What Gets Measured Gets Done

And helps you plan what to do next ...

POSTED BY JACKY SHERMAN ON 22/03/2017 @ 8:00AM

I well remember the trepidation I had when starting the module in my Msc on Statistics. As someone who barely passed her O'level Maths, this could have been a show stopper for me ...

When it comes to referral marketing, what gets measured gets done!

The joy to me was the Aha! moment when I realised that what statistics actually does is show you the patterns in the numbers and how they relate to each other.

For the statisticians amongst my readers, yes I do know it is also about probability, chance, prediction and much more. I was thrilled to get 98% in my final stats exam. Just shows what's possible when you shrug off your limiting beliefs and get a good teacher.

"But that's a slight digression from what I wanted to share with you today!"

I wanted to make the point that you don't have to be a mathematician to use numbers to give you useful information. There is a well-worn maxim in management that what gets measured gets done. More importantly, what gets measured tells you whether you are doing the right things and where to put your efforts going forward.

Any marketer worth their salt will advocate this approach. Yet few people, in my experience, apply this to their networking activities. If they do, they apply a blunt instrument approach such as networking events attended for £x return in the cost of attending that event.

"The bit that is rarely measured is the actual activities they undertake to stimulate business from their network!"

At Asentiv we advocate the message that Tom Peters makes in his blog, and that is to measure activities we put in as well as the results we get out.

All our clients record their collaborative relationship building activities. What we call their 'giving activities' and they set a target of at least 100 'giving' scorecard points against a whole range of tactical activities that are designed to stimulate business for their partners.

Each type of activity is weighted as to its power to stimulate work for your partner. As a result, your referral partner is motivated to do the same as for you. This is the concept of Givers Gain®

Now we could get caught up in a whole load of finely tuned measurements of what you did for me and what I did for you. In reality, we would then spend all day measuring instead of doing. So we have honed it down to just two key measures.

"What I give to my network and what referrals do I get back!"

I thought I'd share with you my current results because they make some interesting points about referral marketing and the concept of Givers Gain® that often confuses people.

First, I easily make my weekly target of over 100 points. I have identified my top 12 referral relationships and aim to focus my 'giving' time and energies with them. However, they only got 35% of the points I scored. A further 28% were activities in my second group, my clients.

So overall I devoted 63% of my available 'giving' time to these priority relationships. The other 37% of the time was spread across all the other people I've been in contact with this month.

So far this month, I have had 6 strong referrals of which 5 (83%) came from my top 12 referral relationships.

Although it is for just 3 weeks of data, it roughly matches the ratios I achieve over time. That's not a particularly good correlation between input and output, but I'm pleased to say that it fits with three major components in my philosophy and strategy, although there is a need for some minor tweaking.

Giving in relationships is not a straight tit-for-tat activity
We give because we can rather than with an expectation that we will receive back exactly what we have given. However, there does need to be some balance to maintain the relationship. So I will focus over the next few weeks at how I can help those who have been particularly helpful to me recently.
I am always looking at how I can contribute to the common good
I am part of a wider business community and am an active part of the local networking scene. So spending about 30% of my 'giving' time to all the other people I meet feels about right. I know it comes back to me in all sorts of unexpected ways. The main ones being I just enjoy helping others to succeed. The second is that it enhances my reputation. I am often contacted by people asking to work with me merely because they have heard good things about me from other people they have met networking.
A strong and diverse network widens the opportunities I can find for my referral partners and clients
If I don't know someone, I usually know someone who does. This range of people also keeps me informed of a whole range of business subjects, services available, great new innovations and ideas as well as business intelligence about what is going on locally and within specific industries.
I do take a strategic look at my top relationships over a longer space of time
If the relationship is really getting unbalanced it can be time for more concerted action. In these relationships, there is an agreement that we will find each other new business. If at present that is not possible then we might reduce our expectations about each other. At present, I don't think there is a need for any changes although some new people are looking promising as strong referral collaborators. First I need to develop the necessary trust that will underpin our relationship.

Our simple system of measuring helps me to keep on-track of where I am expending my energies and how I can relate that back to my results and strategy going forward.

It does the same for my clients who, once they get used to it, find it helps both in tracking what they have done and planning what they will do going forward to generate more business with their collaborators.

"Would you like to know more?"

If you've found my blog post useful and interesting and want to know more about referral marketing then do call me on or click here to send me an email enquiry and let's arrange to meet up.

Until next time ...

JACKY SHERMAN