If you interact with your clients, customers, referral sources, and contacts with a referral mind-set, show them that you are a giver, help others, and continually and strategically give referrals, you’re modelling the behaviour you want others to exhibit toward you. By itself, however, that’s not enough to train them to give you referrals.
Contacts who are not involved in your strong-contact network may not be aware of what is involved in the kind of true referral networking that you are conducting. Often you will have to coach them as you go, letting them know exactly what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what they may expect from your efforts.
The following are three ways in which you can train your Referral Partners:
- Be Open To Communication:
By talking openly about what you’re doing, you’re not only modelling the behaviour you want from your potential referral partner, you’re getting him to think about it, which is an essential part of learning. You’re also asking him to practice it in a way that will help him repeat the behaviour later. It’s not a guarantee that he will reciprocate, but it makes it more likely that he will get the idea and respond in kind–at first, out of simple gratitude; later, out of the realization that a continuing referral relationship is good business for both of you. - Private Training:
Arrange training for all individuals within the partner organisation and provide them with support information / documentation, so they can confidently talk to their clients about how you can help them, and answer any questions their clients might have.
- Provide Resources:
Use resource pages to train and educate your referral partners so they can do a good job marketing for you. Create pages that educate them about new products, product benefits, etc. or teach them how to use new marketing strategies (social media, blogging, etc.). Give them wording for Tweets or links to videos they can use in their own web pages to promote your business. Resource pages can also be used to give partners access to exclusive content – white papers, videos, etc.