Building your referral system and an important task, but equally important is the way that you systematically and automatically integrate your referral system into the everyday interaction you have in your practice.
Many professionals admit that they don’t get more referrals because they simply don’t think to ask for them. Are you one of them?
By including the “ask” into your day to day routine, it’s more likely that it will get done.
Now that you know how and why a referral system works, how can you take full advantage and learn to operate it in the most effective way to your practice?
Here are parts that should be included in your referral system operation:
- Adjust your mindset. You need first to adjust your mindset. Believe that you deserve referrals. More than that, you should have service mindset. In other words, if you will create an easy system for your clients and connections to share your valuable services with their network, you actually dis-servicing them. Remember, without adjusting your mindset, no system can help you to attract the right referrals to your practice.
- Separate partners from clients. You need completely different referral approaches and offers for clients and strategic partners. Thus, you can more easily develop referrals opportunities that make sense and motivate for the right reasons the right connections.
So while for your clients the likely motivation is that they like your services so much they want to refer you and you simply need to stay top of mind and make it easy for them to do. Hint: Ask and remind!
For partners the motivation is quite different. Your job here is to effectively position referring you in a way that helps them add value to the relationships they already have with their clients, e.g. by sharing educative content with them. - Create referrals tools & incentives. Create, teach and share education material with your relevant referral sources on how they would spot your ideal clients, your referral process etc. Created ‘white labeled’ materials for your strategic partners. Create special incentives e.g. gift certificates and give them to your referral sources. Be creative, make it easy and the referrals will be coming your way.
- Prepare and plan the Ask. Without planning when to ask for referrals nothing will happen by itself. Think and create the processes and use triggers for referral collection, e.g. services reviews, clients feedback forms etc. This will make the process of collecting referrals easier in your practice.
- Measure and Adjust. I would suggest that you have a logical path of parameters and indicators so that you can see if your referral system is successful. you can also find out via key indicator where your system might be breaking down and need focus. You may be receiving referrals, but not closing them or closing every referred lead, but just not getting enough. I know that some professional firms use a dashboard of key referral indicators as a way to set goals and measure the success of their referral initiatives.
And remember to be successful in operating your referral system is also a matter of right timing. So, if you’re not sure about plunging right into a referral process, it’s okay. If your practice isn’t in the right position for a operating the referral system, hold off until you’re ready. There is nothing more frustrating than putting effort towards something that you feel isn’t going to work.
If you’re ready to learn how to operate your referrals system constantly and consistently, check out this special episode of Your Next Referral within our SWITCH membership.
