Yesterday I attended an excellent day of seminars focusing on growing your business with a view to a more holistic growth of the self.

I brought home several messages, but primarily the fact that growth is organic. Start-up businesses are usually driven by one or two people with a vision – people who are passionate about what they do and feel supremely confident that their product or service offers something special.

It’s easy to become disillusioned when clients aren’t bashing down the door within the first weeks of trading.

But look at it from their point of view – they don’t know you, you don’t have a track record, no one has recommended you.

Research shows that people are most highly motivated by personal recommendation. We also know that trust plays a big part in the purchase process, and this comes from knowing who you are, realising that others trust you and seeing evidence of your success.

If you’re advertising and getting no response, it could be because ads don’t offer trust.

How do you gather evidence of success without the clients, and how do you pull in the clients without evidence of success? – a classic catch 22.

The answer is networking. Everyone has an address book – physical or online – or a box of business cards. Talk to your friends, join business networks, get out there and convey your passion to others. BNI is a good one to start with.

Be prepared to practise patience, as it’s hard to gauge the knock-on effect of your interactions. Networking – What it is and What it isn’t is a useful article explaining the dynamics of business networking.

But be assured that it will pay off in the end. Because as soon as someone who knows you decides to take a chance and try your product or test your service, you’ve got the opportunity to prove your passion is justified. You begin to build a portfolio of success. AND you build a list of clients who are willing to recommend you to others.

But don’t leave it there. Leverage on your success – use it as evidence to persuade others to give you a try. Ask your clients to refer others to you.

And beware of trying to appear bigger and more successful than you are – tempting as it is. Trust also grows out of honesty and integrity.

Our small business, PublicityShip, began with jobs gathered from friends, network colleagues and pro bonos. We still have a relatively small portfolio, but the success we’ve had with those first few clients is – we think – impressive.

While we’re continually reviewing and refining our strategies and processes, we still believe passionately in what we do, and the portfolio justifies our passion.

Heads are now turning, potential clients are taking notice, people are talking about us … this is what we want. And this is just the start of our steady organic growth.

Small businesses can take off when referrals drive business and news spreads by word-of-mouth.
But other than making sure the quality of your product/service is up to scratch, what can you do to get word of mouth working to your advantage? A golden rule for referrals is that you need to ask for them! And be as specific as you can. Here are four ideas to inspire you to action.

Start your own Referral Plan

Don’t just think about referrals – plan for them! Write down a list of the people who may be willing to refer you. Customers and suppliers should be considered, but review all of your business associates. Consider who in your business can participate in a referral campaign – involve as many of your staff who can contribute, and get them to list people they know as well. Write down the specific request you want to make – what do you want people to to do for you? Do you want them to call or email about you, or do you want permission to mention their name when you call? You should also be specific about what sort of person you want to be referred to. Talking about the specific type of person can trigger the thought. Set up simple targets and pin it up on the wall – how many requests for referrals will be made this month?

Join a face to face networking group.

Joining a networking group can mean investing time and money to get the value from the group, but are potentially a very effective referral mechanism. Community based groups such as Rotary are not designed as networking groups, but function well in this area. Consider BNI (Business Network International) however if you are interested in a group explicity focussed on small business referrals. A BNI group gets together to learn about each other’s business (in some detail) so they can have confidence in referring each other. Expect to pay $800-$900 to join for the first year and half that again each year, plus possibly the cost of your breakfast each week, so it doesn’t come cheap. But find the right group and you have a great opportunity to build a regular base of referrals. While any profession or type of small business can join, BNI is very popular with mortgage brokers, insurance brokers and financial planners. In case you are interested, I was an active member of a BNI chapter until recently, but don’t have any financial stake in the organisation. Its a good outfit, and I’m happy to refer them 🙂

Join an online networking group

An online networking group can take less of your time, and the trade off is you don’t get the same level of personalised attention. However, why not try it and see? I’ve just joined (today) the Propulsion business network to see how it works, but there are many others to choose from. Expect to see many, many more.

Never eat alone

If you really want to get *really* inspired about networking, get a copy of Keith Ferrazzi’s intense Never Eat Alone from Amazon. Read this chapter excerpt about Connecting with Connectors or have a look over at Keith Ferrazzi’s blog. I found this a great book, not because I was inspired to implement every suggestion (a scary thought), but because of its clarity and sheer volume of influential concepts. The Networking Action Plan outlined in the book is a practical, action oriented approach to networking, and one every small business could probably benefit from.

So, there you have four ways to get started on referrals and building word of mouth. What has worked well to build your referrals?