How to Maximize Communication with Referral Partners

How to Maximize Communication with Referral Partners

Building and maintaining referral partner relationships consists of much more than handing out business cards. You must continue to communicate with referral partners in order to nurture the relationship. Below, we offer tips to maximize your referral partner communications:

Stay in Touch

Keep yourself at the forefront of your referral partners’ minds. Reach out frequently if you haven’t talk to them. But don’t just send a canned email. See our suggestions below for what to talk to referral partners about.

Add Value

If you just contact your referral partners when you want something, the relationship is going to flop. What you want is a mutually beneficial working relationship. Thus, when you reach out, try to be of value. Pass along an article that discusses industry changes or relevant updates to your referral partner’s business. Commend your referral partner when he or she wins an award. When you converse with your referral partners, listen to hear where their pain points are. Then see if you can offer them solutions.

Help Them Help You

Giving your referral partner a stack of business cards is a start, but business cards don’t make sales. You can help your referral partner sell your services. While their personal experience with you may be enough to convince some of their clients to hire you, other customers will require more information. Provide your partners with pre-written emails, talking points, brochures and your logo to put on their website, etc. You may email them pre-written social messages for various social networks, so they can easily copy and paste them into social.

Make it as easy as possible for your partners to refer you.

Keep Your Word

If you say you’re going to do something, do it. Your referral partners put their reputations on the line when they refer you. So they are watching you to be sure that you follow through and are trustworthy.

Support Them

Every so often – we recommend at least once a quarter – reach out to your referral partners to ask how you can support them. It’s so easy to get caught up in what we need that we may forget to ask others what they need. Asking how you can support them will go a long way toward building a reciprocal and beneficial relationship between you and your referrals. Be prepared to actually help them if they ask for it.

Be Thoughtful

If you’ve developed a long term referral relationship, you may want to do things like calendar his or her birthday and send over a digital or physical card for the big day. Little things like this can show you care about your partners as people.

Show Gratitude

Always, always, always thank your partners for referrals they send you. You may have a special way of thanking them like sending over a gift card or flowers, or you may just send a handwritten note. No matter way, thank them swiftly and thank them every time.