Four Types of Referrals for a Potent Referral Group – Part One

This is the first of four (4) blogs defining Referral types at PRO.

  1. Personal Referral
  2. Connecting Referral
  3. Low Hanging Fruit Referral
  4. Listening Referral

Learning and listening for these types of referral opportunities can grow each of our individual businesses at the Professional Referral Organization of Portland.

It is a wonderful gesture to pass a member your own personal business, and it is probably the first referral you will give in the group.  It is easy to uncover – you know you have a need – and you likely know a fair amount about the referred member, learning about them each week. Personal referrals have a peace of mind benefit. After doing business with someone in the group, you now know first hand what kind of service to expect when you pass a third party referral to this member.

Personal referrals are the baseline foundation of our successful group. However, there isn’t a strong case for being a longstanding member of PRO if we are only passing business to one another. Why, you might ask? It doesn’t take meeting someone once a week for a year (or more) to make the choice to work with them. If the vast majority of referrals is concentrated within personal business of PRO members, marketing time could be spent elsewhere much more effectively.

Self-referrals in the group may quench the referral bucket’s thirst, but it doesn’t exponentially grow the number of people in your referral and client circle.  And growing that circle is essential for growing your personal business. For all businesses, the more client connections and contacts you know, the larger your sphere of potential clients becomes. A self-referring member, though a wonderful thing, is continuing to be just one person that knows and tells your story. A member introducing you to additional people you wouldn’t otherwise know, opens you to those individuals’ sphere of influence and referrals as well. Each person you know and serve positively will impact your business. The real job of PRO is for all of us collectively committing to the magic of growing one another’s networks.

Let’s consider this type of referral wonderful, and consider it a baseline. If we want PRO to be part of our business growth it is important we graduate to giving the types of referral you would also want to receive. This graduates us into the next referral type addressed on Wednesday, connecting referrals.  

Angela Todd is the principal designer at Angela Todd Designs, a premier interior design boutique firm in Portland, Oregon specializing in new construction, remodeling and full home furnishings. Learn more about Angela here.

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