June 04 2013
Two gold miners strike gold. One miner believes she should distribute her resources across the entire mine and only spend a fraction of her time where there is gold. The other miner believes she should spend the majority of her resources where she found gold.
Which miner will come out ahead?
Your database of client relationships can be a gold mine for generating referrals. But not all client relationships are created equal.
Just like the first miner, too often businesses get into trouble because they invest their resources evenly across all clients while a small fraction account for the majority of referrals. Instead, maximize your referral efforts by investing the majority of your resources in those clients that are most likely to refer your business.
In order to invest in the right relationships, you must first organize your database of clients from highest to lowest potential for referrals. To do so, bucket your client relationships into segments using the A, B, C, D method.
The most effective approach to maximizing referrals is to invest the majority of your referral generating activities into those client relationships with the highest likelihood of referring. As a general rule of thumb, allot the following percentages of your referral generating resources for each client segment:
See the givegive database reference chart below:
Your database of clients is a goldmine. But how you think about investing your resources will directly impact the number of referrals you generate for your business.
Focus your efforts where there is the most value and watch as your referrals grow.
To view the original article, visit the Contactually blog.