Marketing Reps: 15 minutes
Mine your leads. Instructions here.
Project: Clients
This week, we’re going to build a referral web in your community.
Take out your list of neighborhood businesses from yesterday.
As you did Tuesday, introduce one of your clients to each business in your neighborhood.
Here are the instructions on doing so. But since these neighbors might be strangers, there are two new rules:
- Don’t do a blind introduction. If the business owner didn’t respond to your email yesterday, don’t send them a new client yet.
- If you don’t have a client who could use their service, don’t introduce one.
For example, I have a communications company, a cab company, a water delivery service and a cafe surrounding my gym. There’s also a snack machine delivery company next door.
Going through my client list, I can spot a client who might benefit from the 24-hour door access setup that the communications company provides. I can spot about 5 clients who would love the cafe. But I don’t know any clients who would use the cab company or who have snack machines, so I’ll save those for later.
This morning, I will introduce a client to the communications company and about 5 clients to the cafe (“Hey, do you ever visit the cafe? I thought I’d introduce you to Mary, the owner – that way, if you ever want to grab lunch on your way out of the gym, you can just email her here and she’ll have it ready for you.”)
What’s the win here? Eventually, these businesses will start to refer back to you. But the REAL win is that you’re becoming a connector. Being a connector is a meta-skill that will create more opportunities for you long-term. There’s no downside; it gets better with time; and no one can compete with it.
Remember, the first few reps of any skill are hard. As you do them, they become habits: the more you look for opportunities to connect people, the more you’ll spot them (and they’ll become really obvious). Connecting people will become a habit. As you practice that habit, it will become a skill…and when connecting people is a skill, you will have ideas, partnerships, sponsorships and other opportunities start to flow your way. After years of doing this, connections are automatic for me, and I have more opportunities than I can possibly accept.