What is a Good-Sized Business Referral Group?

Although it is important to build up a database of contacts and to grow your business referral group, it is not necessarily the bigger the better when it comes to your referral group.

Briefly meeting someone and exchanging business cards, or connecting through online platforms such as LinkedIn, doesn’t really build trust, nor does it guarantee any real commitment to share business referrals.

A business referral group works best when the people in it make an effort to meet on a regular basis and to get to know each other and each other’s business. These are the crucial starting points for building up trust and ensuring that group members are committed to generating referrals and new business opportunities for each other.

3 Simple Steps for forming a Good Business Referral Group:

1. Start or join a group with like-minded individuals whose businesses are relevant to yours and look to build mutually beneficial business relationships.
2. Meet with the people in your group on a regular basis, get to know them and allow them to get to know you.
3. Make an effort to generate business leads for the people in your group and this will encourage them to do the same.

With these steps in mind, the bigger the group, the more difficult it can actually become to give and receive good referrals. By forming a smaller group of people you know, trust and actually like, you can work together far better.

So having a large network is not necessarily the key to a successful business referral group and the focus should be on the quality of individuals over quantity.

Contact us for tips and advice on Business Referral Groups and Networks.