Marketing With A $0 Budget With Referral Groups Part 3

January 25, 2010

Let’s talk about some of the cons of referral groups.  First, there is sometimes a kind of pressure to refer business to people in the group.  It’s kind of like the pressure some people get from family.  For instance, you might be expected to give your business to cousin Jim because he’s a carpenter, but you don’t want to because the guy’s a train wreck.  The same thing applies with these referral groups.  As you get to know these people better, see their 30-45 minute presentation and speak with other people in the group who have referred business to them, you’ll get a good sense of whether you can trust these people and how good they are at what they do.  By no means should you give into peer pressure and refer business to people in the group you don’t trust because then you risk being the one that looks bad in the end.

BNI’s motto is ‘givers gain’.  This is the basic philosophy of each chapter: to receive, you first must give.  So don’t show up to meeting after meeting with no referrals to give, expecting to get some.  You may get a referral or two from other members, but over time people will see that you’re not giving back, so they won’t see any reason to send you any more referrals.  So take the initiative and give out qualified referrals whenever you can to people you trust.  You’ll start getting them in return.  Fast.

Now let’s get back to the $0 budget idea.  Where you can spend literally no money with a referral group is by starting your own referral group independent of BNI.  The great thing about doing this is you can tweak the BNI rules to suit yourself.  You can also determine who gets to join the group and who doesn’t so you can get the types of people that suit your business goals.  To recruit potential members you could drop off fliers in your neighborhood to both residences and local businesses and ask people to show up to a meeting at a given date/time/location.  Have the event at a local restaurant (cafes are usually too small).  Be sure to ask people to RSVP for the event before attending so you’ll know how many tables and chairs you’ll need to set aside.  You don’t want to pick a busy place at lunchtime and have lots of people showing up but no where to sit them.

Filed under: Attracting Buyers/Sellers With Email,Networking Tips

Tags: BNI, email inquiries, email newsletter, email prospects, email subject line, email training tips, network, networking, networking event, referral group