It took 5-minutes!

Yesterday, I acquired some products from a member in the networking group that I am leading for my private consumption.

Specifically, they were some vouchers for an eye-screening service to prevent vision loss for those with glaucoma and are diabetic.

After acquiring them, I was excited and rang a few friends to give them the vouchers to use. I acquired 5 vouchers and have given away 4 already.

Then, it got me thinking, that a target market for these vouchers are Life-insurance agents who have at least 50 clients or more, who are now running a successful practice. Because they would have first hand information from their clients of certain pre-existing health conditions and because, they as their life-insurance agent have a degree of intimacy in their relationships with their clients.

Hence, they can present these vouchers to their clients as part of their incentives for say, anniversary of policy renewal or after receiving a successful referral from their clients. And these are tax deductable business expenses, so that helps.

So I rang up this service provider and explained to him the target markets he needs to focus on for some immediate appointments and possible immediate sales.

I myself rang a contact who is a very successful Life-insurance agent, and you know what, from my excitement of how I am happy to give these vouchers away, the enthusiasm rubbed off on her, and she said that she will be happy to meet this person to understand more (Yeah!! a qualified referral!!) and possibly purchase vouchers for her clients.

The call took 5-minutes.

Work? Yes absolutely, make no bones about it.

Results? Yes, always follows the work that preceded an effort.

So, go on people, pick up that phone and ring a contact to qualify a referral. It's very simple, actually!

Conducting 1-2-1 meetings with your referral sources

As I am picking this area for a very heavy emphasis this coming new year, I thought I better pen some basic ideas as how this can generate more referrals, which will help fill up your sales funnel for more business in the coming period of time.

I met the team-leaders of referral generation groups yesterday and we discussed in depth about the quality and quantity of businesses referred in their groups.

All of them agree that the quality and quantity of referrals passed among the members are a direct proportion to the quality of interactions, relationships among the members and the way to measure this is the frequency of 1-2-1s between the peers of a particular group.

Because, after an effective 1-2-1 with a colleague in your group will yield to an action, many current issues will be overcome concurrently at all levels.

Before that, let's examine the outcome, or the action after an effective 1-2-1 with your colleague in your group:

1. A commitment of a short term referral based on what products or services are offered, example, if your colleague is an optometrist, then you can commit a short term referral where say, in 2-weeks you will refer, say your cousin to his shop.
2. A commitment of a long-term referral based on this person's profile of customers. For example, a dentist may require more patients coming in for teeth polishing and whitening which could be more profitable as compared to a regular teeth scaling, extractions, etc.

The above 2 action items makes the referral process more predictable. Now as both parties get to work to achieve their respective commitments will solve the issues of:

1. No referrals to give, which could discourage a member from attending meetings regularly. So, now the issue of not attending is resolved.
2. Better level of excitement and energy as both parties attend their weekly meetings with qualified referrals to give.
3. This excitement and energy will now spill over in the meeting and guests visiting on the day will be enthused equally, and see the possibility of they themselves being party to this receiving and giving of referrals.

So, a simple action of a weekly 1-2-1 with another member in your referral group can be the seed, which will yield to unrecognizable results as the tree starts to grow and bear fruit!

I am so excited to see this happening, and will be moving ahead in this direction and work within the teams to make this into a successful culture in each groups so that as new members are admitted in the groups, they won't know any different. It becomes then, a natural culture.

When say 40 members in your groups conduct 1-2-1s in the spirit of teamwork, and under the philosophy of Givers Gain, then imagine the business growth each person will experience!

Meet your colleagues 1-2-1 and set referral goals

As I gear up my networking education goals for 2010, here is a thought I thought I quickly share with everyone:

If you think you can harvest greater results from your networking, then you need to engage your colleagues in your networking groups for a 1-2-1s with them.

Meet your colleagues at their places of work or offices, or shop-lots, showrooms, workshops, and gain a deeper understanding of their businesses and the type of customers they deal with on a day-to-day basis. Also enquire what categories of customers are the most profitable for them.

With this understanding, both you and your 1-2-1 partner needs to set goals as follows:

1. A short term referral, and this could even be yourself to engage in the service for your own needs, or a family member or a closed friend. Have a time line to achieve this, and say, do not exceed a month.

2. A long term referral, and this is a referral that you need to get to work to qualify for your colleague. This could be a former partner, former boss, or anyone you know needs the service of your colleague and that the business and revenue should be channelled to your colleagues' business. Time line to achieve this connection, is say, 2-months.

What is the recommended frequency for this levels of communication with your colleagues?

The recommended frequency for this level of communication with your colleagues is one member a week. Which means, on a weekly basis, your calendar must be filled with at least one 1-2-1 meeting appointment already penned in.

If your schedule is not filled in with this appointment, means you are not networking effectively enough.

Shall we get this done, people?

It takes work, people!

I am now in the process of dealing with a networking group which has hit a lull.

The group which meets for the purpose of generating referrals for each other has hit an all time low with almost no referrals to pass lately, and this has caused a high absentism rate as a result.

So, I explained to the members there that there is much work to do, however, within a period of 8-weeks after the work has begun, they will see results.

I gave an example that if a person is having knee aches, and is prescribed to take the famous Glucosamine Sulphate supplements, it will not cure the pain right away, however, within say, 4-weeks of taking the medications regularly, the pain will subside.

That was the key word: regularly.

Regularly engage in 1-2-1s with their colleagues in their group and with some commitment of both short term and long term goals, their ratio of referrals will start to increase.

But everyone must have the stamina to run. If anyone decides to quit at this juncture, then they are seriously letting the group down.

As this muddles along, I am applying the same formula in another group to enable the members there to regularly conduct 1-2-1s, so that in their case, the quality of referred business takes a leap.

Either way, the key word is: regular.

And yes folks, it takes work!

Hey you, make that call!

In a networking environment, especially when participating in Referral Generation groups, where business people meet for the purpose of exchanging quality referrals, it is essential that all members in that group have some goals as a performance indicators.

For example, every member in that group must endeavour to bring at least 2 qualified referrals for their colleagues each week.

Imagine, if this group had 30 members in it, then this will generate 60 referrals, and at random, every member can expect to receive 2 referrals each week (of course, some will receive more and some lesser).

Alongside with your current sales and follow-up activity, these 2 new referrals will be a welcomed addition to your sales funnel so that sales in the next 3-months will at least maintain, if not increase in volume.

Each time your business is in a lull moment, it is because we were not prospecting at least 3-months ago, as in average cases, it takes 3-months to convert a lead into a prospect and then evolve it into a sale.

The good news is that, networking helps to achieve this in a leveraged manner: you also have your colleagues in your group, who are your eyes and ears on the ground to bring in new leads into your business.

So, on the average, how many phone calls are you prepared to make to develop new leads for your colleagues?

If everyone makes at least 2 calls, then we're there!

So, let's make that call.

'We've got to let it simmer'

Last week, I was at a team meeting where the subject of growing memberships in their group came up from the members.

This group had added 8 members in the past 3 months and they are feeling pregnant.

And one of the ways we grow a group membership is to organize a recruitment activity via a guest day where members invite their contacts to a meeting for an overview of the group's activity.

So, they solicited my view on the matter at the end of their discussion.

Now bear in mind that it's now November and we are approaching December, where it's the holiday season and many people, including the members in this group, not to mention myself, are on holiday mood, to wind down after a very eventful year.

So I said to them, 'Let's add another 4 good and established new members from our regular weekly meetings, and now, make the total new recruits to say, 12 (remember they had added 8 recently).

'Let's ride out the year-end period with some fun activities for members and their families, for example a dinner and gift-exchange nite out. That will keep members connected, and build bondings.

'Let's not boil this pot now. We should start boiling early next year, just a few weeks after the New Year, but for now, let this simmer.

In building networking groups, sometimes we push, sometimes we pull. It takes a bit of wisdom to figure that out, but for now, I like this: 'We've go to let it simmer'!

Plant the right Questions

I was having a conversation with some colleagues after visiting their networking group last week.

In that meeting, the speaker of the week was swamped with many questions from members, which was good, however, the only drawback was that all of the questions were of personal in nature with regards to the person asking them.

They were questions like: 'how much does it cost to....?', 'where can I get information about....?'.

It was like a personal coaching done publicly when the presenter was providing answers to the questions.

So here is my take on the matter: I asked the members in the group to think about the distinction between questions of personal in nature as opposed to questions about business development.

In a networking environment, you want to ask questions that will help you leverage the moment by focusing on business development.

So, what are business development questions?

Among them:

1. Can you please share with us what is your goal on new prospects with this product line?'
2. What kind of line of questioning can I use with my contacts to position your latest product in my conversations?
3. How would I know if someone I am speaking to is the right contact for you as far as this product/service is concerned?
4. What is the most profitable product in your offering that will make it worthwhile your time meeting a new prospect?

A wise person once said, that the quality of your life depends on the quality of your questions.

Therefore, in a networking environment, if you are the key-note speaker or the speaker of the week, then it is essential that you achieve leverage in your time presenting, and among an element to consider is the questions from the audience.

It is wise to plan two or three questions well ahead of time, where you have also prepared the response meticulously to achieve this level of leverage.

Hope this helps.