Depending on the type of business you have, it could be worthwhile implementing a marketing strategy to help create regular referrals from local accountants, bankers or lawyers.
For instance: 1: If you have a legal practice, then local accountants and bankers are a good potential source of regular referrals for your legal services.
This is pretty obvious as many accountants and bankers have business clients who ask them about who would be a useful person to talk to for legal advice.
2: If you have an accounting practice then local lawyers and bankers could be a good source of regular referrals for your accounting services.
Lawyers and bankers often have a wide range of business clients and many of these clients have the need for a number of different accounting and tax services.
3: If you have a property management company then accountants, lawyers and bankers are all potential sources of regular quality referrals for your property management services.
The reason is obvious. Many lawyers, bankers and accountants have clients who own investment properties and are looking to save time and stress by having a business professionally manage these properties on their behalf.
Now if accountants, bankers or lawyers are a good source of potential referrals for your business I have a quick marketing question for you:
What is your strategy to create regular referrals from dozens of local accountants, bankers or lawyers?
The key word here is 'dozens'.
I was speaking to a legal firm a while ago and they told me they get regular referrals for their legal services from 3-4 local accounting firms in their city.
These referrals are directly responsible for tens of thousands of dollars of new legal work every year, so are a valuable source of new clients for this legal practice.
However, the legal practice didn't have a strategy in place to get regular legal referrals from dozens and dozens of other accounting firms in the same city.
And as a result they were potentially missing out on a huge amount of legal work.
It's possible your business is in the same position.
You currently get some excellent referrals from a handful of local accountants, bankers or lawyers.
However, you get no referrals at all from dozens of other accountants, bankers or lawyers in your city or town.
If that describes your situation here is a marketing strategy you might like to try.
Step 1: Make a list of 25-50 local accountants, bankers or lawyers that could potentially give your business regular referrals. You might start with one category of business only. E.g. local legal firms. And you might also start with two or three categories.
Step 2: Each month send some useful and interesting information by 'snail mail' to these 25-50 local businesses. (The key here is to send something that adds real value to the business you are sending it to.)
Step 3: Include a cover letter that explains why you are sending this added value information. And in the PS of your cover letter mention in a low key way one of the services that you offer.
Here's an example: Let's say you are an accountant and would like to get recommended by a number of local legal firms in your area. You might send a number of these legal firms a short letter that says something like this:
Hi John/Jane,
I own a local accounting firm called XYZ Accountants.
I'm a big fan of reaching out to local business and adding value on a regular basis.
So here is a copy of a short article I noticed recently about a legal practice that created a large amount of new legal business with a novel marketing approach. (I thought you might find this of interest.)
Kind regards,
Andy Accountant
PS: One of our popular accounting services is where we help a business owner to work out the true value of their business. If you have any legal clients that have a business they might be thinking about selling, then I'd be happy to give them some details on our business valuation service and how it works.
Notice how you are adding value first by giving them a useful article on creating new legal revenues. (Before you mention one of the accounting services that you offer.)
Step 4: Stay in touch at least once a month by 'snail mail' with these 25-50 local businesses. And 'add value' every single time you make contact. Within 3-6 months of doing this you will notice that a number of these businesses will start to ask for further information about what you do.
It takes a bit of time, patience and effort to develop a good relationship with key centres of influence like local accountants, bankers or lawyers.
However for the right type of business it could be well worth doing.
Referrals aren't given easily. If you don't take the time to establish credibility, you're not going to get the referral. People have to get to know you. They have to feel comfortable with who you are and what you do.
Action Exercise: If you would like details on a 'ready to use' added value system to help create regular referrals from local accountants, bankers or lawyer's just contact me via the email links in this article. Tell me the type of business you have and the city or town you are located in. I'll send you an information pack by return email.
Graham McGregor is a consultant specialising in memorable marketing.
You can download his 396 page 'Unfair Business Advantage' Ebook at
no charge from www.theunfairbusinessadvantage.com
