'Eating your own dog food’ in marketing terms refers to a deep, emotionless, self-examination of all aspects of your company’s operations, from the perception of the most important person in your business, the customer. You have to put down your ego and take a long hard look at your company. By the way, if you think you don’t have an ego, everyone does. The fact you think you don’t have one, proves you do.
You examine what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong, and take steps to improve the ‘customer experience’. Would you want to be a customer of your own business?
It is the same with referrals. Before you write out a referral slip, you need to examine the referral to see if it is truly a referral. You need to ask yourself the following questions.
Did the person I am referring express a need for the goods or services?
Did I talk to the person about the member I am going to refer?
Did the person give permission for contact to be made?
For those who don’t understand the definition of a referral. A referral is an introduction to a third party who has firstly expressed a need for the goods or services on offer, secondly, has been told about the person you are referring them to and thirdly, has agreed to contact being made.
I repeat that last one - 'has agreed to contact being made.'
You will no doubt have had it happen yourself, you are given a referral, you call the number on a referral slip, and the voice at the other end knows nothing about why you are calling.
Referrals are warmed up, referrals are expecting contact, and referrals WANT to be contacted.
You need to ask yourself, is this referral one I would be happy to receive myself? Am I standing up in the meeting and passing a piece of white paper, just so my fellow members don’t think I sat at my desk all week doing nothing but drinking coffee and ‘googling’ my own name?
The passing of a referral slip at the meeting should be the end of the introduction process, not the beginning. It is doing the paperwork. Chances are, you secured the referral you are about to write, yesterday or several days ago. If so, why did you not call the other person there and then?
So many times at the meetings I have been a member of, and those I have visited, I have heard one member mention in their one-minute presentation a service they offer and then, when the referral section comes around, another member passes a referral about that service. What a happy coincidence that the second member had already found a referral for the first, that just happens to be about the service just offered, Err, umm, probably not.
Mostly, these types of referrals are very tentative leads at best. It may be that there is a genuine need that has been previously expressed by the person whose name is on the referral slip, but the chances are that this is a dead end lead, not a referral.
If the one-minute presentation of your fellow member has jogged your memory about something someone else had expressed a need for, then what you should do is call THAT person first to re-establish the need, and seek permission for the referral to be passed. Then call the original member and pass on the contact details.
In this way, you have created a genuine, warmed up, qualified, referral. Next week at the meeting you can complete and pass the referral slip. The chances are the other two parties have already started to do business. So your tentative lead has been transformed into the best kind of referral, a done deal.
Here is another question for you. Do you have the contact details every member of your group stored on your mobile phone? If not, why not? It takes about fifteen minutes to do, I know I did it this morning.
There are probably going to be few times when you don’t have your phone with you, so when the conversation turns to a potential referral, by having all the numbers in your phone you have the information at hand to be able to refer them. Also if your group using the refur.com system you will be able to send a referral instantly once the need has been clarified.
To recap, passing referral slips is the end of the process, not the beginning. It can only be called a referral if the other person, needs, knows, and wants, that is to say, needs the goods or services, knows about your Chapter member, and wants to be contacted.
So you need to eat your own dog food when you pass a referral and ensure you would like to get the quality of referral you are about to give, it is simple common sense.
Module Actions
Be aware of the 'wholeness' of a referral
Remember the third test, 'has agreed to contact being made.'