As a consultant and small business owner, I love a good referral. (thanks to all those who send them to me and keep them coming!)
Referrals become clients 50% of the time, cost virtually nothing and you don't have to do loads of social media to get them, so it's a great business to get. The only issue is they are inconsistent, so if you are not consistent with your networking and branding they dry up.
This especially hits hard after a long holiday over Christmas when you take a break and suddenly the start to the new year isn't a full of appointments as you would like.
Pondering this issue for myself and my clients this year I recognised that there needs to be a way to have more consistent referrals without all the hassle of a massive social media campaign.
There are two parts to the solution: a quality online brand (for referrals to check out your credibility) and a network of referring partners (to give you the referral).
At Social Star, we already provide the online branding advice. So I went looking for some networking groups. What I discovered is that most are very formal, cost quite a bit to join, very structured in the way they do referrals and not much fun!
My version of a referral partner is someone I like hanging out with socially, they know what I do and my target market. They get to know me well and over time establish trust in my business, so I get their referrals. Basically, if I enjoy having a beer with them and we are like minded, it's a match.
Thus, with my team, we created BYOB Social Club. An addition to the Social Star business to enable my friends, clients and partners to make new business connections in the old fashion way - face to face! Strange coming from a digital dude like myself, but I believe this is the trend for 2019. Not more pushing on social media.
So if a club that focusses on business people getting together socially to talk business, get some support, test your ideas and new pitches and generate a few referrals, then check us out!
I would love feedback on the concept as it's brand spanking new and we are open to good ideas!
Cheers Andrew
