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Why regular huddles improve your Referral Network

Guy
Guy
August 16, 2019February 11, 2020

Businesses strengthen their referral network by regularly catching up with other members. These regular Referral Network Huddles will increase the value to each member of their referral network by increasing the volume of customer referrals between members.

Regularly check-in with your referral network to strengthens your network.
Regularly check-in with your referral network to strengthens your network.

As discussed in our article on creating your first referral network, members of a referral network need to:

  • understand where your partner’s expertise is and how they can help your customers
  • understand your expertise and how you can help their customers
  • like you, trust and advocate your product or service
  • help each other and they need to reciprocate with you

How often should Referral Network Huddles occur?

To stay in sync with your network, we recommend catching up:

  • over the phone or online at least every fortnight.
  • in person at least every two months.

There are plenty of free services available online (like Skype, Google Hangouts) that allow you to create a phone or video conference – perfect for your fortnightly catch ups.

You should avoid places like coffee shops or restaurants for your in person catch ups and aim for somewhere quiet like an office or someone’s house. We’ve seen some great examples of referral networks putting together a roster of hosting duties with each member hosting their bi-monthly catch up and then passing the duties onto the next.

Catching up regularly helps members improve key components of the referral network and the in-person catch ups have the added bonus of getting to know each other on a social basis.

Key content for the Referral Network Huddle.

Structured Referral Network huddles should cover off a variety of topics.
Structured Referral Network huddles should cover off a variety of topics.

To maximise value, you should make sure that your catch ups cover the following at a minimum:

  1. How are we uncovering the customer needs we can help with and:
    1. What worked well?
    2. What could be improved?
  2. How is the referral process working for us and:
    1. What worked well?
    2. What could be improved?
  3. How well are we converting referrals and:
    1. What worked well?
    2. What could be improved?

Discussing these with your network will increase the value of your network, allowing you to help more customers and receive referrals in return.

Harvey Pence helps businesses to grow faster with a referral network. The Harvey Pence Referral Platform and our Comprehensive Guide are the best resources to help you create, improve and grow your referral network.

Guy
  • Guy is the co-founder of Harvey Pence.
    Harvey Pence helps businesses to grow faster with a referral network. Whether it be building your referral network, referring customers between businesses or evaluating the performance of your referral network, harveypence.com has you covered.

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