Referral Follow Up – Do or Die in San Ramon Real Estate

Sometimes referrals appear out of the blue which is how many would prefer it to happen. Alas, building a successful referral business is a process which requires personal investment of you into the process. Asking for referrals is part of that process - this doesn't mean just having a statement to that effect on your website or business card.

What do you do when someone refers someone to you?

A simple thank you is nice, but does little to nurture your referring relationship and build it into a resource that you can depend on for future business.

We use a four-step follow up in addition to the simple thank you in our San Ramon real estate business:

1. As soon as we can (meaning within a couple of hours) we send a card from SendOutCards (previous post) which includes a $5 Starbucks gift card (on the front of the card it says - As an Expression of Our Appreciation...)
2. When we make contact with the person referred, we contact the referring person by phone or email to advise that a connection was made and again thank them for the referral.
3. If we enter into a business relationship with the referee, we make contact again advising that we have entered into a business relationship and again thank them for the referral.
4. When a business transaction is completed we send out another card with a restaurant gift card and again thank them for thinking us. If no business deal is done, we advise them of that and thank them for thinking of The Harper Team in San Ramon when they think of real estate.

This is a fluid process for us. The contact management system we use allows us to track the number of referrals a person sends to us and the dollar amount of the transactions. About this time of year, we review our data and look for personal gifts for those who are sending us multiple referrals a year.

Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI – Business Network International – has a new book worth reading – TRUTH or Delusion: Busting Networking’s Biggest Myths. As I indicated in an earlier post, I like to read. I have never read a book that I did not profit from. Even if I totally disagree with everything in the book, it is showing me how at least one other, if not many, are thinking about or approaching a subject. One good idea is worth many more times the cost of a book or the time spent reading as I am sure you know as you invest your time in following one or more blogs.

My brother and his wife had joined a networking group in San Ramon, before I moved out here and joined them in their real estate business. This was not a BNI group. I attended one meeting which was held at the San Ramon Chamber of Commerce and was not impressed.

The person facilitating the meeting was, in my opinion, too focused on himself. To me, he did not come across as being sincerely interested in helping the group members develop their businesses. He displayed a lack of personal interest and passion and the whole meeting felt too formulaic.

Just thought of something to write about in my next post – How Network Marketing Prepared Me for Real Estate.

Real Estate, Networking, Referrals - to me it's personal and if there is one thing most of us can pick up on in a few nano seconds it's - Is it me or the money? If it's about you and your money (you getting mine) without any personal investment of you into something very personal to me - well - there are many fish in the blogosphere.