They tell you to get out and network and the work will come in. But what happens if it doesn’t? What happens if you find yourself having endless coffees that go nowhere? Most of us take our referrals very laissez-faire. If they come, they come, and that isn’t helpful! Then we console ourselves by remembering that referrals from existing clients are often a bit random. Something we can’t influence. They just happen. Actually, we can influence this far more than we think. Welcome to a free edition of Start Up To Grown Up: Your source for ideas, insights and tactics to take back control of your business and scale it sustainably and profitably by Heather Townsend, award-winning author of The Accountants’ Millionaires’ Club and Founder of The Accountants’ Growth Club Start with who you want as a client If you don’t know who you want as a client, that’s a massive red flag. How can you give the right message to the marketplace when you haven’t decided what the message is? You’re potentially asking your introducers to guess. When they have to guess they will either go to a more trusted firm or individual OR they may guess wrong. You may be sitting here smugly thinking, of course I know the target client for our firm. But my challenge to you is how detailed and specific are you? For example for our Accountants’ Growth Club business we are targeting accounting firms with 1-2 decision makers, revenue of between £50k and £2m, UK or Ireland based, typically under 20 members of staff with a desire to grow and scale their business. Then if I consider our How To Make Partner business, we have 2 audiences. Learning and development managers, or those with the responsibility for this, in regional and mid tier firms with the brief to support partner development. Or individuals that are 0-3 years away from making partner or 0-3 years since making partner in a professional services firm. We mainly target accountants, lawyers and consultants. Your target market doesn’t need to be sector based or a certain size, but it helps. What you need to be able to do is describe their challenges and problems. Have they run out of time? What do they want taken off their list? What are they saying to themselves, and to the people around them? The problem is most professionals tend to describe their ideal client in fairly vague terms, such as growing business, ultra high net wealth individuals, SMEs. And this then makes it hard for when you should get the referral rather than someone else. You’ve read this far… so go on, press the subscribe button so you don’t miss another article which are published weekly. Roll out the red carpet For most established firms, the number one route to market should be client referrals. Deliver a great client service and clients refer. So if not many referrals are coming through look at your firm’s service levels. You may have a service issue stopping referrals from coming through. To get more referrals from existing clients, takes time and focus. It shouldn’t be left to chance. Firstly go through your client base and identify your good clients. It is likely that they are a good fit for your ideal client. But they may have a track record that they refer the right kind of people or are well connected enough that they could. It goes without saying that your team like working with them and they pay on time. These good clients need to be deliberately over serviced.That means: * highlighting them on your CRM or practice management system * telling your team that these clients get not just great service but as Geoff Ramm would say, celebrity service. * Define what celebrity service would mean like, e.g. how quickly do their queries get answered? Do they get ‘extra’ features or benefits given to them for free? Your aim for these clients is that they regularly rave about your firm. Very often what really happens in firms is the client that shouts loudest gets the best service. These clients may be the ones that are your smaller clients. Meanwhile the client paying ten times the fees, who is lovely to deal with and never causes a fuss, gets neglected. The same goes for any client an introducer has sent you. Too often we say “thank you very much” and then treat them like every other client. These clients need the red carpet service. You want word to get back to the introducer that this was a great referral to make, and that their trust has been repaid. Who’s above and below you in the food chain? The best external introducers are already working with your ideal client, before you, alongside you or after you. Take an accounting firm. Their natural introducers include: * Insolvency practitioners * Bankers * IFAs * The local corporate solicitor and the local employment solicitor * Whoever runs the local networking group This is a list of very well connected people. Your list of people highly connected to your ideal client is likely to include people that are well connected to your peers. They will always have options for who gets the referral. That’s why its so important to very precise about who you work with and what is a great referral for you. There are likely to be competitors that will take on work you don’t do and vice versa. For this reason it is worth building a good relationship with your competitors as work will flow if the relationship is strong and trusted. You’ve read this far… so clearly finding it valuable. So… go on, press the subscribe button so you don’t miss another article which are published weekly. Give your introducers a box to put you in Introducers make a snap decision, so they need to be able to put you in a box. Why would I give this work to you rather than the other four people like you that I know? For example, I’m known as the person that helps people in professional services make partner. Not an executive coach, business development coach, leadership trainer, professional speaker (even though I do all of these things). That’s my box. When it comes to speaking to introducers we often talk about table stakes when talking about our box. Nearly everyone that does what you do are responsive, client focused, speaks the clients language etc. This means you need to unpack your points of difference when you think about your box. For example, if you say you are responsive, what does that really mean? How quickly are emails answered? Do your clients get a dedicated contact? Your box also tells introducers who not to send you. For example, two firms can both be responsive and suit completely different clients. One is brilliant for the client who needs a lot of hand-holding. The other is brilliant for the client who needs putting on the naughty step and telling, very straight down the line, to stop doing that. Same word, two very different firms. When you have defined your box precisely, introducers are far more likely to send the right client to the right firm. In summary Referrals aren’t random, and you can influence them. Firstly, you need to have a tightly defined ideal client. Then where you have clients who have been referred to you OR you know are in a position to refer you, over service these. Lastly, your introducers need to put you in a box. One where they can describe what you do and who to send to you in just one sentence. They will typically be making a quick decision about who they will refer. Your job is to make it easy for them to refer. Related reading Get full access to Start Up To Grown Up at startuptogrownup.substack.com/subscribe
