I recently had the opportunity to spend some family time in Seattle. It was an outstanding time to share memorable moments with my family. And, because I love the mission of my network marketing company, I made it a priority to include a visit to a BNI meeting in Seattle to keep up the momentum in my business, meet new friends and share the business.
I wanted to extend my word-of-mouth network marketing through creating new relationships.
I mention BNI because Ivan Misner, founder of BNI International did a brilliant job in creating a structure and strategy for helping people build their businesses with the help of other business builders.
BNI is really about relationships. It is extending yourself to know someone else’s business and they do the same for your business. It is knowing their business well enough that as you market your business you may be meeting with a prospect that mentions a need that exactly matches the services of this other business builder. You ask permission to give the service provider their name and number and you do so. That is creating a referral. When you can have 30 people actively out promoting their own business and at the same time keeping your business in mind, you have a virtual sales team.
On my journey learning, understanding and implementing a referral marketing strategy, I was introduced to two important concepts. The first is a tool called Team 100. This is a team of like-minded business builders who you can trust, are responsible, and provide quality service in their specific category of business. The Team 100 is a list of industry categories and subcategories. When someone you like, trust and know that their work is quality; you want to ask them to be part of your Team. You explain that this is a powerful team that not everyone qualifies to be a member. It is your team and you pick the members. You share with them to be a member is
1. provide outstanding service;
2. be someone that actively refers business to other business builders
3. is actively marketing their business.
When someone agrees to be on your team, now it is time for you to get to know each other well.
Creating a professionally deep relationship. Learning about their values and goals:
1. business;
2. personal;
3. and financial.
And learning about what are the challenges they have faced. As Tony Robbins suggests this is defined as learning about their world.
The second concept is The Golden Rule of Referral Marketing. To get referrals you must give referrals.
BNI has a motto, givers gain. Referral Marketing is about helping someone meet a goal, and when you do this you instantly become a “value-added” friend. (Ivan Misner) Now that is building a relationship that has deep roots and will provide each of your businesses with much nutrition to grow in the form of referrals.
How are you building quality relationship? When was the last time you gave a referral?