The professional services industry relies greatly on referral relationships for new business. It’s the most tried-and-true source of leads. In fact, in a professional services survey by PSM, 70% of new business is from referrals. That’s why it’s extremely important for businesses to get referral relationships right.

In this new 2 Minutes On series titled How to Make Referral Relationships Work, you will learn the eight things that really make a difference in a referral relationship.

Navigate seamlessly through the rest of the series by clicking on one of the links below.

• Part 1 ­– Why Do Relationships Fail?
• Part 2 – Re-Engineer Your Business Processes and Get the Top 5
• Part 3 – Create a Combined Value Proposition, Systemise, and Make It Easy
• Part 4 – Qualify More, Add Value, and Commit

And now here’s Jeff Cooper to tell you more about re-engineering your business processes and getting the top 5.

The following text is a transcript of the video.  

Re-Engineer Your Business Processes

Look at it as much more than signing a referral document.

You see, most people think a referral agreement in a referral relationship is the commission that you might get for the referral or a statement of our work agreement or a set of rules about how we exchange leads. 

The issue is, they sign the document — and they put it in the bottom draw. And when they forget about the document, they forget to refer.

We like to say that it’s much more about looking at the business processes across their client’s journey and working at the embedding points along there where you can make sure that they think about introducing partners on both sides.

So look at your briefing templates, your pitch templates, your product delivery, some of the documents that you have around ongoing management; and look for the points where both partners, on both sides, can put in a prompt to make sure that diverse new-business professionals across the business always think to ask for an introduction.

So if you have a diagnostic tool and it’s got six areas that look at your business, then how can you have a seventh area that looks for your referral partner’s business? And make sure that if that box gets ticked, or if they need services, there’s a systemised way to make that introduction.

Get the Top 5

The second one is, know the top 5 need-states, products, services, opportunities, or questions that need find for your business and for your partners.

Now if you’re selling your own business, or you’re working for a business that you’ve worked for a long time, you do this naturally. There are certain keywords, phrases, situations, issues, and diagnoses that just bring to mind the matching of services.

For your partner, it’s not that easy. And for you introducing them, it’s not easy either. So you want to get down to a list of five — five questions, products, services, need-states, or diagnoses that we can train all the new-business professionals across both sides to find. “If you see one of these five things, then call our referral partner on this number.”

By simplifying it and taking out the math they need to do in each interaction, you make it easy for them to identify when there’s a lead that’s right for you — and hopefully, they’ll do the same in reverse.

Are you interested on becoming Step Change’s referral partner? Fill in the referral partner form below, and let’s chat.

Jeff Cooper is Step Change’s Founding Partner. Jeff learnt his most valuable lessons in strategic thinking by spending his own money. His entrepreneurial pursuits began back in 2004 when he started his first business, designing exhibition spaces and running events, eventually giving birth to an interactive event concept later adopted by the likes of Big Day Out and other major festival organisers. A decade later, in 2014–2015, startups Jeff was involved in raised over $1m in investment, and Step Change — which he co-founded — became a multimillion-dollar strategy consultancy, serving clients across five continents. He’s a true generalist, with ownership and Board interests in businesses from retail solar to beauty and beyond, at life stages from startup to over $150m revenue annually.