The thought of being too busy for referrals seems like nonsense, doesn’t it? I mean, who could really be TOO BUSY for new business, especially referrals, which are like gold to a business person. I mean most business professionals spend much of their time and money actually searching for business so the idea of someone being too busy for referrals just makes no sense. Well, while it might not make sense, that is the signal that MANY so called “professionals” send to others when they fail to follow upon the referrals given to them by others. I began experiencing this myself quite often…after I joined a referral group…
Whoa, now THERE’S a concept. Experiencing people who are too busy for referrals yet they actually joined a referral group to get…REFERRALS! It’s amazing to me to see how some people act and this particular scenario always struck me as incredibly odd. I mean, if someone wants to get more referrals, shouldn’t they follow up on them voraciously? Shouldn’t they than the person that gave them the referral profusely?
The fact is, time after time, referrals that are given at referral groups are not followed up on. You can attend the meeting each week and ask someone whom you gave a referral to, “Hey, how did that referral work out that I gave you?” and you will hear again and again, “Oh yeah, I was meaning to call them, I will do it this week.” Folks, if someone gives a referral, follow up NOW…within 24 48 hours at the MOST. Don’t wait for a week or longer…the referral will be dead by then almost guaranteed. Now, while I don’t like to offer excuses for lackluster business people, I will say that some people are not too busy to follow up, but they may just not value the quality of the referral itself. Let me explain.
If I make an introduction for someone to someone else that I think could really benefit from their services, I absolutely expect them to follow up quickly. After all, they just met the person so they already know each other. Not following up here would be downright rude. BUT, on the other hand, if I give someone a slip of paper with a person’s name on it and tell the person I gave it to to call that person as they might need their services, well, it is quite likely that person won’t make the call. This is because that slip of paper is a LEAD, not a referral. They know the person on that slip of paper is probably not waiting for their call. They know that when they DO make the call, they will have to make the introduction themselves…they know that this LEAD is not much more than a cold call. So, it may not be that people are too busy for referrals, but perhaps too busy for CERTAIN KINDS of referrals. If you do a good job of warming up a referral, and let the person you give it to know the other person is awaiting a call, then you can greatly increase the amount of business done between the members of your network.
Author Resource:-
Stephen Labuda is an entrepreneur who built his businesses through networking. You can connect with him through http://www.networkedevents.com.
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