The five levels of local referral generation: Dissecting the perfect lead

Here is a post about local leads generation...

We received a referral today. It's a good referral, not an "I heard that so and so needs..." kind of lead. This is a lead where we were introduced, there was a hand off and the the customer and I were face to face. (If I was really cool, I would have said, "belly to belly", but that's fairly disgusting for you visual people.)

Let's dive into this lead and see how it came about, in reverse chronological order.

5) The lead is in a peer group with a customer of ours.

4) The customer of ours has used our products and services for a year and a half.

3) We got this customer (who gave the referral) when we did work as a subcontractor for them.

2) The contractor gave us the work because he knew it would be done right.

1) The contractor got to know us when we hired them to do work for us.

I like this example because there are lead opportunities at every level.

See level 5? Are you talking to your peer groups? Are your customers talking to their peer groups? You should ask them, "who else could use my services/product?". Check into your local chamber of commerce and other professional groups.

Level 4: Seek ways to repeatedly (not one-shot) bring value to customers. They'll remember you and it will be easier for you to come to their minds when they have needs or have peers that have needs.

Level 3 is all about finding novel approaches to business. In our case, subcontracting put extra money in the contractor's pocket and encouraged them to use us in more opportunities. There are few business segments that have no way to add value. If you can't think of any for your business, email us and we'll give you some pointers! You can reach us on our contact page at http://www.acmetechworks.com/.

Be passionate about your work and Level 2 will happen. Earlier, we wrote about Craig Gamb (http://acmetechworks.blogspot.com/2009/07/value-of-networking-tribute-to-craig.html). You need to be like him in your business field.

Level 1 is all about the first six words: "The contractor got to know us..." Feel free to substitute contractor with the influencers around you. Some sharks have little fish that follow them around. These fish are called pilot fish and they actually clean the shark's teeth. An influence is like the shark, bigger than you and more influential but will give you value (the pilot fish isn't hungry!). You just need to find ways to show your value.

Any one of these levels can bring income. Imagine what can happen if you operate at every level!

You cannot afford to delude yourself--the chances are that income is not going to jump into your lap by setting up a website and getting an office phone. For some, networking is foreign. I recommend reading books such as the "Rich Dad" series by Robert Kiyosaki. The value in those books lies in getting you into a business mindset. This isn't a hobby. This is your livelihood.