Recently I had a conversation with a friend and networking partner about how to get more referrals for her business. She told me she's doing a ton of networking but isn't getting the referrals to show for it.
Sound familiar?
It's pretty common for those of us who rely on referrals as a primary part of business development (myself included) to cast a really wide net to find great referral partners. The problem with that is, while you might get a few solid referrals out of it, they're going to be few and far between.
Why? Because you're going a mile wide and an inch deep with your referral “partners.” The shotgun approach to building a referral network isn't sustainable, because you never develop enough depth in any one relationship to make it pay off.
How Do I Develop Deeper Relationships?
This part is simple — not easy, but simple. Developing relationships comes down to one thing: investing time.
The only way you're going to create the relationships that lead to referrals is to spend time with the people who are going to refer you business. Unless you have the singular solution to a very common problem, people aren't going to talk about you to others unless they know you, like you, and trust you. And the only way to develop that level of trust is to spend time.
Yes, it's time-consuming. It's difficult to stay consistent. And there are plenty of people in your network you don't want to spend that much time with. But it's the only way to build a network that actually produces referrals.
How Do You Make Sure You're Spending Time With the Right People?
Again — simple but not easy. The thing anyone could do but very few actually do.
I've developed a process that makes it pretty straightforward, as long as you can stay consistent. I call it the Referral Bench. There are a lot of details that go into it, but the basics are:
- Come up with the different positions on your Referral Bench
- Identify the players for each position
- Work your bench consistently
- Automate the process
- Refine the players over time
The general idea: create different groupings of people from whom you might get referrals, and develop stronger relationships with them by meeting on a regular cadence. Stronger partners maybe once a month; more peripheral partners every six months. The key is consistency — this only works if you're showing up regularly so trust can develop over time.
Build Your Referral Bench
Know Your Bench Positions
The most important part of any process is knowing the starting point. Here, that means knowing who your referral partners are. I split mine into three groups:
- Home Plate
- Infield
- Outfield
Home Plate
My Home Plate partners are the people with the most overlap with my offering and target audience — the people having similar conversations with the same audienceI'm trying to reach. For me, that's sales trainers, sales consultants, marketing consultants, marketing agencies, and business coaches.
Home Plate partners are great because they're the most likely to refer me directly to clients. As a result, this group is also the smallest.
Infield
My Infield partners meet one of the two Home Plate criteria — either they're talking to the same people I am orthey're having a similar conversation. Example: a recruiter who specializes in sales hires. They're talking to sales leaders (my audience), but the conversation is about people, not process.
Infield partners can sometimes refer directly, but they're even better at introducing me to more Home Plate partners.
Outfield
Outfield partners don't really meet either Home Plate criteria, but they're great people to know — well-networked, respected, active in their own industries. An HR consultant working with HR leaders is a good example. We have nothing in common when it comes to clients, but we're both networking in adjacent worlds.
You won't meet with these folks every month, but reconnecting every six months is great for trading new potential partners.
Write Out the Players
With your positions defined, time to fill in the names. This is easier if you have a solid contact list. I keep my bench at least three deep in each position. Once you write it out, you'll immediately see where the holes are and you can start working to fill them.
Work Your Bench
Now the actual work. The whole point of this process is meeting with your bench on a regular cadence. So you have to actually reach out and sit down with people. Coffee, breakfast, drinks, whatever — just get together. And do it in person when you can. Phone calls are nowhere near as effective for generating referrals.
Here are the cadences I aim for:
- Home Plate — every 6 weeks. These are the closest aligned, so I want to stay top of mind.
- Infield — every 3 months. Important, but not as tightly coupled as Home Plate.
- Outfield — every 6 months.Valuable people to know, but I want to respect everyone's time.
Automate the Process
Now the part that actually makes this stick. The key to making any of this work is consistency. And being honest with yourself — consistency is hard. I know, because I tried to manage this manually for years.
I'd get busy. I'd second-guess whether it was “too soon” to reach out again. I'd forget who I last talked to. Some weeks I'd crush it; most weeks I wouldn't. As a result, I never built the depth of relationships I was looking for — and I never got the referrals to match.
Automating takes all of that out of your hands. Add the people to your bench, set the cadence, and let the system run. No more second-guessing, no more business amnesia. Just consistent meetings with the people you've identified as your strongest potential referral partners.
Refine Your Players
Not everyone in your network is going to want to develop as deep of a relationship with you as you'd like. That's fine. As you run this process, you'll find out who's actually engaged and who isn't. Replace the people who go quiet with new candidates. After the “get to know you” period, drop anyone who's shown no interest in introducing you and try someone new in their slot.
This is your network. It's supposed to be working for you. If the people on the bench aren't doing the job, swap them out for people who will.
Now Go Build It
Start by writing out your bench and seeing where you stand. Then start reaching out for those initial coffees. The framework is simple. The work is real. But this is the way you turn a network of loose contacts into a network that actually generates business.
We've actually built this system into every Mission Suite account so the cadence and follow-up runs automatically. See how the Networking Follow-Up Engine works.