Relational Marketing can be managed in many ways, as any other activity; results and modes are the key difference between professionals and amateurs. Nothing adds or subtracts value to businesspeople in their own professional field; Relational Marketing, instead, is based on their knowledges, how they are used and how the activity is shared with the relation network. Despite 98% of companies is developing thanks to referrals, only 3% of them has a defined strategy.
For the above-mentioned 98% there are no courses/school notes, nor in the primary or secondary school, nor in the high school or even university. Each one is improvising working on past tradition, using intuition or necessity: this damages final results, endangers professionality and it’s even a waste of time.
In other words, they’re real amateurs.
The remaining 3% has decided to walk another way, in their own blue ocean, where knowledge, application and sharing of methods and actions really make a difference.
“Where a professional businessman/woman works carefully and efficiently, the amateur shows an insufficient preparation”
In Referral Marketing, word of mouth, if organized, leads to opportunities for a strategical and structural management. It is granted only to those who really want to become professionals. It all starts from the individual who, aware of his/her tool power, matches passion and work and engages in showing its uniqueness. Preparation, the next step, consists in the following:
- Showcasing the offer
- Facing one’s relation network to identify referral partners
- Identifying the reference market to be followed
- Setting up efficient strategies and actions
- Servicing the customers fully respecting the agreement signed with them
Success has no alternatives. When businesspeople really engage to achieve a result, they find the “Right Here, Right Now” moment, they’re aware to be the right person and, each time a situation arises, they ask themselves “How can I make it?” Based on this principle, a professional is always preparing and working on details, to set up his/her own limit thus increasing the competitive advantage.
It’s up to you deciding whether to become a professional or stay an amateur. Today, Referral Marketing is opening up to organizations for group activities (see BNI) or specific training (see Asentiv): all of them have a unique background with a 30 year long tradition in more than 70 countries worldwide. The goal is sharing a collaborative, ethical and generative Business, where the person is the focus of the project and introduces his/her activity to a quality network to apply structured and really effective techniques with.
The world is changing, the world is changing… this is the reason why those who use word of mouth for their job will serve this change, easing the way through their training and their highest professional levels. As real experts, professional businesspeople.
“Every professional was an amateur in the beginning, do not be afraid to learn”. Andrea