One of the fundamentals of referral marketing is helping others, and the more people you help, the more people will help you.
Sometimes it’s easier to be the first to ask a potential referral partner, “How can I help you?” This puts you at an advantage for numerous reasons.
First of all, most people don’t usually go around offering help, so we’re often taken aback when someone takes a genuine interest in how they could help you and then even more so when they help.
Offering to help first does several important things. It catches the person off guard so they’re less likely to go into a defensive mode or power through on autopilot. They now see you in a different light and have a different perspective on who you are.
When someone takes a genuine interest and offers to help, then successfully follows through with helping, the relationship strengthens and grows. The person who you’ve helped now feels like they know you (if they didn’t already before), they feel like they can trust you (because you deliver on what you say you’ll do), and because you helped them, they probably like you too and view you as a positive influence.
So in summary, when you offer to help first, you place yourself in a position where the other person likes, knows and trusts you. Which is exactly the type of person we’re all geared towards working with.
By positioning yourself in this way, it will now be easier to ask the other person for a helpful favour in return, and increase the likelihood that they’ll help you. In the end, it’s a win-win for everyone. So go try it now… offer someone genuine help.