Networking - building your referral database

Building your networking database is an ongoing part of your business development project.

This is one of projects that is never completed. Your prospecting database is always changing, your current client list is always changing. Your past clients list is always changing.

What strategies do you have in place to help you develop and refine your database?
What processes do you have in place to review and refine marketing efforts?

This does not have to be a huge undertaking - in fact if you schedule regular reviews it will just be a matter of tweeking here and there.

As you review you should be asking some basic questions.

Is the wording of my messages the bet they can be?
Is the topic of my message the best it can be?
How can I say this a different way?
Am I gathering the correct information?
Do I have my lists organized in the best way.

Can you overthink these things? Yes - it is an easy thing to do. But you should setup a review process for these important questions at least every 3 - 6 months. The more you build and develop your lists and the more experience you gain marketing efforts using your lists the better you will understand how to improrve on your processes.

I hope this information helps, I always welcome comments and subscribers.
(photo courtesy of Dominik Gwarek (kikashi)

Getting started with your referral marketing plan

Now that you have gathered all of your contact data in one place and organized the information into groups you are almost ready to start using the information.

Are you surprised at the number of contacts you have gathered? Most people are. Usually you will end up with a lot more contacts that you thought you had.



The next two steps of segmenting your contacts data into groups and stages are really important.

Groups
Think about how you would speak to a person that has referred someone to you.

Think about how you would speak to someone who is a past client.

Think about how you would speak to new prospective client.

Think about how you would speak to someone who was referred to you by an associate.

This demonstrates the group separation.

Stages
Think about how would speak to people as you go through the stages of relationship.

You would not have the same dialogue with different groups or people in different stages of a relationship. This is why you should sort your prospect list based on the type of relationship you have with each group and the stage of ongoing diolouge you will have with each group.

Let's use one possible group as the example:
Someone who was referred to you by an associate.

With this specific group in mind write at least 7 messages to that "person".

Dear {name},

I was asked by (referral source} to contact you about assisting you with the mortgage for the your new home purchase. ..........

--------

Dear {name},

Thanks for taking the time to discuss you mortgage needs for your home purchase......

----- or

Dear {name},

I tried to reach you to discuss you mortgage needs. I was asked by {referral source} to contact you....

------

Here is where the work comes into the equation. You have to invest the time to brainstorm ideas for ongoing communication. You can also base the tone of the message based on the steps you know will happen.

1 introduction
2. follow-up on contact
2a. follow-up on no reply
3. confirm meeting
4. meeting follow-up

Importance of regular contact
The content is important and you should invest some quality time developing your messages but even more important is regular contact. You have their information and you should invest the time to establish a regular communication channel with your contact list.

Building a referral marketing list

In referral based marketing your list is everything.

If your goal is to obtain most of your business from referrals you have to have a marketing list. In fact you will have more than one list.

The reason I say you will have more than one list is that there are different types of groups of referral prospects and you will be in different stages of your relationship with the people in each group.

Here are some examples.

Groups: prospects, clients, referral partners, vendors, and friends.

Stages: New, recently meet, trying to meet, recently referred someone else, was just referred to you, and established contact but has not referred anyone.

These are not all of the groups or stages your groups can belong to but it should give you the idea.

I think you will find that referral groups and stages of relationship are something that will grow and evolve as your referral marketing plan matures.

The important point is that you spend time on a regular basis refining the groups and stage descriptions for your list(s) and that you are thinking about how you want to talk to each group at each stage.

If you do not have your referral list formalized now is the time to get started.

You will be surprised at the number of names you already have.

• Gather up all of the business cards you have laying around
  
• Go through all of your emails
• Sort through all of your business agreements and applications
• Go through all of the note pads you have

Once you have all of the names and contact information in one place you should divide them into a few basic groups and stages. Use the examples here as beginning suggestions. Don't worry if the groups and stages are not perfect. They never will be. This is something that will change and evolve as your referral marketing plan evolves. The important thing is to get started.

In the next post I will give you some ideas on how to decide what to say to get your referral marketing plan launched.