The Secret to Better Referrals? Your Office Address
It’s no secret that professional services businesses thrive on referrals. But getting a referral program off the ground can feel like a job in and of itself.
You’ve got to make sure your team has bandwidth without over-hiring.
You’ve got to ask in a way that doesn’t feel icky.
And you need a system for keeping it all going.
All this, on top of all the actual work you’re doing to run your business.
But don’t be daunted! People have been referring business for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. In this post, we’ll review some of the best-known strategies for building a referral practice of your own. We’ll also explore a less frequently discussed component of driving referrals: your office address.
Before You Start: How to Prepare Your Business for Referrals
Referrals are a great way to grow because they let you tap into the networks of people you already know, like, and trust, whether that’s current clients or other professionals. Referrals feel more natural to many service providers than hardcore marketing and sales, and require a less differentiated skill set.
To make them work, though, you must have capacity for new business.
What you really don’t want to do is get an ideal referral from a long-time client and then provide a terrible experience for that referred business because you don’t have time to serve them adequately.
That kind of flub can lose you the new business and jeopardize your relationship with the person who provided the referral. It certainly won’t lead to any future referrals.
As you think about scaling up your referral practice, pay attention to capacity. Do you need to hire additional team members? Automate or outsource more work? Invest in software that can streamline core processes? A modest investment in this kind of capacity building can free you up to significantly increase revenue by bringing on more ideal-fit clients.
Classic Components of Building a Strong Referral Pipeline
When looking for referral sources, consider these four networks:
Existing clients
Peers with slightly different specialities
Peers in complementary fields
People retiring from your field
But rather than asking folks directly for referrals (which can feel awkward for everyone involved), shift to a long-term mindset. The goal is not to get a referral from any one conversation but rather to build up a network that refers you business for years.
One Redditor laid out their strategy for doing exactly that. The essentials of their approach:
Get to know a potential referral source. Treat them to a meal or drink. Find out what they do and who they serve, then share the same information about yourself. Aim to understand how your work intersects and how you might be useful to each other.
Provide detailed information on your ICPs. You probably work with several different types of clients. What’s your ideal client profile (ICP) for each? Share this information with your potential referral sources and ask for the same from them. This leaves little room for guesswork when it comes time to refer business, which makes the task much easier in both directions.
Expect a reciprocal relationship. The best referral programs take the long view. When you initiate a new referral relationship, aim to send them business first. Take care to send clients who are well suited. When you ask about referrals for your business, be patient but persistent. It may take years for the first referral to come your way – and that’s okay, especially if they’re a perfect fit.
Create a community. As you build your network, consider bringing everyone together, whether for a holiday party or a client appreciation event. Everyone in the community can benefit from those relationships; when you’re the one making them possible, your credibility increases.
Now let’s take a look at a piece of the picture that isn’t often mentioned but that deserves attention: the way your physical space can affect referral flow.
The X Factor: An Office Address That Speaks Volumes
When it comes to referrals, independent practitioners and small business proprietors can feel at a disadvantage to the established names. As the saying goes, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.
And even a mediocre practitioner at a big firm benefits from the authority boost that comes from their employer’s slick downtown address and sleek office.
So how can independent practitioners compete? Level up your space. A home office may be fine for doing the behind-the-scenes work, but it’s not very impressive for receiving clients.
The key: look for a space built for professionals. Coworking spaces may offer private offices but often convey the wrong vibe – the kind of “move fast and break things” mentality that got VCs so riled up in the 2000s. That rarely jives with professional service providers looking to build trust.
Instead, seek out a proworking space like Firmspace. Essential features:
Calm, professional common spaces that immediately convey authority and put clients at ease.
Private offices with doors that lock and walls built with noise reduction in mind.
Top-of-the-line digital and physical security.
Bonus: see if you can find a space that offers networking events with the other professional tenants so your office space becomes yet another opportunity to build meaningful referral relationships.
For Referral Success, Make Your Partners Look Great
When you’re starting a referral program, it’s easy to focus on how you can make yourself look great – and therefore worthy of referring business to.
But a more powerful approach, especially for the long term, is to focus on making your referral partners look great. Send them clients for whom they can do excellent work. Talk them up to your network.
When they send business your way, knock it out of the park. Be the business everyone wants to tell their friends about because it makes them a better friend.
When that becomes your normal mode of operation, referrals take on a life of their own.