Thierry Mazué: Double Your Referred Buisness 03/08/12

In this video, Thierry Mazué, my good friend and Master Franchisee/Trainer for the Referral Institute in France, talks about two of the eight referral sources in referral marketing and explains how you can double your referred business simply by using two of them. After watching the video, be sure to visit www.ReferralInstitute.com to learn more about the other sources of referrals and then come back to this site to leave your comments about which of the referral sources you currently use and which additional sour...

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New Blog Series with Top Referral Marketing Trainer TR Garland! 02/16/12

In this video, TR Garland and I announce the launch of our new, 12-month, BusinessNetworking.com blog series ”Navigating the VCP Process® to Networking,” TR is not only my good friend, he is one of the top referral marketing trainers in the world and he and I co-authored the #1 Amazon Best-seller Building the Ultimate Network together. I am really excited to be doing this new blog series with TR because he is in the top 1% across the globe in regard to understanding how to implement referral mar...

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Systems and Referral Marketing 02/09/12

It’s International Networking Week and one of the many ways I’m celebrating is by posting this video blog on how to network better and smarter with systems. In this short video , I talk to my good friend Bertrand McHenry, a Referral Institute Trainer and Franchisee, about how people who develop a system for referral marketing generate substantially more business through referrals. Watch this video to find out how creating a system for referrals can help you predict the income you will receive from ref...

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Making a Mark with Marketing . . . How Are You Making Yours? 12/19/11

Marketing isn’t something I was always confident about. When I first started out in business, my degrees were in Political Science and Organizational Behavior. I had very little marketing experience until I went to work for a transportation company in Southern California and, within a two week span, went from a role in purchasing to a significant role in marketing–a huge change that was an even bigger learning experience. My marketing experience was trial by fire and reading. I just started reading ...

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What Are You Waiting For? 11/21/11

The best referral efforts I’ve seen happen by design, not by accident or wishful thinking. Many business people view word of mouth somewhat like the weather: “Sure, it’s important, but what can I do about it?” Referrals and word of mouth can be planned and nurtured. Anyone, including business owners, entrepreneurs, sales representatives, staff employees, even individuals serving in a volunteer capacity in any field, can accomplish plenty with a well-structured and systematically executed referral plan f...

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The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret–4th Edition 08/08/11

The first edition of my book The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret, which details how to build business by referral, was released back in 1994 and went on to become an international bestseller. I am excited to announce that the 4th edition of the book was just published and my co-author Mike Macedonio and I have substantially rewritten the book and added a significant amount of information. Here is just a brief sample of what is outlined in the new book: The best way to grow your business Referrals and refe...

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The Referral Process–Steps 1 and 2 04/25/11

Last week, I wrote a blog explaining that referral networking is a system –when it comes to the actions of generating, developing, and closing a business deal through a referral, there is a well defined, systematic process. The good news is, this process can be broken down into eight easy steps and today I am going to explain steps 1 and 2. Step 1. Your Source Discovers a Referral The referral begins with an event that is outside your direct involvement: your referral source uncovers a referral opportunity fo...

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"New Year’s Resolutions and Networking" 12/13/10

A friend of mine, TR Garland (pictured with me in the photo at right), just wrote a great blog entry which contains some very timely information for many people across the globe and I’d like to take the opportunity to share it with you today as a guest blog. Enjoy . . . “New Year’s Resolutions and Networking” by TR Garland In about 30 days, the majority of people around the world are going to be faced with the same thing we’re all faced with once at a certain point every single year. N...

Finding Your Starting Point 11/04/10

If you have little or no experience with referral marketing, it would be a mistake to jump into action without preparing yourself. Central to the referral-marketing process is getting people to send you referrals. To do so, they must know exactly what you do — what product or service you provide or make, how and under what conditions you provide it, how well you do it and in what ways you are better at what you do than your competitors. You have to communicate this information to your sources. And to communi...

What's the Payoff for Developing an Effective Word-of-Mouth Strategy? 11/01/10

Developing an effective word-of-mouth strategy that results in a strong referral-based business takes endless time, energy, effort and, above all, commitment. The actions and steps necessary to create a successful referral-networking campaign are simple, yet far from easy; they take tremendous dedication and drive, and results can be a long time in coming. So why should you put forth the time and effort to develop a word-of-mouth strategy for your business? Because, if you commit to doing it right and don’t g...

How Soon Should You Expect Profitability from a Relationship? 08/12/10

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve written a few blogs on the VCP Process® of networking and, since I’ve already covered visibility and credibility in detail, today I’m going to tell you what you need to know about profitability, the third and final phase of the VCP Process. The mature relationship, whether business or personal, can be defined in terms of its profitability. Is it mutually rewarding? Do both partners gain satisfaction from it? Does it maintain itself by providing benefits to bo...

What is the VCP Process? 07/29/10

The key concept in referral marketing is relationships. The system of information, support and referrals that you assemble will be based on your relationships with other individuals and businesses. Referral marketing works because these relationships work both ways: They benefit both parties. A referral marketing plan involves relationships of many different kinds. Among the most important are those with your referral sources, with prospects these referral sources bring you and with customers you recruit from the ...