Skyrocket Sales Through Top Strategic Partners

I’ve come up with the formula for the perfect referral partner.

This comes after recognizing trends between my top strategic partners that supported over $450k in 2010 referral revenue.

As a relationship marketer, I believe that if I seek the following traits in every referral partner, I can duplicate the results of my top 20% in every strategic relationship.  Here are those traits:

1. Prospecting Machine – Top referral partners are working harder than you are to grow their client database.  They are at tons of networking events, they are pounding out one-on-ones, and they’re cold calling to expand their circle of influence.  An aggressively growing client base is one that you can leverage.

2.  Best-of-Breed – In Networking 101, you look for strategic partners that you can intuitively trust with an immediate introduction.  They don’t have to be business veterans or top performers – just a trusted partner.  If you want skyrocketing referral sales, then you must look for partners who are at the top of their game.  Award winners.  Number one producers.  Veterans in the game of success.

3.  Proactive Introducer – A partner who has a deep database, and doesn’t introduce you, is worthless.  The best referral partners are those who will pick up the phone, call a contact, introduce you, and then hand you the phone to close the appointment.  A great strategic partner will put you in their car for an afternoon and drive you to each of their clients offices, walk you in, introduce you, and step back to let you get the meeting.  Push your referral partners to create this kind of relationship today.

4.  Whatever It Takes – As nod to number three, number four says that your referral partners will bend over backwards to create an introduction.  They’ll schedule a lunch, let you jump-in on a previously scheduled meeting, come to the holiday party, and throw themselves in front of the “introduction bus” in order to get you introduced.

5.  Relationship – My best referral partners are those I have relationships with outside of business.  We watch Revenge together on Wednesday nights, while having dinner and playing with our kids.  We go boating on Geist in the summer, and enjoy chili cook offs in the fall.  We spend time getting to know one another and building trust.

6.  Mutual Understanding of Each Others’ Business – The best referral partners can do appointments together.  Yes, together.  They can show up to sell a client, sell each others product benefits, and both walk out with orders.

Networking is easy.  Creating a successful relationship marketing campaign is not.  It takes guts, risk, relationship, trust, and hard work.  If you’re willing to put in the effort, you can create dozens of new client relationships through one GREAT strategic partner.

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a sales and marketing expert who helps companies without a sales force have a sales force.  To receive your free trial of a software that will track your referral revenue, centralize social media updates, and automate email/text/postcard marketing, click here.

Do You Have a Relationship Marketing System?

If you answered yes to having a relationship marketing system, I bet you are loving every minute that you invest in networking.  If you answered no, I bet you are overwhelmed with all of the networking options coming at you, how much time you have invested, and the lack of results coming in.  

 

There are so many options to network that you could literally spend your entire work week networking, solely networking.  This is why it is so important to stay consistent and develop a monthly system for your networking.

 

Here is an example and a great system to take and run with:

 

1.  Become a leader within a specific networking event - Rainmakers has many of these events and I suggest you work your way into leadership with an event that fits for you.  There are two reasons why becoming a leader within a certain event will help you.

          a.  You will commit to be there regularly.

          b.  Everyone starts to know your name and all the great things about you and anyone you invite sees through third-party endorsement how popular and fantastic your business is.

          c.  You leverage this event to save time by inviting people that you have been introduced to or met along the way to come to this event as a first step in meeting (versus doing a one-to-one meeting with each and every person you meet).  This tip alone will save most people ten hours a week (minimum).  Leverage the event to prequalify for one-to-one meetings.

 

2.  Get on a power circle (sometimes called a referral team) -  Have regular monthly meetings with a group of people that call on the same client you do.  Produce results to grow each others business and build friendships.  Before you know it, you will be doing ride-alongs, open calendar, tag-teaming, joint calling days and lock-ins with each other and producing multiple referrals each month for one another.

 

3.  Have a “FAB 5″ - Have five strategic partners that you meet with on a one-to-one meeting basis (at least) each month.  Each and every one of these five people produce leads and connections each and every one-to-one meeting for you and you do the same for them.

 

Need help with this?  That’s why you bought a Rainmakers membership….we are experts at this stuff and ready to teach you what we know.  Contact nikki@gorainmakers.com for tips and strategies to put a relationship marketing system in place for you and your business.

 

Nikki Lewallen is the Vice President of Business Development for Rainmakers Marketing Group, and has spent over 10,000 hours mastering the art of generating revenue from relationships.  Learn more from Nikki live at Creating a Word of Mouth Marketing Machine.

Stop Wasting Time Networking

If you ever feel like you’ve wasted time networking, the blog is for you.

As part of my former role as the President of Rainmakers Marketing Group, I taught a semi-monthly seminar called Creating a Word of Mouth Marketing Machine.  At the beginning of the seminar, I ask “what roadblocks are holding you back from creating success in relationship marketing?”

Every session, somebody says “managing my networking time!”

So, here it is, 6 keys on how to stop wasting time while networking.

1. Do your initial one-on-one’s over the phone - It takes you 30-minutes to leave your office and drive to Panera, and then another 30-minutes to drive back and get resituated to work.  If you aren’t certain that the person you’re meeting with is going to make you money, have your initial meeting over the phone.  You can have 3 times as many meetings, and are guaranteed to spend your quality face-time with relationships that generate revenue.

2. Set an agenda for your meeting - I love hearing about your kids, dogs, and recent trip to Idaho, but what I really care about during an initial one-on-one is whether or not we share the same target market, are part of the same life/business event, are part of the same client conversation, have a similar sales cycle, and are best of breed.  Those are the primary items that will make a good strategic relationship.  Second to that is us getting along as networking buddies.  Let’s save all of the relationship building personal stuff for our future or social meetings, because frankly, I don’t even know if we’ll see each other again.

3.  Only meet with strategic relationships - Have you ever finished a one-on-one and thought, “what a waste of time”, or “if one more person tries to sell me Agel…”  If you want to eliminate those thoughts, only do one-on-ones with people who see the same clients that you do.  In other words, only meet with potential strategic partners, becuase they’re the ones who will make you money.  PS – only attending networking events that are chocked full of your potential strategic partners also falls in line with this suggestion as well.  I bet that will save you 30-50% on your one-on-one time right there.

4.  Use customer relationship marketing software (CRM) - Using a CRM system like AddressTwo or SalesForce will save you a ton of follow up time. Both of these systems allow you to set automatic reminders of when you need to follow up with someone, connect to social media, and can send an email from inside of the software.  If you’re using an excel spreadsheet or Outlook to store your contact database, trash it, grow up, and get a CRM like a big boy business owner, so you can save some time.

5.  Block time to network - Networking takes time – especially if you’re good at it.  Take a moment at the end of every week to block out time in the next week for networking events, one-on-ones (and ONLY schedule the one-on-ones during your blocked times), data entry, and follow up (aka building bridges).  When I was generating $200k a year in revenue for a small business through relationship marketing, over 60% of my time was spent on networking activities.

6.  Just say no - If you’re asked to be on a referral team or do a one-on-one that isn’t a strategic fit, just say no.  Tell them the reason is becuase you’re, “making a concerted effort to only meet with people who see the same client I do”.  If the person requesting your time is a really good fit, they’ll fight for your time.  If not, they’ll back down, and you can instantly introduce them to someone who will be a good strategic fit.

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a sales and marketing expert who helps companies without a sales force have a sales force.  To receive your free trial of a software that will track your referral revenue, centralize social media updates, and automate email/text/postcard marketing, click here.

How to Work a Room

The Anatomy of a Room

When you enter the room at a networking event, you will encounter 3 types of people:

prospects, suspects, and fluff.

Prospects are great strategic contacts for you.

Suspects are great people for your current set of strategic partners to meet.

Fluff are people who don’t have a positive or negative impact to your strategic network – they are just there.

In a room of 60 networkers, 2 are prospects, 40 are good for your network (suspects), and 18

are fluff.

Prospects (2)	Suspects (40)	Fluff (18)
Room of 60 at a Networking Event

When you’re meeting new people at a networking event, notice that the best thing that you can do is work for your strategic partners, and build a team of strategic partners who are working for you. This is annuitized leverage at its best.

Don’t get discouraged when you meet people at an event that aren’t a good fit for you or your strategic network; you’re supposed to. The key to effectively managing a networking event is to know exactly who you want to meet on your strategic tree, and meet enough people in the room to get introductions to those people.

You won’t get there by chatting with 3 people. An effective relationship marketer meets at least 10-15 new people per event in order to find good introductions to new strategic partners and good introductions for their strategic partners.

 

 

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a sales and marketing expert who helps companies without a sales force have a sales force.  To receive your free trial of a software that will track your referral revenue, centralize social media updates, and automate email/text/postcard marketing, click here.

2011 in 2011: Experience More! – Jamar is the President

 Rainmakers is one of the most unique relationship marketing companies in the world.  We have gotten here by being flexible with market needs, and finding innovative solutions to achieving the result of creating revenue through relationships.

At first, we were an events company; hosting events with 100-700 people in attendance.  Then we focused on our ability to grow our members’ businesses through a business development system.  This strategy was followed by networking in targeted groups called power circles.

Our next strategic move is to shift our event strategy in Indianapolis from one action board/power circle hosting an event to 3-5 power circles hosting an event. 

We have seen this model work wonders for energy and attendance at the AM Brownsburg and Rush Hour events.

This “hub and tether” strategy will:

- increase membership attendance at events to improve the energy and experience,

- add more guests per event so our members always have a fresh pool of contacts,

- and give Rainmakers more financial and manpower resources to promote each event thoroughly and increase attendance.

The visible result of this change, beginning with Indianapolis’ June events, is that there will be less events with more people at them.

Here are the events that are “experiencing more” beginning June 1st:

• AM Carmel – (Includes Northwest tether)
• AM Fishers – (Includes Starting Point tether)
• Bridges to Enterprise – (Includes Manufacturing & Mid-sized B2B tether)
• Techmakers
• Boomers & Beyond
• Rush Hour (Includes Commercial Property and Property Management tether)
• West Lunch
• Avon (Includes Plainfield tether)
• Brownsburg (Includes Homebased and Emerging Business tether)
• Jumpstart
• South Lunch

 All other Indy events are closed as of June 1st, and have been converted to power circles that are attached to the events that are “experiencing more”.

As you read through the list, you notice that our hubs are not completely filled with tethered power circles.  We have 6 new power circles going through a Leadership Development Program that teaches new power circle leaders how to run an effective 20-25 person group, and are actively recruiting more leaders.  Please reach out to me if you would like more details about jumping into this program for our existing and emerging leaders.

If you lead a power circle that is not listed above, we would love to get you officially tethered to an event.  Please contact me to get that going.

We have also created a 27-point marketing plan that will drive more traffic to each hub through email and social media marketing.

The Main Event is being re-worked, and will come back this fall with a flurry of fantasticness.  Imagine an event with hundreds of people, at an exclusive location, with more “new” people to network with than you could even get to in an evening.  The experience that we are creating for the re-launch of the Main Event will bring back the lustre of Rainmakers big and flashy events of the old days. 

Our eventual vision is to have 80 people at each event – 30 of which are guests.  This may not happen instantly, but as we fill out our new structure, we will have events that are sustainable, filled with energy, and complete with the ‘right’ people in the room.

Some of you may think that with this move, Rainmakers is shrinking, retreating, or going away, and this is not the case. 

Re-organizing our events is a strategic move that will position Indianapolis (and all future markets) to consistently have strong events with lots of new fresh contacts.

If you have questions about the logistics of this change, please contact me by responding to this post, or by emailing me at jamar@gorainmakers.com.

Thank you for your flexibility, patience, and trust as we make this transition!

Get ready to experience more in 2011 from Rainmakers as we push toward impacting 2011 members businesses this year!

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a business development strategy and implementation expert, and the President of Rainmakers Marketing Group.  Click to learn more about Creating a Word of Mouth Marketing Machine.

How Dell Phillips Leverages Rainmakers Technology to Generate Referrals

I received this email from Dell Phillips this week.  What a great example of using Rainmakers “Member Find” technology to find the people he needs to meet to create annuitized relationships that will bring him new clients.  

If you want to leverage Rainmakers for more than just events, do what Dell is doing!  Identify your strategic partners, go to memberfind and do a search, and then call the prospective relationships for a one-on-one!

Here is his email:

_________

Jamar, Tony, & Nikki -

I have put together a campaign to enlist OTHER COMPANIES to become “my salesmen”, also.  Kind of in the form of other Rainmakers members keeping ME Top Of Mind for referrals >> I am looking for other companies who are ALWAYS in homes (crawl spaces & basements).  I want to talk to the BIG WIGS at those places & see if they will share my 3% Referral Program with their employees.

Sooooooo…….my goal is to get in touch with companies such as plumbers, heating & air conditioning, electricians, home care providers, home remodelers, kitchen & bath remodelers.  I want to touch as many of these companies as I can …… in a hurry because the rainy season is still with us.  We get a lot of work waterproofing basement & crawl spaces — ALONG with still doing ANYTHING to improve or stabilize a basement or crawl space foundation. 

I have gone down the AddressTwo database list BY INDUSTRY to come up with many contacts.  I will contact company’s by e-mail & in person — OR both.

I cold called Broad Ripple Heating & Air Conditioning yesterday & left my tri-fold brochure.  I then called Mark Ridgeway, the Branch Manager, later that day.  He was very receptive……so we’ll see where that leads to. (They had like 20 service trucks in their parking lot…….NICE!!)

 If you have any thoughts or suggestions……..you know I am always looking for WOW from you three.  (Words Of Wisdom!!)  

 AND IF you happen to know of any of the company heads I am looking for…..well, THAT would be NICE too. ha ha.  If you could send them along to me.

- Dell Phillips

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a business development strategy and implementation expert, and the President of Rainmakers Marketing Group.  To learn how to generate revenue from relationship marketing, attend Jamar’s next seminar, Creating a Word of Mouth Marketing Machine.

How to ‘Network’ When Your Referral Network is Built

 In 2010, I built a relationship marketing network from scratch that produced over $200,000 in revenue for our company.  If you want to learn how I did that, attend my next Referrals and Revenue seminar at the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce.

 

In 2011, I have had new challenges with relationship marketing: I could do the same thing I did in 2010 and get the same results, or I could change my relationship marketing tactics and get different (better) results.  I have chosen to change my tactics – but how?

 

Here are a few questions about relationship marketing that I have had, and how I have approached them.  I would love to get your feedback on how you have attacked these same issues.

 

Why should I go to networking events when my referral network is already built?

You already have a group of 15 referral partners that you consistently trade business with, whom you know, like, and trust.  You could add more people to that group, but it’s not the best use of your time.  Consider networking from a leadership and branding perspective.  Your thought and referral leadership is still needed in strategic networking circles, and you should be leading networking groups, instead of just attending. When you lead, your message and brand travels faster, and will allow you to pick up clients and referrals that you have done very little ‘work’ to obtain. Don’t go to events to just grab a beer and hob nob; grab a microphone, run the meeting, and watch your message spread like wildfire.

 

How do I begin networking with more of my clients directly?

After your strategic network is built, then you can begin networking with your clients.  Begin your networking at places like Rainmakers, BNI, or your local Chamber of Commerce to build your strategic network, and then start thinking about the associations that your clients belong to.  If your clients are Accountants or Architects, you should join and take a leadership position in the Indiana CPA Society or the American Institute of Architects.  There are associations for almost every profession.  Find the one for your target market, join them, and take the lead in order to get noticed.

 

How do I leverage special interest groups to generate revenue?

Your strategic team is built, and you are a leader within your clients’ sphere of influence.  Now, it’s time to impact your community and be a leader on a larger scale.  Whether your interests lie in puppies, preeclampsia, or politics, there is something that you are passionate about that you should give your time to.

Join a special interest group. 

When you do this, you are seen in the community as someone who cares about people in a bigger way than just “making money”, and you’re able to connect with other leaders in a deeper and more personal way. 

Out of the three relationship marketing strategies I mentioned, this one takes the most time to convert into revenue. The way to begin that process is by meeting with everyone one-on-one, getting genuinely interested in what they care about, and building your credibility over time.  Eventually, your special interest pals will think of you when they randomly come across someone who needs your services.

 

One of the unifying themes in this blog is leadership.  When you show up in the community as a leader, that is when ‘next-level’ relationship marketing takes off!

 

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a leadership, business development, and training expert.  For info on his consulting and live trainings, please email him at jamar@jamarspeaks.com.   

Closing a Deal in 30-Seconds or Less

 I met my most powerful contact in an elevator.  I recognized him from photographs, introduced myself, and then took 30-seconds to make him want to meet with me again.

As he left the elevator, he shouted his number to me, and told me to meet with him next week.  Case closed; and that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

This is how I developed a 30-second elevator pitch (e-pitch) that established credibility, quickly educated the listener, and created interest for a follow up meeting:

1. Be the Brand – When you look, speak, and smell like a hot mess, that’s also what I’ll think about your business.  Your image is a crucial part of communicating with credibility.  You shouldn’t wear a 3-piece suit if you’re a plumber, but regardless of what you do, make conscious decisions about how you are presenting yourself to the marketplace.
2. Know your Target – If you don’t know who you help, how can someone else help you find them?  Who is your best customer?  Where are they located?  What industry are they in?  What is their role?  How big are they?  Now, say it in 8 words or less. (ex. small north side business owners, professional service marketing directors, Carmel stay-at-home moms, etc.)
3. Communicate the Benefit – What is the most popular overarching benefit to your product or service. Do you help people save time and money in the kitchen?  Do you take the pain out of plumbing?  Or, do you help business owners build a business that runs on its own?  When you select the words you use, you will want the listener to actively picture what you do.  You know you have a good benefit statement when the listener says, “How do you do that?”  You know you have a poor benefit statement when the listener says, “I don’t get it.  What does that mean?”
4. Creating Interest – Your target and benefit statement should be clear, quick, concise, and follow the following formula:  “I help (target market) (benefit statement).”  This sentence should take you literally 3-seconds or less to say. 
5. Educating the Listener – When the listener asks, “How do you do that”, what they’re really asking is, “How do you differentiate yourself in the market place?”  Tell them.  We offer a kitchen cutlery product with a custom edge that makes cutting easier and faster.  We have a 7-step evaluation, estimate, and repair system that makes plumbing repairs easy for the client to understand.  Or, we teach clients how to build systems in their business through a 12-week seminar that’s kind of like getting a MBA in entrepreneurship ASAP.  Your “differentiation statement” should be longer than your benefit statement, and take 20 or so seconds to say.  Remember to simply answer the question, “What makes you different”.

 

Creating your e-pitch is a simple process, but can be challenging.  After you have taken some time to create your e-pitch, please share it with our readers!

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a business development strategy and implementation expert, and the President of Rainmakers Marketing Group.  To learn how to generate revenue from relationship marketing, attend Jamar’s next seminar, Creating a Word of Mouth Marketing Machine.