everything.

An indicator is this: say you visited a friend in his office and have seen that he has just purchased some new furniture or even hired a new sales executive. If you did not have anything to do with his selection of things to purchase and people to hire, then there's plenty of work to do!

I picked up this tip from a BNI Podcast and thought that it is an excellent tool to implement the idea to enable all your contacts to contact you for contacts needed for their business and friends.

In essence, Dr. Misner developed this technique for getting referrals in the earliest days of BNI. He realized that he needed to be the 'go-to' guy whenever anyone needed a referral—to anyone.

He started sending the following letter to his clients three or four times a year:


Own Letter head

Date:

“Dear _____,

I really believe in the process of referrals, so part of the service I provide is to be sure to refer my clients and associates to other qualified businesspeople in the community.

Attached is a list of areas in which I know very credible, ethical and outstanding professionals. If you’re looking for a professional in a specific area I have listed, please feel free to contact me. I will be glad to put you in touch with the people I know who provide these services.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ivan Misner


He did not include direct contact information for the professionals, because he wanted to make sure people came to him first. This was so that the lead can be qualified into a proper referral first before referring to solution provider concerned. It worked like a charm, and people really appreciate the service.

This is among the service you can provide to your contacts. I really hope you will implement this. I am updating my list now and will send a letter to each contact.