Evan Carmichael breaks down how to land referral partners for a digital-marketing consultancy. Build a personal connection first, craft a clear value proposition with a memorable guarantee, frame it as mutual benefit, meet in person, and add a personalized touch like a favorite treat from their social media.
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You have to make a good first impression when you're connecting with referral partners, or they're not going to send you any business, and you're going to lose out on one of the best ways you have to grow your company. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. I believe that hungry entrepreneurs deserve help, and today I'm answering a question from one of my YouTube readers— love you guys— Brendan, who said, I've started a new digital marketing consultancy agency. Helping professional service-based businesses attract qualified clients, increase revenue, and create automated marketing systems. I want to partner up with companies that has my type of audience that I like to attract. Can you give suggestions as to how I should approach these businesses? Your passion is contagious and thanks for what you do. Cheers, Brendan. So thanks Brendan. Congrats on starting this new business. Exciting time. And you're definitely on the right path in trying to go out and attract referral partners instead of just trying to do everything yourself. These guys already have your audience. You just have to convince them that you are a right fit for what they are doing. Now, when you're approaching referral partners, the best thing you can do is start off by building some kind of personal relationship. So if you can do that via Twitter, finding someone who you know at the company, or sending a specific email to somebody at the business, you get a much better response rate than just writing into the general email address. Okay, that's step number 1. Next, you have to clearly define what you do and add a little more punch to it. Yours isn't bad. It's not bad. It's better than most people who write into me. It's, I've started a digital marketing consultancy agency. Okay, so we know what you do. We know who you help. Helping professional service-based businesses. And then the benefits: attract qualified clients, increase revenue, and create automated marketing systems online. That last part is a little different. It tweaks my interest a little bit. The creating automated marketing systems is something that most people won't talk about. So you've done something a little bit here already to attract my attention, but you need one more pow sentence. You gotta end this off with something that's gonna hit them right between the eyes and make them want to meet with you. You need something that's gonna help you stand out from everybody else. Some kind of guarantee, some kind of truth, some kind of result that you can provide that you have some data to back up that is different. 'Cause these guys are meeting tons of people like you. You have to find that way to stand out. So it's not bad, that first sentence, but you gotta add one more in there that is memorable. People are gonna make sure that they pay attention to and say, "I gotta meet this guy." Okay? Those are your first steps. Now when you're writing to people, you have to make it seem, and you have to have the intention of it being a two-way conversation. I get people write to me all the time and they say, Evan, we've got this great product, I think your entrepreneurs can really benefit from it, please help promote us. I'm not in the business of promoting you, right? There's tons of guys I could promote. I have enough work on my plate besides thinking about promoting you. But if you come to me and you think of an opportunity that we might be able to help each other out, there's something in it for me too besides just promoting you, then it's more interesting. So when you're connecting with them, say you want to learn about them. You know, you work with these types of clients. Who also need potential help in, you know, whatever it is that they do. Legal services, accounting services, design services, whatever it is. Your clients need their help as well. And you want to learn about them to build your knowledge base of who you can actually refer people on to. And when these people see that there's something in it for them, they're much more likely to take that meeting. Okay, final step, make it easy for them. Go to their office, go to their coffee shop, go to them instead of having them come to you. I'd always try to make it in person instead of doing a phone call or just keeping it on email because you lose the touch. If it's only email, you're not going to get any referrals. You've got to press the flesh, you've got to meet with these guys, but make it easy for them. And final, if you want kind of the bonus tip, bring something that they really like. I remember when I first had a meeting with a PR company that could potentially refer new brands to my business and has, and has been a lot of business to this one company. My first contact with them, I had my assistant research the person's Twitter account and see what she was posting. And she posted that she really liked going to this little cafe called Little Nicky's and the treats that they had. So my assistant told me that, and on my way down to meet them, I stopped by Little Nicky's and bought out all their treats. And brought it to the meeting. And I didn't say, "Hey, I researched, you know, I stalked you on Twitter and I found this out about you." That might be a little scary. But it's plausible that, you know, I was in the area and I found this coffee shop and I wanted to bring some treats. And her eyes lit up as soon as she saw the Little Nicky's treats. And so maybe it's sucking up a little bit, maybe it's stalking her a little bit. You know, you don't want to say where the information came from, but that set us off on the right foot. And we've done a lot of business together. So if there is anything personal you can find out through somebody's Twitter stream, then that can be a little bonus to help you get to know them a little bit better and be able to make a better impression when you're first connecting with people. You're definitely on the right path. Good luck with this business. Reaching out to potential partners is again one of the best and fastest ways to be able to grow your business because they already have your target audience. If they like what you do, they can refer a huge stream of ongoing business to you. Without you having to worry about going out and getting new clients all the time. So good luck, I'd love to hear how you're going. And if you want to work on that last sentence to make it a little punchier and really hit somebody between the face and really have that impact to say, "I gotta meet with this guy," if you work on that sentence and you send it in to me, I'll give you some feedback on it too. So thanks everybody for watching. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up below. Makes me want to do more for you. And if you have a comment about this video or question for your own company, please leave it in the comment section below. I always read those. It makes my morning. Every day. So thank you, and I'll see you on the next episode.
