 | Referrals: Be Specific And Get Results | The positive experiences of a client ... | Posted on: 10/06/2015 By: Jacky Sherman |
Last week, I shared some of the science behind why you will get better results if you give a clear picture to your contacts about who you want as clients. This week, I give you the evidence that it works using the recent experience of one of my clients ...
copyright: mark costa / pixooma
Mark Coster took the plunge last April to quit his job as a graphic designer to concentrate on building his own design company Pixooma. With his creative skills and specialist graphic design knowledge and experience, he has set out to help companies to create and develop a brand that gets them noticed for all the right reasons.
"He knew that his business would come from referrals!"
As a great planner, he started building his network 3 years ago, long before making the plunge. He says himself that he started to get a few referrals from the networking groups he joined and that's where I met him.
Mark then came on my 'Target Market: Find your starting point' workshop. From this he identified that he really wanted to help engineering companies and, in particular, those working in motorsport. This is an area many companies often struggle with: how to put across a clear compelling message to their target market.
This is his experience to date as he applied what he learnt:
"I changed my message around about a month ago and I've probably used it at around 9 or 10 meetings. I asked for motorsport MDs (generally locally) and also for specific MD names or specific companies. I have noticed a surge of leads, interest and contacts since I started being more direct about what I wanted.
This is what happened next: I identified 5 local engineering groups that I wanted to talk to and found that 6 of my network contacts had connections to them and offered to try to link me up. I also had 3 different contacts approach me to say they had connections to Rockingham Speedway.
I was introduced to:
A contact who had connections to a sports tyre company. The CEO of a performance parts company a contact used to own. A sports PR expert and journalist. A car spare parts company. Another engineering company that led to a quote.
My introductions have lead to a marked increase in people generally wanting to talk to me about a motorsport connection they have.
It has increased my own awareness of the opportunities that surround me. For instance when locating one company on my list, I saw there was another engineering company nearby and dropped in on the off-chance.
Jacky's training has also helped me to focus on what events to attend, what social media and email messages to put out and provided a direction for my company.
This has created a halo effect. With my specific memorable message comes increased confidence in others about my company and that builds my confidence in the way I come across, which then makes my message stronger, which builds further confidence!"
"Wow! All that in a month!"
Mark has got off to a great start with his dreams for Pixooma. His focus means he can use his creative talents to help the myriad of small engineering companies to achieve their ambitions and inspire others to want to help him in this endeavour. I'm confident that he will soon have a stream of testimonials like this one.
"Mark, thank you so much for preparing our new website – it looks fantastic and so much more up-to-date now. From the start of this project to the finish, you have been professional and courteous and more importantly patient with us, while we were deciding what we really wanted and obtaining photos and other information. It has been a pleasure to work with you throughout this process and you will be highly recommended to our friends and contacts who might require your services. Thank you."
That was from Ian and Lynn Gardiner of IG Racing, and for me, it all adds to my vision to help connect companies who can work together to get the results they want for their business.
So my referral tip for you this week is to invest some time to define who your ideal clients are and focus your energies on getting that message across to the people who can help get you in front of these clients.
"Maybe one day soon, I'll be writing a blog post about your success?"
If you want some help finding you own target market, or need to brush up on any other aspect of networking and referrals, why not give me a call on 07970 638857 today or click here to send an email. I'd love to help you!
Until next time ...
JACKY SHERMAN
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