This is the second in my series of marketing tactics and ideas – suggestions for you to use in marketing your business. This one is about referrals and how to get the right ones.

If you’ve been networking for your business and meeting lots of lovely business friends who are going to sell your services for you, why not make your life easier for your referrers by telling them exactly who you would like them to recommend you to?

Make a nice clear document explaining what it is you do, and the chief characteristics of the people you would like to buy from you. If I was doing a very short version of this for the Joy of Business, I’d explain that I help people with small businesses to grow into bigger businesses by advising, mentoring and coaching. I’d like to meet people who:

• Have had a business for a while, but are ready to grow it and make some decent money.
• Want to know the best way forward, and if they’re doing the right thing.
• Want some practical support on how to develop their business from someone who has done it before.
• Have the capacity to earn at least 50k a year, and probably want to earn more than that.
• Are at a key growth stage with their business.

Once you’ve done this, get someone who knows nothing about your business to check it for you to see if it makes sense, and if you’ve put the commas in the right places. And then email it to the nice people you’ve been meeting while you’ve been networking. Print it out and take it along with you when you have a networking cake date to give to people. Personally, I’d just do it in Word with my logo on, and print it out on my cheapo printer, but if you’re more of a design/creative/fancy sort of person you could get some little books printed pretty cheaply, and then people would be more likely to keep them.

Right, I’m off to practice what I preach, and do a longer list to send out to all my networking mates. By the way, if you recognised yourself on that list of people I’d like to meet, you might want to come and have a coffee and a chat about what’s happening with your business. You never know what might happen…

I was just arranging to meet up on a cake date with the lovely Jacky Misson.  Jacky suggested that we meet on the 20th December because she’s finishing all her “proper work” the week before and spending the week up until Christmas just going for coffee and meeting up with business friends.

I thought this was a lovely idea – and one I want to copy and share with you.  Too often, we find ourselves being very unproductive in that last week before the holidays, but Jacky’s idea means that you can still wind down before your break, and in a week when not a lot is going to be happening, but be productive because you’re gettting together with people who can help you and your business.

I commend the idea to you all

I’ll be doing a few talks in October, so if you’d like to come along and hear some of my stories about business, these are the ones to watch.

CityForum Brighton

City Forum is a half day of ideas generation, discussion and planning for your thoughts about how Brighton should be.  I’ll be on the panel at the culmination of the event to talk about the ideas which have come forward during the day, and how we take some of them forward.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be talking about action, implementation and the role of businesses in the city.

This is a good event if you’re a Brightonian and want to be involved in how the city develops.  If you’re just interested in networking for your business (and there’s nothing wrong with that) it’s not the one for you.

If you fancy it, find out more and book a ticket.  It’s free.

Brighton Chamber Spotlight Supper

I’m one of the serial entrepreneurs speaking at this Spotlight Supper on the 19th October.  A serial entrepreneur is someone who keeps setting up and running new businesses, not someone who has muesli for breakfast. Actually, I’m both, but I’ll resist temptation to repeat this very poor joke, and talk about my experience of running businesses since I was 23, and how I’m now running the Joy of Business and Tender Winner at the same time.

This is a good one for business networking in a friendly environment, with some pretty tasty food at the Hove Kitchen.  It’s £16 for Chamber members.  You are a member, aren’t you – otherwise it’s £28. Come along, it’ll be fun.

E-Thursday – Internet Entrepreneurs

The very next day, I’ll be on stage again at Sussex University’s E-Thursday, chairing a panel of online and digital business people who will be sharing their stories, and giving tips about how to run an online business.  This should be a good one, book here to come along.

Lewes Hive

Lewes Hive is a new co-working space in Lewes.  They’re running a series of lunchtime events and on the 27th October, I’ll be talking about how to enjoy being busy without killing yourself with hard work, and my experiences of building successful businesses while still having time to eat cake in the sunshine.  It’s a fiver to come along and check out the Hive and hear me speak.

Looking forward to seeing you there

I’ve spoken at length about the Joy of Networking and how important it is for business.  In essence, networking is about meeting the right people, and staying in touch for mutual benefit.

Today, I want to talk about one of my principal pleasures in life – cake dates.  A cake date is a term I’ve stolen from Pete Jenkins over at e-Advantage and means going for coffee (and of course a cake) to find out more about a potential client/referrer/interesting person/business friend.  Or to keep in touch with someone who is already an old client/referrer/interesting person/business friend.

Here are the cake date tips

These are just my cakes!

Do make sure that you talk business as well as catching up on the gossip. Do your research, read their blog, check them out on LinkedIn for mutual contacts and to find out more about their background.  This gives you a better idea of what they’re about, and gives you chance to ask very specific questions about areas of their work which might have some synergy or overlap with what you do.

Be ready to tell stories about your business which shows how you work.  I often ask people who their ideal client is, so that I can see how I might be able to make referrals and help out.  And of course, then you can say who your ideal client is as well.

Be prepared to ask daft questions if you don’t understand something, and don’t be all British about asking about money.  If you’re going to refer someone, or ask them to make referrals for you, you do need to understand how much they charge, otherwise you’re going to be barking up the wrong potential customer trees for them.

Spend an hour on talking about business, and then be prepared to head off.  That way the cake date doesn’t eat too much into your day, and you can still afford 15 minutes for more social chit chat at the end of the date.

And do follow up and email to say that it was good to catch up so you’re reinforcing your message, and have a chance to be helpful again by sending them useful articles, contacts of other people who might be useful, etc.

And if you hit it off, add this person to your list of top referrers (see my Joy of Business system of networking) so you make sure you stay in touch and have a long and fruitful relationship.

Where to eat cake

I’m compiling a list of suitable cake date venues in Brighton, Hove, Sussex and London.  They need to have excellent coffee, good cake and be quiet enough so that you can have a conversation without having to shout, or without the rest of the cafe hearing what your daily rate or current business issues are.

Where would you recommend for a cake date?

The delicious cakes shown above come are made by the delightful Jen Lindsay-Clarke at the amazing She Bakes If you ever need a fancy cake, give Jen a call

I’m a big fan of networking as a way of building up your business. I get about 60% of my business advice clients through networking and referrals, so it’s a healthy way of generating new business.  Not to mention all the friends I’ve made, the people I trust when I need something for my business, and all the people I work with on joint projects.

It’s important.  But I see a lot of people putting a lot of effort into going out networking and meeting new people, but then not making the most of those contacts as they go along.  So I want to talk about networking as a system, a process that you can use to build your business.  If you follow this, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll get results, unless you’re selling false nails for cats, or Betamax videos.

Meet some nice people

photo by Frédérique in NZ

Find some people.  Go out, meet some people who might be interested in your business.  Go to some networking events (here’s my list of networking events in Brighton/Sussex)

Be nice.  Be interested in what everyone else is doing.  Get involved.  Tell people about what you do, but after you’ve found out about them.  Smile.  Aim to speak to between 5 and 10 people in an hour, rather than working the room.

This is the step that lots of people do.  They show up, they talk to people, and they go off and do their work.  But it’s probably the least important step.  It’s a bit like going and looking at lots of pound notes, but not bothering to do the work to put them in the bank.

How to put the pound notes in the bank

Apologies to those readers who are too young to believe that there ever were pound notes, but I’m sure you get the metaphor.

photo by tigerweet

The next step is to follow up.  Within the next couple of days, send the person you spoke to a quick email saying that it was nice to talk to them about…the foolishness of the 20% VAT rate, or the best place to buy ice cream in Brighton, or whatever you were chatting about. If you can give them an article or a weblink which helps them out in some way (not your latest blog post or white paper) then this is nice too. Make sure you have your phone number, website address and preferably a link to your twitter handle in your email signature, so when they want to get in touch they can find you.

And, send them an invitation to join you on LinkedIn.  Do not use the standard invitation – personalise it with a few words, as I’m not the only person who feels spammed and spurned if someone wants to connect on LinkedIn and doesn’t even say hi.

Keeping in touch

This is the most important, and difficult part of the networking system.

Because I’ve just launched my other business, Tender Winner I’ve been going through my address book and emailing just about everyone I’ve ever met to tell them about my new thing.  I’ve been astonished by how many people have just disappeared.  Bounce back emails, resounding silence…  Where are they all?  I’ve tried to find the nice ones on LinkedIn, but some of them seem to be lost forever.

Some of this is my fault, as I’ve not followed my own rule about keeping in touch as much as I should, but it seems that quite a lot of people have just moved on, and not bothered to tell me that they’ve changed company, or changed email address.  So all that networking they did was a waste of time – I’ve no way of helping them with whatever they’re doing now.

But there are lots of people who are still alive and well and I’ve got their updated email address.

Here are some ideas for keeping in touch

photo by Jeff Cushner

• Identify your best referrers and friends and put them in a spreadsheet or allocate a category in Outlook.  Make sure that you contact those people every 3 months in some way – this can be a good excuse to ask for referrals
• For your very best referrers and the people you like, be sure to ask them out on a cake date to catch up.  Ensure you make time for this, especially if you’re busy.  They’ll come in handy if you want to be more busy.
• Ensure you’re checking out what people are doing on twitter and/or LinkedIn, and  comment.  Make time to do this and just touch base every now and again.
• When people tell you about what they’re doing, or ask for a favour, make sure you get back in touch, and tell them about what you’re up to as well
• Look for opportunities to do people favours. Not only does this give you a warm glow inside, the reciprocity principle means that they’ll be much more likely to do something for you at some stage. If you read an article about bee-keeping in urban gardens, send it to that person you met at the Brighton Chamber breakfast who does landscape gardening.
• If you think someone is offering a good service, be sure to do everything you can to promote their business.  Sell them as if you were selling your own services. And be sure to tell them that you’ve made a referral, even if nothing comes of it they’ll still appreciate the effort.
• If you know people’s birthdays (and this can be as simple as noting it down when they tell you about the birthday they had last week, so you’re ready for next year) send them an email to say Happy Birthday.  In an age where birthday cards and presents are dying out, they’ll be touched that you took the trouble.

Right, I’m off to make a note of when Tim Misson’s birthday is, and answer that email from Richard Hall asking me for some thoughts on marketing for his next book.  Let me know how you get on.