Richard White

The importance of following through on commitments

November 29, 2012

When it comes to giving quality referrals, people tend to refer business to people they know, like, and trust. This is because people worry about the impact of a referral going wrong on their relationship, especially if it is their best client!  They need to know that their client will thank them for making the introduction rather than resenting it. A small but important part of trust building happens when we meet our commitments. It shows people that we say what we mean and mean what we say. Doing things when we say we will do them is also important. [...]

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How to get more golden referrals

November 1, 2012

If you put time and effort into building a quality referral network you will find that, before too long, people in your network will start referring business to you. If you want the referrals to keep coming on a regular basis you not only need to do a great job for your new client, but also respect and nurture the source of the referrals. 

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Small talk makes a big difference to business networking

October 4, 2012

One of my pet hates at networking meetings is to meet someone for the first time and they jump straight into ‘So, what do you do?’ It’s very common but just because other people do it does not mean it’s effective. It tends to lead to conversations without connection and networking is all about connection. Small talk is to networking what oil is to an engine. It makes everything run so much more smoothly. With a bit of old fashioned small talk, people tend to open up more and connect with you. Of course you will inevitably get to the [...]

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How to melt the ice and quickly gain rapport when having a one-to-one meeting

September 4, 2012

I was recently doing a one-to-one meeting with a financial adviser and I started off the meeting by saying “So Jeremy, how did you come to be a financial adviser? What’s your story?” He lent back and laughed out loud! Apparently a mutual friend had told him about my love of stories and warned him I would probably ask him his story!

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7 ways to make it easy for your network to refer business to you

July 31, 2012

In my experience, the easier you can make it for people in your trusted network to pass you referrals, the more it will be to happen. Here are 7 easy things you can do to increase the chance of getting a dream referral : Ask for help Some people just like to be asked. Some assume that if you need help you will ask for it. Others are just busy getting on with their own business and yet, if asked they would be delighted to help. So feel free to go ahead and ask!

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The lawyer who refused to specialise

July 2, 2012

A while back I met a lawyer at a networking meeting. No surprise there! Networking is an important method of lead generation for lawyers. I was chatting to this particular lawyer and I asked him if he specialised in any particular aspect of law. He said that he was an expert in property law and went on to explain the potential problems that people can get into with property related contracts. I asked him why he did not mention that when we first started talking and he replied that he didn’t because he could also do other types of law [...]

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Careless talk costs business

May 31, 2012

There is a saying “words are cheap” but in business networking they can prove very expensive. I was recently working with someone to help them get more quality referrals from business networking. I had worked through all the normal things that get results with people such as clarifying his target audience, specialising, getting his stories right, making sure he nurtures his relationships and being clear on what to ask for. However, it was still not working for him. I couldn’t understand why he was not getting results. I had noticed that this guy had been promising a lot when we [...]

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5 steps for turning a hot referral into a sale

April 30, 2012

Business networking, when done correctly, can lead to some amazing referrals .  However, just because you come highly recommended does not mean the sale is in the bag. You still have to close the sale. Here are the 5 steps you need to take to turn an opportunity into cash in the bank.   Step 1 – Qualify interest At this stage you need to check there is a real opportunity and you will not be wasting your time (and your prospect’s time) in pursuing the sale. You want to ensure that there is genuine interest, the authority to buy [...]

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