Can I get an Amen?!?
I know how it feels as an elite financial advisor that is referring to other professionals, the one’s our managers and trainers told us were Centers of Influence (COI) and that could refer us back tons of business…eventually?
The reality, however, is not so rosy is it?
To be transparent, I have done hours and hours of training on how to (a) identify potential COI’s (b) get meetings with them and (c) eventually get referrals from them (hopefully). To be fair to myself, the training worked. Inside myself, I have never been satisfied with the amount of results as there seemed to be too much variance for the amount of frustration involved.
My solution (finally) after decades of coaching and training elite financial advisors like you is this: Add another definition.
My observation is that frustration is a corrosive distraction when trying to grow a successful business and when it compounds over time it can become deadly to getting the massive results from the upper percentages of success.
Step One: Separate potential COI’s from actual COI’s
We do this by introducing another category of professional relationship to your referral marketing system: Expert Service Providers (ESP)
ESP’s are those professionals that you have to refer to and/or coordinate with on a consistent basis. Some quick examples are CPA’s, Atty’s and Bankers. All of these professionals have to be in your network and ideally 3 people deep (you have to have a deep and strong bench if you want to truly realize the power of predictable referrals). Your measurement of your satisfaction with these relationships is going to be realized by the quality of service they provide your clients and the care they show you in how they ‘borrow your car’ when you refer them.
We are not going to expect referrals back from ESP’s. We are, however, going to be continually evaluating them as potential COI’s based upon a number of qualitative and quantitative factors. This will allow you to have the patience and the mindset to be attractive to them and fun to refer to in the future.
Once an ESP refers a potential client to us they immediately transfer to a COI. There is so much hope associated with the term COI (rightfully so because when it works it is a game changer) and I want that hope to be directly linked to at least a successful introduction. Note: introductions are what we want. Reward for introducing and the sales will occur naturally as you get to know the prospects.
One of the biggest advantages of this new way of looking at COI’s is that you can with far greater precision allocate your calendar to those that are most productive over those that might be productive. Shout out to my beloved coach Dick Herron and his famous quote: “Mike, you can’t eat potential”.
This has been a focus of my work with personal clients and is also something I consult with larger organizations on. It is a gamechanger from a relationship standpoint and there is a lot more depth to the design and execution of it for your personal business. The good news is this: I believe that you can get increased success, right now, from what I have shared in this blog post.
Action Steps:
1. Recategorize your contacts into ESP’s and COI’s (remember COI only if they have referred). Then, evaluate how much time you spend with each, making sure that at least 2x is given to actual COI’s as they already know how to refer you and have done it before.
2. Make sure you have at least two ESP’s in every necessary category and if not, create an action plan to identify and interview them as soon as possible.
As always, I welcome your comments, criticism and creativity. Referrals are the ‘platform’ that you own, that can never be cancelled and the only form of marketing that both requires and guarantees personal development.
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Mike
