I have read all the FAQ's on the Centers of Influence. I did, however, have an additional question. When do we use the Business Plan? It seems like a valuable tool in this situation. Do we try to schedule a Financial Road Map® or a Phone Consultation™ first, and then resort to the Business Plan? We may have outworn our welcome by this time.

Article ID: 512

Last updated: 20 Nov, 2019

I'm not sure what you mean by "Centers of Influence" or your objective. If you are referring to working with accountants or lawyers you approach them about being vetted for your Deliverables Team, not as referral sources. In which case, you follow the process delineated by Mark Little for building your team. We do not believe in cultivating accountants and lawyers solely as referral sources. They can become Ideal Clients and then refer... just like all Ideal Clients. Or they can become Best In Class Subject Matter Experts on your Deliverables Team and based on how impressed they are with what you do for clients they might want to refer and / or become a client and refer.

The 2-page business plan is mainly for your use, but might be used to further communicate with an Ideal Client who is struggling to understand how referring is in their best interest. This is not quite a last resort, but it's close.

The webinars about "Cracking the Referral Code" that have been conducted over the past couple of years might be helpful in this area. They are archived on the Committed Advisor site.

Let me know if this doesn't scratch your itch.

« I am a little frustrated at the present with the referral...

During the Referral Conversation™, I am frequently met with the... »

Others in this category

The Referral Conversations™ imply that my current Ideal (or near Ideal) clients have previously received a copy of the Values-Based Financial Planning™ book. None of them have.

I am now in the CAP program. Out of the 60 existing households I have 10 Ideal Clients. These clients have all been with me for 8+ years. For lack of a better word I've worn out my referral welcome with these folks. I'm in Rotary, Lions, Chamber of Commerce, and some other social networks. Of the many people in the Chamber I'm only familiar with a few, so I feel like I have to at least go talk with each person to get a self referral, find out a little about them and introduce myself since we have never met in person. I'm not having a lot of success with this in converting people to Ideal Clients. Most of my Ideal Clients are retired and not still working. I've finished all aspects of my Deliverables Team and trained a new internal staff since the last academy. To be bluntly honest I have time blocked time on my calendar for client acquisition, but just don't feel like I have a qualified (and I stress that word) list of candidates to call on for the process. Based on the 113 Ideal Clients I will need I'm going to have to call on almost 1,000 people to reach my goal of 113 Ideal Clients. I'm really struggling and would greatly appreciate your input on where I’m going to get all of these people? For our service to make sense they have to have a minimum of $500K, but really would be better for $1M+. I could call on people all day long with no money, lack there of, or a couple hundred thousand, but it would be a real waste of my time, yours, theirs, and my families time, because it won't create any REAL results even if they have a good experience.

How can I increase my referral ratio?

I wanted to get your feedback please on this email I received from the Chamber of Commerce, where I am a relatively new member. The Chamber sent me a letter inviting me to a Trade Show. The invitation noted that the Trade Show was a great opportunity to display products or services, discover new businesses and network with other business people. My questions to you are: 1. Would you attend this event? 2. If you did, would you attend it exclusively to complete Self-Referral Conversations™? 3. The invitation mentioned renting a booth to showcase your business – what is your take on this? I was thinking of going to the Trade Show for the purpose of conducting Self-Referral Conversations™ with business people. I am not sure, however, about the idea of having a booth at an event like this.

For some clients the Referral Conversation™ at the end of the Implementation Meeting has been a long time ago and/or not executed well at that time. The result is that they have not heard or do not remember why providing referrals are a great win-win-win opportunity. Since the following referral conversations builds on the first one, is it OK to repeat (once) part of this initial conversation after a Progress Meeting to help the client ‘get it’?

» More articles