By: Dan Dougherty
In my first post in this series we revealed the documented facts about personal referrals. Simply, they are the most effective form of advertising for your business. In my next post, I laid out the four reasons why referrals traditionally have not scaled. In the third post, I introduced a mobile app called Referron that enables referrals to be made at any moment from any location with three easy clicks on your smartphone. Now I want to share best practices on how to add proper process with your network to turn Referron into the ultimate referral engine for you and your business. It takes the right balance of people, process and technology.
- People.
The key to a good referral engine is engaging and connecting with the right people in your community. Seek professionals with common values, a reputation you trust and a product or service you would genuinely refer to your friends or family. More beneficial are professionals that fit this description AND are promoters of your business. This is your referral network and you should formalize and create a Referron Network Club (RNC) in your community.
- Process.
It is important to stay engaged with your RNC so that all club members are top of mind when business opportunities arise. A regular schedule of meetings with a structured format and varied agenda is the glue that will keep your RNC tight and solid for many years. Integrating thoughtful agenda topics to keep your meetings engaging and educational builds on top of the referrals and business growth.
- Technology.
Your focus should be on knowledge and revenue growth built around referrals and business growth. You need a technical platform that will support all the positive elements of modern technology. It should be in the cloud, a simple monthly subscription that enables the best of mobile and web technology to promote the people in your RNC. And is should provide easy reporting on the results of your RNC. Technology should allow your RNC to focus on growth and not on administrative duties. It should be simple and intuitive
Referron has built, in addition to the free mobile app for your smartphone, a Platform as a Service that brings the process and technology for an "Initiator" to build a Referron Network Club. It is up to the Initiator to find the people for their Club that all know, like and trust each other as business professionals. All you need to do to form your own RNC is to identify at least six professionals that all know, like and trust each other. From here you go to Referron and build your own private RNC network. Each member registers into your group and with a credit card each member agrees to pay $14.99 per month. In return members are connected to the following features and benefits:
Membership into a Referron Network Club (RNC). This Platform as a Service includes:
Enhanced functionality to your Referron Mobile App specific to your RNC:
- Your members organized into a unique Referron Mobile Group Folder.
- Referral activities within your RNC shared for tracking and reporting.
Enhanced RNC functionality to your Referron Web Portal that provides:
- Your RNC group dashboard illustrating the referrals given within this group,
- the success rates of these referrals and
- the dollar amounts of closed business leads.
- An RNC ranking report showing the best “Givers” within your RNC
An RNC process definition and supporting tools to organize and manage your RNC including:
- Network structure guidance and workbooks,
- Custom Mobile App private for your RNC community.
- Schedule options for meeting regularity and defined agendas for each meeting,
- Referral and etiqutte tips via push messages and videos.
- Business coaching.
If you would like a free one hour consulting session to define how you can build a professional Referral Engine to benefit you and your community please contact me to set a date and time for an introductory call (dan@referron.com).
