February 02, 2008 
A continuation of my previous post, “What the Heck is a Catalog of Referrals“.
I ended by asking why anyone would admit they couldn’t help a potential customer and give business away by referring them to someone else.
The answer is aptly summed up in several adages:
- What goes around, comes around.
- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
- Givers gain.
A cornerstore of successful networking is the idea that if I help you, you’ll help me, and we’ll both benefit. If I look for potential customers for you, or products that might help you build your business, you’ll do the same for me. There’s no better way to make the point that you’d like referrals for your OWN business than by giving referrals to others’.
Starting and maintaining your own catalog of businesses you feel comfortable recommending makes it easy for you to find a product or service you can refer at a moment’s notice.
In my town, there’s a regular service called “Doormail” in which ads are left in a plastic sleeve on people’s mailboxes. In the last issue, the owner of a home improvement company actually PUBLISHED his directory of referrals. There’s a list of 20 businesses (air conditioner service, electricians, carpet cleaning, pest control, security systems, and so on) of which this gentleman says “These are proven companies that can be trusted with your home and will give you the best value.”
I think that’s really powerful - this guy not only performed a service for the readers (who’ll probably keep the list), he made loyal friends of the owners of those 20 businesses, and he came out looking like a sincere and honest professional member of the community.
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