This week I have delivered workshops around creating consistent referrals from the best people in your network. During one of the discussions a client said that what I was asking them to do sounded like hard work. I agreed and then explained that anything of long lasting value takes effort.
Building relationships with people is a natural thing as we get a “feeling” if we like someone or not and whether we would like to get to know them better. If we get this feeling then the building of the relationship does take effort. This is also true in a referral relationship that brings consistent, quality referrals to the clients we want.
A recent survey showed that it takes on average eight hours to get a new client. These eight hours cover such things as prospecting, making phone calls, writing proposals, sending emails, having meetings etc.
Imagine you had a target of twelve clients in a month, that would be ninety six hours of your time to get these clients. Now imagine you could identify four key people in your network who are connected to your target market prospects.
If it took you ten hours over a month or so educating these people on what you do and how to refer you to your target market clients you would have invested forty hours. This would be a saving of fifty six hours in a month. What could you do with fifty six hours?
Explaining this to my clients really helps them understand the value in investing in relationships.
What would you do with an extra fifty six hours of time in your month?
More tips?
If you enjoyed this blog and would like to how to get the most from your networking then you can download my free ebook “47 Networking nuggets” by clicking on the link below. To your continued success.