"There are so many prospects to call on! I really don't know where to start! If only I had a system that I could handle." Jane was tossing and turning in bed at 4 a.m. Her husband sat straight up in bed and said, "enough, you're driving me crazy. Tomorrow I will take you to Mr. Bob who knows about systems for crazy people like you. Now let's get some sleep."
After breakfast Harry phoned Mr. Bob to find if he could spend time with his sleep-deprived wife. At 10:30 am they had settled down in Mr. Bob's deli and were sipping on their double Turkish coffee. Mr. Bob walked over and commented, "You must be really desperate to be drinking that stuff."
Jane started by explaining that in her financial services business she was spending too much time running around doing a lot yet still producing few results. She knew that she had to simplify her efforts to build and grow her business.
Mr. Bob thought for a moment, smiled and recounted a true story of someone with a similar problem whom he had helped.
"I have a good friend named Bruce," he said. "We both like systems that make our lives simple. With our collective knowledge we came up with Bruce's Funnel system."
"In essence, we took all of Bruce's market and put them at the top of an imaginary funnel. As members of this market became more and more interested in Bruce's products, they became hotter and hotter prospects as they reached the spout at the bottom of the funnel."
"These prospects then became customers. That is the model of how we qualified his potential market. The reason for this model was to put in place promotions that would move a prospect towards being a customer. Newsletters, seminars and articles accomplished this for Bruce."
Bruce was now free to spend more time on productive things. Of course, he spent time working with his customers but he recognized that he needed to build better relationships and turn customers into clients. Customers just buy stuff whereas clients have a stronger relationship.
"Bruce also recognized that there was a third category. These categories produced referrals and in some cases were not customers or clients. They could be friends, family and associates. He recognized that this resource was his most profitable."
"Bruce's strategy was to concentrate on building more word of mouth referrals from his existing referral partners and spending time to increase this referral network to others."
"The results of his efforts were quite interesting. He found that the promotional activities became a liability, and the real revenue producers were his word of mouth referral networks."
Jane just sat there stunned.
"You mean that Bruce spent most of his time working with people who gave him referrals, and converting clients and identifying other natural referral producers? How did he do it?"asked Jane.
Mr. Bob replied that, in Bruce's case, he loved to play golf and he built relationships by playing golf with people who were likely to give him referrals. Others, he took to plays or sent them tickets, took to dinner and, to some, he just said "thank you" and mean it, the results are huge.
The point is people like to be recognized and appreciated for helping you. When you say thank you and mean it the results are huge.
In summary:
- Identify your referral producers
- Set up a system to monitor referrals
- Say thank you for referrals
- Don t waste time with non-referral-generating pastimes
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