Sunday, December 06, 2009

Referral marketing: Reflection

It's hard to imagine that another year will soon be coming to a close. I can't explain it, but time seems to fly faster every year older that I get.

December is the perfect time of year for reflection. Reflection is good for all aspects of your life, but since this blog is focused on referral marketing, that's what I want to zero in on now. Find yourself a quiet place for a couple hours ... away from the hustle and bustle, away from the phone, away from the family, and away from the computer.

Ask yourself the following five questions regarding your referral marketing efforts this year:

1. If my referral partners could give me a score (like an Olympic judge) how would I be rated?

2. Did I meet the referral goals I set for myself this year? If not, what got in the way?

3. How would I rate myself on the "giving scale" ... poor, fair, good, great, excellent?

4. What did I do this year that was an improvement over last year?

5. Did I get out of my "cave" enough this year to meet new people?

This is just a short list to get you started in the referral reflection process. My hope is that you'll take this much further to assess your progress, shortcomings, and accomplishments.

Of course, the next step is preparing for 2010. We'll address that soon.

1 comment:

Mark Storey Coach-Trainer said...

Michelle,

These are all important items to reflect on to raise the quality of referrals you give, and the ones you receive. The next logical step is to use the results of the reflections to determine goals for 2010. For instance, if you didn't get out of your cave very much, what is your goal to get out more often? What are you going to do to better educate your referral partners, so they can bring you higher quality referrals, and other potential referral partners?

Thanks for the great advice, Michelle!

Mark Storey