Referral Links

We've searched for the very best articles, Web sites, books, and systems we can find on the topic of getting more and better referrals. If you'd like to suggest something that isn't listed here, please email us your idea.

Horsesmouth articles

Horsesmouth offers financial advisors a wealth of resources about referrals and related topics. Your FREE 60-day trial membership will provide you with access to our entire business development library, including more than 200 articles about referrals. Here is a small (but potent!) sample.

Referral basics

Referrals 101, Part 1: 6 Degrees of Separation
In this three-part series, discover how a referral system can move you five degrees closer to a book filled with dream clients.

Create a Referral Network for Your Practice
Referrals are probably the most effective form of marketing—but that doesn't mean they're easy to come by. To enjoy a regular influx of high-quality referrals, you'll need to tell the right story to a targeted audience—and leverage the right approach.

5 Reasons Advisors Don't Get Referrals
Not getting enough referrals? You may be unwittingly committing one of these common but often overlooked blunders.

Want Referrals? The Trick Is in How You Ask You've followed the basic rules for garnering referrals, but you're still having difficulty extracting top-quality names from your clients. What should you be doing differently?

12 Steps to More Referral Introductions
Here's a quick overview of what you need to do to jump-start your referral business.

Referrals: 8 Tactics That Make Asking Easier
Still trying those tired old approaches that make clients squirm? Here's a list of alternative referral tactics that you and your clients can feel good about.

Setting referral goals and tracking results

Business Planning 101
If your business plan is weak, get it back on track with this step-by-step primer.

How FAs Track Daily Performance
You've mapped out your goals in your business plan. But unless you have a system in place to track your progress and manage your time, you may not be able to assess where you stand—until it's too late.

Track Your Numbers Like You're Tiger Woods
Great athletes know that monitoring their statistics and tweaking nuances of their game will deliver intense results. The same is true for advisors. But you must track the right metrics to reap the right results.

19 Planning Questions to Make 2006 Your Best Year Ever
Great success demands careful planning. Without a goal, vision and planned-out next steps, your chance of success drops sharply. Ask yourself these questions and get started on next year's business plan today.

How to Set Goals That'll Go the Distance
Advisors at different career stages face a variety of challenges and concerns. But without clearly defined goals, even veterans can find themselves floundering. Here are some tips for hammering out concrete goals that will take you where you want to go.

Referrals and networking

4 Types of Networking: What's Your Style?
Not everybody enjoys shaking hands with a bunch of strangers or engaging in small talk at social events. But that doesn't mean you can't be an excellent networker. Here are four distinct styles of networking FAs use to promote their businesses. Why not try out some combination or all four?

Networking Hollywood-Style: How to Pitch Mr. Big
Even the best salespeople get a little intimidated by mega moguls and power players. Take a page from Hollywood, where you have to associate out of your league to sell an idea, get your next job, or take your career to a higher level. Here are 23 rules to follow.

How to Work the Room
Prepare for your next event with this 10-point plan for starting conversations that ignite the prospecting process.

How to Network at Social Events—Effectively!
It's not about how many people you meet at a social gathering. It's about helping others make connections. Here's how to do it.

9 Secrets of a Consummate Networker
Independent publicist Erik Filkorn has an uncanny ability to befriend nearly everyone with whom he comes into contact—and, often as not, to land their business, too. Find out how he does it.

		Key Insights Into How to Do It Better "Working for a bank, referrals are very important. Many people still struggle with how to ask their clients for a personal introduction. Automatic Referrals provides key insights into how to do it better." Mark Nagelsmith Bank Rep Glens Falls, New York

Strategic alliances and referrals

Competition Calls for Strategic Alliances
To meet the increasingly complex financial needs of the wealthy, you may need to find allies in other professions. Building strategic alliances with attorneys, CPAs, and others elevates your level of service and your business.

Strategic Alliances: How to Pick the Right Ones
Before you agree to a professional alliance with anyone, check out this troubleshooting guide to finding the right partners—and avoiding the wrong ones.

How to Meet CPAs and Their Best Clients
CPAs can give great referrals, but getting to know them tends to be an arduous process. Here's how to earn their trust and start building mutually beneficial relationships.

Why Strategic Alliances Fail—and How to Keep Yours Intact
Sure, you and your team have a nice referral groove going—but that's not proof that you're working well together. Here's how you can avoid the kinds of relationship breakdowns that prove hazardous to advisors and clients alike.

9 Ways to Connect With Estate Attorneys
Building strong ties with estate planning lawyers can yield an abundance of high-net-worth referrals. Here's how FAs initiate these key strategic relationships.

12 Steps to a New Kind of Referral Business
Some of your best prospects may be doing business with clients of bankers and other employees around your firm. Don't let them go to waste.

Target marketing basics

Do You Know Who Your Prospects Are?
If you're targeting "affluent individuals," "small businesses," or "wealthy retirees," you could be making a potentially costly mistake.

3 Key Steps to Attracting Your Ideal Client
If you're willing to say you specialize in practically anything, the truth is you're probably specializing in nothing. When you tighten the focus of your target market and hone in on the services you deliver best, your success rate will rocket.

5 Steps to Targeting a High-End Niche
Advisors who fail to establish themselves in one marketing sphere end up screening prospects for affluence but not much else. That never works.

How to Build a Marketing Plan That Works
Donald Trump recently fired a financial advisor and would-be apprentice after the FA's lame marketing strategy resulted in poor sales. Don't make the same mistakes with your next marketing campaign.

How to Dominate a Niche Industry in 12 Months
By marketing yourself within a niche industry, you may be able to make yourself a financial planning celebrity in as little as a year—and you'll reap quality referrals over the long haul. Use this primer to get started on building your reputation.

Client service and loyalty

Get More Honest to Get More Referrals
Building high-trust relationships means you have to be completely honest with clients—and ask them to be totally honest with you, even if it means taking some criticism from them.

Would Your Clients Give You a 5-Star Service Rating?
They'd better—particularly in uncertain markets. If you're not sure how you stack up service-wise, review this checklist of tips for delivering standout service and showing clients you care.

A 3-Tiered System That Deepens Client Relationships
Are your clients just clients—or are they apostles, spreading the good word about doing business with you? With systematic profiling, service, and communication processes, you can turn ordinary clients into tireless devotees.

How to Create the Ideal Client Experience
Follow three key steps to evaluate how your clients experience your service. If you pursue them thoroughly, you're going to notice happier clients, easier sales, and a lot more referrals.

Client Service—13 Ways to Share the Love
Portfolio returns leaving a sour taste in clients' mouths? Use these simple and inexpensive tips to sweeten up your relationships—whatever the market climate.

Referral follow-up

Case Study: How to Use ACT to Maximize Referrals
If you can't follow through on a warm lead, you've missed some major opportunities. This financial planner solved her problem by building a contact management system in ACT that helps her follow up on every prospect until they buy or die.

Thanks Again: More Tips on Handwritten Thank-You Notes
In a follow-up to her popular article on the marketing power of personal thank-you notes, Katherine Vessenes gives the fine points on how getting more gracious will get you more business.

4 Techniques for Contacting Referred Prospects
Getting a referral is only the first step—now you've got to phone your new prospect. With do-not-call laws in force, that's not always easy. Learn how to improve your chances of getting through and making a positive impression by enlisting your referral source's help.

Calling Your New Referral Prospects: An Expert's Script
Quick, what's the first thing you say to referred prospects when you get them on the phone? Customize this results-oriented script to make sure those initial calls lead to face-to-face meetings.

E-newsletters

Automatic Referrals (twice monthly)
Getting a steady stream of qualified referrals is the ultimate goal of any referral strategy. This newsletter helps make that happen, drawing its inspiration from the Automatic Referrals action research report.

The Referral Minute (Twice monthly)
Proven referral marketing tips from Bill Cates to help you build your referral-based business.

The Referral Mastery Tip of the Month (monthly)
Referral tips from expert Michael Brizz.

Richard Weylman's Marketing Tips (weekly)
Brief but meaty tips designed to help you open more doors in the affluent and wealthy market.

RainMaker Report (weekly)
New, relevant, and useful tips and how-tos from experts around the world on marketing and selling professional services.

Strategic Impact Newsletter (occasional)
The simplest, fastest way to more new clients and a higher income is using referrals. Use these resources to help you improve.

The Elite Advisor (twice monthly)
Tools, research and solutions for financial advisors from CEG Worldwide.

Web sites and blogs

Referral Flood (John Jantsch)

Books and reports

	Endless Referrals, Third Edition By Bob Burg October 2005 Through Endless Referrals, Bob Burg has taught tens of thousands of sales professionals and entrepreneurs how to dramatically increase their business using powerful relationship-building techniques to build a referral business and gain clients. In this updated edition, Burg introduces his Attraction Marketing System, a potent new marketing tool that brings qualified prospects for your product or service to right to you via targeted initiatives using direct mail, email, websites, and other channels.
	Get More Referrals Now! By Bill Cates March 2004 If you want to bring in more qualified leads and close more sales than you ever imagined, don't work harder, work smarter—with Get More Referrals Now! Selling in today's business environment is more challenging than ever. But the secret to success isn't longer hours and more phone calls; it's getting better referrals. Sales expert Bill Cates's system of referral-based marketing turns every business contact into a relationship—and every relationship into a sales success.
	How To Grab CPA Referrals By The Dozens By Daryl Logullo CPAs control tons of affluent clients. Use these resources to learn how to get more referrals from them easily. "After over 25 years in the financial services business, this is the best book I've seen to tell you in plain language how to work with CPAs. Outstanding!!" —William O'Neil, CFP, CLU, ChFC Greensboro, NC