Stop Networking. Start Building Referral Multipliers.

There are exceptions for almost anything (including mixers) so don’t get too persnickety with me here. In general, you are not building relationships there. You are collecting contacts and hoping one of them pays off. Lots of conversations, tons of business cards (paper and electronic now) and a calendar that has lots of activity and no strategy that gets you out of desperation mode in your sales funnel.

I am not throwing stones from outside the building…I owned and ran multiple BNI franchises back 20+ years ago and even helped create a referral training franchising company and co-wrote a bestseller. I made, marketed, sold and serviced the Kool Aid so to speak.

The only thing that mattered, in the end, was the result. Too often, the results weren’t effective and time was spent that never built anything of enduring value. That is not only a waste of business resources…it is human time wasted.

How do I make referrals really, really work?!?

You have to get to the third level of the process

There are three levels of referrals and I am going to use the scriptural equivalents because (a) they have been around longer and (b) the stakes are even higher.

Evangelism
Discipleship
Disciplemaking

Those are three very different, but fully aligned things…the first two feed into the last one.

Matthew 28: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

There is only one command in that sentence: Make disciples.

Everything else is how you fulfill the command. In the church…just like in business…too often we focus exclusively on the easy parts (1 and 2) and never get to the part that changes the world and your sales funnel.

Let me give you definitions before we drive deeper:

Evangelism is proclamation.

The Lausanne Covenant, one of the closest global consensus definitions produced, calls it ‘the spreading of the good news with a view to persuading people to come to Christ personally.’ Evangelism creates awareness and invites a response. Movement: unaware, aware,interested.

Discipleship is formation.

Dallas Willard’s definition is the one I find most helpful: ‘Being with another person, under appropriate conditions, in order to become capable of doing what that person does, or to become like what that person is.” This isn’t about information…it’s about change.

Disciple making is reproduction.

Paul to Timothy: “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” Four generations in one sentence!

Evangelism is addition, discipleship is development and disciple making is multiplication.

Now for the business translation:

Evangelism gets you known

Discipleship gets you trusted

Disciple making gets you advocates who create other advocates

I talk all the time about predictable referrals and there are two tracks that deliver them and in my book “Can I Borrow Your Car?” I label them macro and micro strategies. At any given time you need to be working on both strategies, but apportioning your time accordingly.

Referrals only pay off, big time, when you get to generational referral activity. You hit that third or fourth generation advocate…even if the strategy is passive…and you are talking about life changing deal flow and opportunities. The challenge is, always, how to get there as an organzation and how to be able to forecast (predict) the opportunities well enough to be confident you will still be in business a year from now and profitable.

When this all goes badly…

You might be reacting negatively to what I have shared above, feeling that it commercializes something that is sacred and besmirches the name of Jesus Christ. You might be right if the response is to get into deeper relationships with people just to build a sales force out of your friends.

My response is this: why shouldn’t your family and friends refer business to you?

After all, they know you best don’t they?

My thoughts: You do not disciple a man into becoming like you. The whole point is to point them at Christ, not yourself. In business, I want you to focus on helping people to refer well…to everyone they choose to. Teach a man to fish…

Help them to understand how to build deep, intentional relationships designed to care for people through products and services and also in a way that feeds their souls. Great referral partners are the nexus of a whole bunch of other thriving referral networks that are bringing success, significance and salvation to many others in an ever expanding web.

Why don’t people do this more?

It takes time and is completely against FOMO. You can ‘evangelize’ someone in a conversation and teach discipleship in a few months…but making disciples that make disciples is a multi-year project at best.

We don’t understand that there aren’t any real shortcuts anymore. The only way to guarantee (if possible) a bunch of new deals quickly is to invest massive capital in an excellent advertising campaign that is multi-channel and mult-partner. If you don’t have enough money…you need to spend time instead.

The good news:

Getting started will start to create results and the first ones are inside of you. Making disciples is a sacrificial path. You are spending your time for the betterment of others…we teach this in business by how we GIVE referrals more than how we GET referrals. Be the kind of professional that is known for the outrageous prosperity people in your network experience because of how you plan for and deliver massive amounts of profit and significance.

I will be writing a lot more about this in the future and have an upcoming Cohort I will be launching in January focused on disciple making for 10 business owners that want to have me walk with them for a year while they build this out for their companies. Contact me if you are interested.

Stop Networking. Start Building Referral Multipliers.