Irish Impact Conference

By -   Paul McCord 
 
I hope you are generating referrals from your clients.  If you’re not you should be as referrals are one of the most effective, if not the most effective, way of growing your business.  But know that once you have gotten the referral your job is hardly done.  No, I’m not talking about contacting and selling the referred prospect, I’m talking about keeping your client in the loop.

One of the primary reasons clients are hesitant to give referrals is that they are afraid of being embarrassed in front of a friend, relative, acquaintance or co-worker by you not performing as you should.  So, when they do give a referral, they have a vested interest in what’s going on between you and the person to whom they referred you.  Their interest isn’t in whether or not the prospect purchases but in how the prospect perceives you and the value being referred by the client.

When a client gives you a referral, you learn a number of things:
1.  The client will give referrals.  Obviously, you just received one or more.
2.  How well the client understands what you do.  The quality of the referral will let you know how well your client understands what you do and who is a good referral for you.  The better the referral, the more the client understands.  The poorer the referral, the more work you must do to educate them for future referrals (and future sales to them for that matter).
3.  How much they trust you.  Generally, the stronger the trust relationship between the client and the referred prospect, the more the client trusts you.
4.  They have more referrals to give.  Seldom will a client give you all of the referrals they can make at one time.  If a client gives referrals, you can almost bet they have more to give—if you keep earning them.

How do you get those additional referrals?  Additional referrals are earned, just as the original referrals were earned.  You earn those additional referrals by:
1.  Giving your client the assurance that you’re trustworthy with referrals.  You must show through your actions that their trust in giving you a referral was well placed by making sure that the referred prospect has an exceptional experience with you.
2.  By keeping your client fully informed of everything that is occurring with the referred prospect.
3.  By continuing to deliver superior service to your client.

Does the above mean that you must perform perfectly with the referred prospect?  What if there was an honest mistake or miscommunication?  What if something out of your control happened during the course of the sale?  Will these incidents destroy any possibility of acquiring additional referrals?

No, not at all.

The keys to gaining additional referrals from a client are to treat the referred prospect exactly in the same manner you treated the client and to keep your client informed of what is transpiring between yourself and the referred prospect.

Your client gave you referrals because they understood that giving referrals was in their own best interests and because you earned them through the service you gave them.  You must now demonstrate that same level of service for the referral they have given you.  They expect—actually demand—you perform at the same level—or higher—for those they refer to as you did for them.  That level of service you gave them was what demonstrated to them that they could trust with a referral.  Anything short of that and they will reevaluate whether you should be trusted with additional referrals.

That having been said, most clients understand that mistakes, miscommunications, and problems arise in business.  A single issue during the course of the sale to a referred prospect, even a major issue, will not sever your ability to gain additional referrals from you client if you address and resolve the issue in an exceptional manner.

Clients don’t expect perfection, they expect exceptional service—both for themselves and for those they refer you to.  How well or poorly you handle the issues will be a major factor in determining your future refer-ability.

Keeping your client informed of the progress of the sale with the referred prospect reassures them that you’re doing your job—and that all is well.  It is also your source of informing them if there have been problems and how they were resolved.

It is critical that you let your client know of issues involved with sales to prospects they have referred you to before the prospect has a chance to relate the incident.  You can relate the circumstances and the resolution in the most favorable light—the prospect may not.  This doesn’t mean that you can lie or gloss over it, just that you can give the background and the full resolution without the emotional involvement the prospect will have.  Of course, if you’ve done an exceptional job of resolving the issue, the tale told by the prospect should also be impressive.  However, you always want problems to be related to your client by you—you don’t want to get a phone call from the client asking what happened.

Keeping your client informed doesn’t mean bombarding them with emails, phone calls, and notes.  A simple “thank you for the referral” card immediately after receiving the referral and the occasional call or email will suffice.  The object is to keep them in the loop and to reassure them that their referral was well made for both you and the prospect.  Even better than the occasional call or email is to explicitly ask the client how and how often they would like to be informed of the progress.

Clients are interested in what’s going on with the referrals they make.  They want to know the prospect is being taken care of in the manner the client expected, and they enjoy knowing that they have provided you with a quality referral.  More importantly, they want to know that they haven’t embarrassed themselves in front of an acquaintance.

Simple actions will earn those additional referrals your clients have—you just have to earn them

If you mind is not blown away already by the power of apps, then developers are doing their job correctly.  What will be more amazing is that apps will soon be the platform we access all our content. 

What does that mean to you?  Help fund this documentary and everyone will soon find out –--- this documentary is an explanation of what is already happening…

Alan Armijo -  Power Partners USA

Jul 1, 2014 — By Federico Viticci

Launched by Story & Pixel on Kickstarter today, “App: The Human Story” is a documentary based on a theme that's extremely dear to me and, I believe, to MacStories' readers: the story of apps and their cultural impact over the past seven years.

By highlighting what “it means to be human in a world of technology”, the documentary doesn't simply want to focus on the evolution of the App Store and iOS devices – rather, Story & Pixel (who are Jake Schumacher and Jedidiah Hurt, with Adam Lisagor as executive producer) aim to document the human effort, the stories, and the voice of people who craft software. And not just any computer software, but the cultural and economic phenomenon of the decade – the app.

From the Kickstarter page:

With the advances in mobile computing over the past decade, software applications have captured the attention of the globe. Although some apps seem trivial and inconsequential, the details of our software say a lot about who we are as humans. Apps have changed how we live our lives and they will undoubtedly shape our future.

Just as apps have made their way to the world stage, a small community of developers has emerged as modern day artisans. Their obsession over the details of every interaction and pixel has given these unlikely leaders a voice in shaping software in a way that respects what it means to be human.

To achieve their goal, Story & Pixel have been working for the past year on assembling a cast of interviewees that include John Gruber, Marco Arment, Björn Jeffery, Jean MacDonald, Lisa Bettany, Craig Hockenberry, and many more. Story & Pixel want to document the individual stories of popular and lesser-known artists and entrepreneurs, and they have set up a series of rewards for different tiers of Kickstarter pledges. They are seeking to raise $100,000 in 30 days.

I believe this is a project that matters because the stories of people behind apps go largely unnoticed. Covering the details and stories of apps has always been one of my personal motivations behind this site, but a blog can only do so much to expose the general public to what it means to be an app maker. As I wrote in The Power of Apps:

But Apple knows that, alongside the big name companies and game publishers, there are hundreds of genuine good stories about people whose life hasn’t simply been made more enjoyable by Angry Birds, but deeply transformed by powerful, groundbreaking apps. The stories worth telling. The ones that, as Jobs said three years ago, help you get out of bed in the morning and go to work. The problems that you wish would never touch your kid or a loved one but that, unfortunately, sometimes do. The sense of meaningful achievement in seeing your app impacting people’s lives in positive ways. How, thanks to modern technologies and several other choices made over the years, some of those problems can be alleviated, if not completely solved.

And in 365 Days:

Sometimes, on days like today, I like to appreciate the simple things of my job. The fact that somebody out there has made an app that lets me cringe at my mistakes and cherish old moments. The fact that in this very moment I can take these old photos, and send them to my parents with a comment that says, “365 days ago…how things change”.

And here's Craig Hockenberry, writing about the project today:

By funding this project, you’re also giving your future self a rare gift. I was a young developer when the Mac was announced in 1984, and let me assure you that many of the details of that time have been lost over the course of thirty years. You’re going to look back at this time in your career fondly and wish you remembered more about it.

Most people think that apps simply “exist” on the App Store. They don't care about in-depth reviews and they assume that people who make apps work at Apple or Google. And yet so many people's lives have been positively impacted by apps, which were made by other people who had an idea and made it happen.

That's a story worth telling, and it seems like Story & Pixel are making a great film out of it. I highly recommend checking out their Kickstarter page.

By Bruce McKenzie, Published January 8, 2014

 So, you’re creating videos and distributing them through Facebook, YouTube, your blog, and paid media opportunities to generate hundreds to millions of views. Are you forgetting LinkedIn, one of the most important channels for B2B marketers? LinkedIn has documented research indicating that members of the “buying committee” are more likely to connect with vendors on LinkedIn than with any other social media platform.

So, if video = good-for-business (Dell Inc.’s Enterprise Solutions Group’s revenue rose 8% largely because their ramped up video marketing efforts got 6.5 million views), and if LinkedIn = good-for-business, then combining the two makes sense.

Here are three ways to make the combo work for your B2B organization.1. Turn your boring resume-looking profile into an interactive marketing tool

If your LinkedIn profile (or your sales and marketing team’s LinkedIn profiles) reads like an impressive resume, it might sell you (or your team) to HR executives and recruiters. But it won’t do a good job connecting you with decision makers and influencers. Your prospects are not looking at your profile because they want recruit you, but because they are considering doing business with you. Your profile should be designed to sell you and your organization’s products and solutions.

When you read my profile, you’ll see my story which highlights the difficulties I experienced as the Director of Creative Services for International Paper when we needed to produce videos to explain the intricacies of antitrust regulation, printing technology and how quality affects production. When videographers focused on creating visually stunning, award-winning short films, the message IP was trying to communicate often got lost. I share how these experiences shaped the methodology I started to use when I left IP to start my own video marketing firm which creates 2-Minute Explainer® videos that target audiences can quickly connect with.

Right below my summary, you’ll find a one-minute animated video that reiterates our company’s marketing messages in a way that prospects can visualize and remember. They can now see the value we offer, and why it matters.

In my profile’s experience section, I created a number of positions to show how I worked with technology companies in many segments of the IT industry (e.g., services – CA and IBM, logistics – UPS, manufacturing – Rockwell Automation, etc.). There are videos under each position to showcase our work.

If you look at WebAttract President Michael Agron’s LinkedIn profile, you’ll see that he uses videos to describe his webinar management process. He also uses testimonial videos to back up the case studies he provides in his profile.

2. Generate More Leads

Now, with a strong LinkedIn profile foundation that’s filled with engaging videos, you and your sales/marketing team will attract more prospects. Plus, you’ll have more prospects accepting your invitations to connect. Now what?

You need to nourish those relationships until they become viable leads. Most people’s connections become “dead” connections if there is no initial interest. That’s why you need to create a LinkedIn community that’s alive with discussions based on your video content — 72% percent of senior executives research an organization after watching a B2B video marketing campaign (International Data Group).

To help you with your lead generation efforts, you should be sharing these discussions with other LinkedIn groups that your targeted audiences belong to as well. The discussions should then link to your videos, which should include a call-to-action to download your white paper, webinar, ebook or other value-added offering so you can capture leads.

3. Improve Your Outreach Efforts

At some point you’ll want to take your LinkedIn conversations offline (i.e. out of LinkedIn and into a more personal and interactive connection — phone, a video chat, Google hangout, or whatever works for you). Before you do that, it’s a good idea to provide additional material your prospect can watch or read before the call. I know of an organization that provides prospects with an ebook to read before there is a phone conversation. If that organization gets the prospect to read at least 30 pages, there is an 80% chance of a conversion. Now, since visual information can be processed much faster than print, I suggest testing using videos instead of an ebook or white paper.

Videos such as customer testimonials and short product demos will certainly work well in this context. By providing this additional information, you will improve engagement, increase your prospect’s comfort level with you as a vendor, and make the conversation flow more smoothly. Your prospect will begin to visualize how they might work with you before they even speak to you.

In short, if LinkedIn is an underutilized marketing asset, then video content is certainly underutilized in LinkedIn right now. You should be taking advantage of this undervaluation, because it’s easy to do, and because it will make it easier for prospects using LinkedIn for research to do business with you.

By Lee Frederiksen

Lead Nurturing  is often something of a mystery to professional services executives. Perhaps because of this, it is often done intermittingly and produces limited results. That’s a real shame.

Repeat business is great but is usually not sufficient. Clients leave and must be replaced just to stay where we are. To grow our firms, we all need net new clients. That’s where lead nurturing has an essential role to play.

Lead Nurturing Defined There are three basic phases to acquiring a new client. The first one is identifying organizations or individuals who might be a good fit with your firm. This initial phase is often referred to as lead generation.

The third phase of the business development process is closing the sale. This is when a specific opportunity is turned into a new client.

Lead nurturing sits between these two phases. It’s the process of turning new leads into opportunities.

Why is Lead Nurturing So Important? The simple fact is that most leads are simply not ready to buy yet.

They may be at the early stages of exploring possible solutions to a business issue they face. Or perhaps they are gathering cost information to plan for an upcoming budget. So your efforts to turn them into a new client right away will be doomed from the start.

Ignoring leads that are not ready to close is also incredibly wasteful. Yet that is exactly what some firms end up doing, accidentally if not on purpose.

Three Functions of Lead Nurturing There are three key functions that lead nurturing can play in the business development process.

• Qualify leads to determine if they are a good fit with your firm and the services you offer.
• Educate them about what you do and how you do it to save time and effort in the closing process.
• Strengthen your brand by improving your reputation for producing results and increasing your visibility.

All three of these functions are important in that they reduce your costs (by better targeting your efforts) and increase the probability that the qualified leads will turn into new clients.

Traditional Lead Nurturing Approaches Professional services firms have traditionally nurtured leads using one of three general approaches.

• Face to face meetings to determine if there is a current opportunity with the organization and try and convince the prospect that your firm is a great choice. This has led to an industry devoted to “appointment setting” via cold calling.

Firm newsletters that are produced on a regular (typically monthly or quarterly) basis and sent to everyone on an email list. The challenge associated with consistently producing these newsletters has also spawned a newsletter production industry.

• Nurturing campaigns consisting of multiple mailings (email or postal) following a specific event (a trade show or seminar for example) or a prospects action (filling out a contact form or downloading a white paper for example). Often these campaigns are short lived or sporadic.

Sadly, most of the time these efforts have not produced much and are often abandoned or left to run on “autopilot.”

New Approaches to Lead Nurturing The world of lead nurturing has been evolving. New technology, new buyer behavior patterns, and new research have all combined to offer better ways to harvest the potential of lead nurturing. Here are a few developments that stand out.

• The rise of content marketing as a preferred model for professional services. While educational events and thought leadership have long been a part of professional services marketing, content marketing takes these traditions to a new level. It fully leverages the power of blogging, search, social media and other online techniques to generate and nurture leads. The results of this approach have been very impressive in terms of driving greater firm growth and profitability.


• Marketing automation is making personalized lead nurturing possible. New leads can be automatically tracked and assigned to a tailored lead nurturing sequence. For example, if a prospect downloads a whitepaper on mobile security, the system can send a series of predetermined email follow-up pieces over a pre-determined time frame. Once developed, the nurturing takes minimal labor.

Webinars are becoming a routine way to educate and cultivate prospects. They have become an easy-to-use method for increasing engagement and adding human interaction. Since they require a time commitment from prospects, it is a step up in engagement on their part and increases your ability to educate and nurture the relationship.

• Video is making communication easier and more robust. You can use video to communicate educational content as well as convey a sense of who you are as people and what it might be like to work with your firm. Video conferencing can also be a way to have 1:1 personal interaction without the need for travel. This makes personalized lead nurturing much less costly.

Free education is becoming an expectation. In today’s wired world, the expectation is that you can learn about almost any topic instantly and without cost. Just Google it. If you are not nurturing your prospects by providing this education, someone else surely will be. When the prospect becomes an opportunity, you will be there as the firm that knows how to solve the problem at hand.


Taken together, these developments offer exciting new possibilities to the professional services marketer. Lead nurturing is now both possible and practical on a much larger scale than before.

Lead Nurturing Best Practices Here are some guidelines to keep in mind as you develop your lead nurturing program.

• At each step in the process, you should be focused on increasing engagement rather than closing a sale. Don’t try to force it or nurturing will quickly turn into annoying.
• Lead nurturing should primarily be educational in nature and not promotional. You can talk about approaches to solving the problem and even what you have found works the best. But if you turn promotional, you will sacrifice your credibility and lose the opportunity.
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• The conversation is primarily about the prospects’ issues and business challenges, not your firm or your services. Keep your focus on what is helpful to the prospect and it will reflect well on your firm. When the time is right, they will ask about your firm and its services.
• A single prospect may be faced with multiple issues and rapidly evolving priorities. Don’t get fixated on a single opportunity and lose sight of other possibilities. This means that nurturing communications can cover a variety of potential topics. It’s fine to show that there is a range of topics that your firm has expertise in.

Consistency over time and patience are important to maximize results.  Start and stop efforts are not likely to be effective. Also, communications that come infrequently (once a quarter for example) are less likely to have the desired effect. Weekly or monthly work well. And don’t get impatient. Some leads will mature in days or a few weeks, while others may take one or two years or more.


A well-crafted lead nurturing program can produce a steady stream of new clients. They will generally be well qualified and positively disposed toward working with your firm.

Often times they are even superior to client referrals. They understand the issues they are facing and are well educated in your approach to solving them. What more could a business developer ask for?

You can download a free copy of our Lead Nurturing Guide and see how we do it here at Hinge.

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