I started doing referral marketing a year ago. I had heard bad reports like all they want is to take from you, you get nothing back from it, “didn’t work for me”. I am also a sceptical person, but as a salesperson I am always looking for another sale! This is why I went along to my first meeting.
I could see straight away that I would make money out of it but that is because what I do has a low value, and everyone has a need at some point for a branded pen, notebook or sticky note. What I was surprised with was the openness to help by other members. They also were interested to talk to me about my business and were then keen to help me find new business, straight away.
“Where is the catch?” (I heard my brain ask myself).
The main issue was the attendance, you have to come to every meeting, every week! It was my one morning a week off from being a taxi for the kids, I was going to have to give up my lie-in! I decided to jump in and give it a go.
You get in to a routine and it was much easier than I thought getting up early every week. Plus, I now have a business meeting before work, that generates me money, much better than it taking time out of my day, which I now think I would resent.
Once I found my feet, I actually enjoyed it. I got to present my company once a week, to 50+ people who were interested (or that’s what I think!) in my business and what I do for other businesses. Positive feedback and positive reinforcement from the group helped. Plus, everyone was willing to give their time to help others and I am not sure we do that in business very often.
I started to get that referral marketing is just about putting yourself out there. (tip No1 - "put yourself out there, take a risk, it might be be better than you thought!)
Later on in the year I started to go to training (yep, there is training to make you better at networking) in different areas, how to utilise social media, how to get more referrals, how to present better and have since met some amazing people on these training courses that we have done business with. This is now part of my strategy for new business to go to different training sessions in different areas. My last training session I had 4 meetings, which has resulted in £5,000 worth of business.
Without realising I became quite good at it, even addicted a little bit to it! This led me to being top in the region for 3 months running. I didn’t aim to be there, it happened because I just worked hard at it. I am not amazingly gifted at talking to people or have done referal marketing 1000's of times so that I find it easy, I just work really hard. (Tip 2 - Work hard, more you put in, the more you get out)
Is it worth it? It is a question I ask myself regularly. How much would make it worth it? And is money the only reason I now do the meetings?
From a monetary point of view; I have received £25,000 in my first year (I have actually been credited with £25,000 worth of business), which is nothing to sneeze about. I have now set my target at £50,000 of revenue, this would put referral marketing on par with some of my other top clients. How do I achieve this, I have to give 230 good referrals, this will generate me 250 referrals back (this based on my first years’ figures of what I gave to what I received). Then it will be worth it for me on a monetary level.
But I think that referral marketing is more than just a revenue stream, it has taught me to be more open, you build relationships and friendships, you gain a sense of community and belonging, and taught me to look at what I can give first before getting what I want. Can you put a price on that?
People will scoff at that. However, I will leave you with this, my wife gave birth 15 days ago to my 2nd child. I never made a big thing of it, I never shouted about it, in fact it was information that a lot of the group didn’t know. You can imagine my surprise when a large bunch of flowers ended up arriving with a note from the group saying “congratulations”, what is the price of feeling valued?
You will notice I have not mentioned at any point the group I belong too, this is not a sales pitch, nor a recruitment drive, this is not meant to say one thing is better than another. It was just to share my experience and hopefully challenge people’s perceptions of referral marketing. It has changed mine.
My door is always open, I’m happy to talk business, my referral marketing experience or just the football, what have you got to lose, you never know we might both gain something out of it. If you are interested my number and email are below.
And finally "Thank you" to my networking group, I have enjoyed my 1st year and I look forward to an even better 2nd year with you all and hopefully some more people as well.
ManicBen@Manic-Merchandise.com
Tel: 07954 523 679
