How Your Staff Can Make or Break Your Referability

The more referable you become, the more referrals you’ll get without even asking for them.

One source of your referability isn’t you at all; it’s your support staff – be it client assistants, receptionists, para-planners, and other associates. How they represent you can be a limiting factor in your referability.

Here a few thoughts and ideas to help you ensure all the members of your team make a positive contribution to your ability to generate referrals:

1. You believe in yourself and the work you do. Right? Does your staff believe in you and the work you do? Do they even truly know the value of the work you do? Make sure you teach them. And make sure they hear all the good things you hear from your clients – they played a role in garnering that praise.
2. Let’s take that above concept a step further. Does your passionfor what you do and how you help people show through to your clients and to your associates? Do they share that passion and communicate it to your clients?  Many studies have demonstrated that when people see that their work contributes to a greater good, they are more motivated and, therefore, more productive.
3. Your team members will unlikely treat your clients any better than you treat your team members. This is called “trickle down customer service.” Your team members are your clients. Make sure they are happy and they will go above and beyond the call of duty for your clients. Here’s one way to know if your team members are doing what they need to do to make your business referable... Your clients are giving you unsolicited positive feedback about them. I know one of staff is doing well with my clients when my clients volunteer good things about them.
4. Make sure your clients have multiple opportunities to meet your staff face to face. As you already know, most face-to-face encounters help the telephone encounters; especially with difficult issues or in recovering from mistakes.
5. Build your staff members’ credentials in the eyes of your clients. Create a simple 1-page biography that can go into information packets, on your website, or mailed to your clients when a new team member comes on board. If you have a team, sell the team. It will differentiate you in the marketplace.