Are you developing referral business customers as your first order of business? That’s your first criterion when identifying the types of business leads worth your time for the short-term as well as the long-haul.
Otherwise you are going to be churning and burning to replace an eternally leaky pipeline. Your choice.
Developing referral business starts with a conscious decision on your part. You are going to be discriminating when it comes to selecting those leads to pursue. You want to do the type of work with your customers that makes them endorse you to their peers and to the marketplace.
Your customer base becomes your greatest advocates. Own your own business development destiny. Focus on developing referral business customers.
Developing your referral business starts with the initial sale to a new customer. You select them as a company who complements what you, yourself, bring to their business table. That new customer is someone you will enjoy doing business with. You both are on your way to a long-term partnership. The business outcomes you create for your customers becomes legendary.
Leverage your business outcomes into referral business.
Developing your referral business continues in how you develop that long-term partnership with your new customer. It’s all the things you do between initial contract signature and renewal that cements your referral business case.
Developing referral business leverages your thought leadership and industry expertise with your customers’ own thought leadership and expertise. The focus of your business relationship is synergy: the whole you both create together is worth far greater than the sum of the parts.
Developing referral business customers leads to a loyal and retained client base. Your personal methodology in executing your strategy sets you far apart from anyone else in your space. You invest your own time in educating yourself about what you don’t know. You develop a network of experts who become your sounding board.
You build professional credibility as a Businessperson of Worth. Now that’s a referral.
If you are questioning how you deliver value to your customers, ask yourself how you select those customers in the first place. When it’s with an eye towards developing referral business, the work you do becomes an art form.
Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC, is a professional development coach and management consultant. She remodels startups. She recalibrates small to medium size companies experiencing unpredictable revenue streams and inconsistent growth and expansion initiatives.
Babette was named a Social Selling 2015 Top50 Influencer and a 2014 Top 50 Marketing & Sales Influencer. Babette’s blog won the 2014 Bronze Medal, Top Sales World. Babette’s book on horizontal business development and collaboration strategies, including tools, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com.
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