Rampant Referrals – Part 14

Recap.
As a quick recap last time, we concluded the ‘Who’ of communications and communications-sabotage. This means that we’ve largely covered the ‘what’, ‘who’ and the ‘why’ of communications, leaving the ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘how ‘ and I’d like to start to cover all that now in another section around ‘environment’ – or more specifically – Environment Sabotage and how MSPs are unwittingly sabotaging referrals.

So, starting with the ‘when’, we can narrow this down into two parts, a short part about you and a longer part about them. This is in relation to events that occur which are either inside or outside your direct control.

In terms of timings where you have direct control or influence over the environment and timing, we can review these examples :

• Regular Business Reviews or Check-ins (* See NPS – Covered later )
• Post-Successful Project Completion
• After resolving a major Problem/Issue
• Networking Events and Industry Conferences
• Client Appreciation Events
• Onboarding Clients, Staff, Suppliers
• After Webinars & Zoom Calls
• Referral Incentive Programs : All Media – email, invoices, blog posts etc)
• Client Testimonials and Case Studies
• Joint-Venturing Sessions With Other Strategic Partners   (*Covered later)

In terms of timings where they have direct control over the environment or timing when it is more likely than usual to acquire referrals, I have categorised these in line with the acronym BUMPS, so that it’s easier to remember. And when I mean they, I mean to include clients, their staff, strategic-partners, suppliers and other stakeholders.

Anyway, back to “BUMPS” … I use this as a way to categorise sales signals into areas where you can focus your areas and it stands for Business, Usage, Marketing, People and Satisfaction.

I think it’s worth reflecting for a moment what I said previously about how the vast majority of referrals get missed because you only tend to get those referrals when the right person is telling you the right thing at the right time.

But how many times might prospects need your services but it just doesn’t get flagged up to you? These are the situations where you have no control over the timing or the environment. All you can do is control how well your communications are working.

So, let’s look at the categories in turn. Please remember that these are just my suggestions and if I were running a B2B business as the owner of a managed service company, I’d have these written down as a document somewhere and every time I think of a likely time or place a referral could come from, I’d update the list.

Business Signals :

Partnerships, mergers and acquisitions

Rapid growth of sales (turnover).

Recently opened a new (or another) office/branch.

Recently moved or relocated to the area.

New business or new part of the business being launched.

New product/service launch

Tendering for contracts.

Tender/contract just won / lost

Funding being sought.

Upgrading existing hardware/software/assets

Investing in new hardware/software/assets

Installing networking / cabling.

Legal issues

Changes to their credit rating

End of Financial Year

New directors or partners or vacancies being advertised

Usage Signals

Don’t currently use the product/service (or not tried it yet)

Use product/service but only intermittently

Reduced/stopped usage of product/service.

Support/service engineer/personnel being called/onsite

Marketing Signals

(Inbound) Request For a Complimentary/Related Product/Service

Sudden increase / decrease in marketing or sales operations

PR – activity (direct or indirect) in media, news outlets, blogs, social media, video etc.

Awards or news mentions

Conference attendances

Advertising

Website updates

Word-Of-Mouth from buyers / suppliers / competitors / other stakeholders

People Signals

Recruitment : (New) staff joining or jobs being advertised.

(Existing) Staff leaving / being promoted or changing jobs / area / department

Disciplinaries, dismissals

Training

Onboarding

Sickness, redundancy

Satisfaction Signals

Negative/mediocre comments/feedback/reviews/reputation (online/offline from staff/stakeholders) about :

Product(s), Service(s), Supplier(s) : Suitability, Convenience, Price, Reliability, Service, Speed, Availability, Delivery.

My Suggestion would be to write down three columns, namely Signal, Source, and Solution.

You can take the signals I’ve mentioned above and add your own suggestions to them and make an exhaustive list of these. Then, in the source column next to each sales-signal, you can identify potential sources for each signal. Then in the solution column, you can write out a solution that you can provide which will be of value either directly to the person needing help or to the referrer. Let me give you an example from a couple of the BUMPS categories. For a more comprehensive list – which is outside the scope here – feel free to get in touch with me.

Business Signal

Signal   :  Moving Office                              Source    Commercial Property Agent
Solution
Moving-In “Pack” For the agent to hand out to the people looking to move :
Broadband & Wifi Speeds. List of local business contacts. Training vouchers.
IT Moving checklist.
Cabling calculations.

Signal   : Moving Office                               Source    Facilities Management Company
Solution
Moving-In Pack – similar to before : Include WiFi Security Guidelines
Wall Posters for IT Security
Checklist about moving equipment & servers & storage & testing it properly.
Cabling calculations.
Info-Pack about managing  access control systems to secure physical premises, ensuring compliance.

Signal   : Moving Office                               Source    Commercial Lawyer
Solution
Data Transfer Compliance: You can Ensure that the transfer of data during the move complies with all relevant legal regulations.

Legal Documentation: Provide documentation of data migration processes to demonstrate compliance and due diligence. Conduct a physical IT security audit for insurance purposes.

You can repeat this process for the same signal for commercial removal companies, office equipment providers, office cleaning companies etc. You can even get friendly with the local postman and delivery drivers … these are all potential ways to find out when people are moving.

Example Number 2 : People Signals.

Signal : New Person Being Hired Source : Recruitment Company

Solution : Offer IT training – for free perhaps? It’ll make the recruitment company look good. In fact, you can provide them with MKLINK white-labelled IT training videos – there’s a blatant plug for you!
You can provide Phishing simulation tools. Perhaps you can offer to look for information about the individual on the dark web (although I’m not sure how that would stack up legally). In short – you can offer loads of value to the recruitment company that would be of significant value to them and their client.

You could offer similar solutions for an HR company
Signal : New Person Being Hired Source : Payroll Service Providers

Solution : This might require a little more thought.

Perhaps you could offer software or something like a self-service portal where new employees can enter their personal information, view payslips, and manage their payroll-related tasks. You could even ensure that these portals are accessible via mobile devices, providing flexibility and convenience for new employees. It might even be worth being a little lateral thinking here and offer IT training with information for the new member of staff showing how much their skills could be worth to the marketplace, to encourage them to invest in themselves.

In short, there are many many sales signals, each with potentially multiple sources for them and multiple solutions you can offer. Building this matrix is not trivial but done correctly means you can have more referrals than you know what to do with.

Get in touch if you’d like more information about this because I can’t cover every eventuality in this episode but we can continue looking at this next time,