Wanna grow? Get better.
Groups tell me all the time that they want to grow. My advice to them is sometimes counter intuitive. I tell them that in order to grow you need to do four things while simultaneously increasing your invitations to prospective members.
1- Focus on generating referrals for existing members
2- Run great meetings
3- Increase your face-to-face […]
I often get asked, “What do you recommend I focus on for my next presentation in my group?”
Over the last decade I’ve seen a lot of great presentations. I’ve seen a lot of poor ones as well, and I’ve noticed some themes and topics that have consistently been more effective.
Begin with the end in mind. The most effective […]
I recommend structuring your commercial in the following format:
I. Basic Intro (5-7 seconds)
II. Tell us how to help you (25-75 seconds)
Now let’s break this down in greater detail.
Section I- Basic Intro
When guests/fairly new members are in the room I think this is important to reinforce. Think of it as 5-7 seconds.
For example I normally say: “Hi, […]
I often get asked by members, “What can I realistically expect from my The Referrals Group membership?”
I believe you get out what you put into anything you are involved in. I also believe you should have realistic expectations. It is a tough question to answer, but I start by saying that our program, when worked properly, creates an opportunity […]
Question #1: (to log or not?)
I changed all my property and casualty insurance over to (Member Name) three months ago. At that time I “referred myself” to him in the system. Now I’m buying another rental house and I’ll be getting another policy from him to cover it. Should I “refer myself” to him again? Or since I’m already […]
Time for another mailbag! Questions in BOLD.
I wasn’t sure if I logged this referral correctly. I don’t always specifically log each referral for closings. Example: I had sent 6 closings in October (with list of family names in notes). Is it ok if at the end of the month I total up all the office closings and send them […]
This blog’s format: mailbag questions that have come in over the last month. Questions in bold.
Bart our speaker no called no-showed at our meeting. What should we do with the time block? Also, we’d put a lot of effort into having guests and we had 3 that day. Our member (Name removed) made us look really bad. What should […]
One of my favorite quotes is, “Be quick but don’t hurry,” from John Wooden the famous UCLA basketball coach who won 10 national championships.
Creating Urgency
Nothing gets done without urgency. Shorter timelines providing they don’t compromise quality are often better because they create urgency.
I spend a lot of time observing what makes our groups successful. I find that our […]
Building relationships is critical in developing relationships with referral sources/center of influence relationships. The first step in referral relationships is often trust. In order for people to refer to you they need to be able to:
1- Trust you. People refer and do business with people they know, like, and trust.
2- They need to know your target market.
Let’s […]
A- What is your ideal membership size? _____
B- Factor in attrition (20% annually) * 1.2
[…]
Back in March I talked about 5 key fundamentals that drive referrals: https://thereferralsgroup.com/referrals-fundamentals/
Quick Recap on what those are:
1-Face-to-Face meetings
2-Attendance Rate (above 80%)
3-Mindset, focusing on help others
4-Run a Good meeting
5- Grow membership to your ideal size
A lot of new groups do a great job in areas 1-3, which are extremely critical to the foundation of all groups. I hear from a […]
16% of groups we start won’t make it to the 24 month mark. I’ve tracked that ratio since 2004. Groups that fail usually struggle with at least 2+ of these areas.
1. Poor Attendance:
When attendance as a group is below 80% overall the meeting value gets diluted. When they fall below 70% it is death sentence for a group.
Our […]
A few best practices I’ve observed the last few months at The Referrals Group meetings:
Speakers:
1-Share specific targets. Recently, I saw a member share a list of 175+ specific targets he had wanted to meet. He then focused on why he wanted these targets and how to introduce him. It made it easy for the group to create referral opportunities […]
When I was in college I was part of a fraternity. It was one of the best learning experiences for me. My freshman year the fraternity fell apart and went from 90 members down to 40. A few of the upperclassman stayed and focused on helping build it back the right way. Our consultant told us we needed to […]
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSEZs9iOl_g&t=3s
The value of this section of our meetings is the dialog about. We should learn from the referral giver and referral receiver the scenario, how the opportunity was identified, how it was tee’d up, an update on the status of the referral, and anything either side could of done better.
(Referral Giver):
Mike-Financial advisor: “I gave a referral to Suzanne. […]