NYC Elevate is a networking community organized to help our members make more money through structured collaboration and referrals.
Every week we talk about our core value of ‘Giver’s Gain.’
But this week, I’m going to give you an action item and ask you to be totally selfish.
Take a look at our roster, and write down your top referral partner that is not currently on the roster.
That’s your top referral partner that’s NOT on the roster.
Now, you may look at the roster and say my top three referral partners are already members.
That’s fine; then your action item is to figure out who your fourth best referral partner is.
Please write that profession down.
First, I’m going to tell you how to leverage the Manhattan NYC website to secure a bunch of these referral partners.
Let’s use Sharon Becker, our Makeup Maven, as an example.
Sharon loves working with Wedding Planners because they are a solid upstream partner for her, and NYC has a few wedding planners but not a lot of makeup artists. So how can Sharon meet more Wedding Planners?
Imagine Sharon went to the Manhattan NYC website and looked up all of the Wedding Planners in other chapters.
And then she sent each of them a note: “Hey Mary, I’m Sharon from NYC Elevate. If you are ever desperate for a sub, please reach out to me, and I’ll help you out.”
After a while Sharon has reached out to 10 Wedding Planners and offered to do them a favor, and now she can wait for them to contact her.
When one of them does, Sharon will do them a favor and sub for them at their chapter, and now they owe Sharon a favor in return.
And then maybe Sharon will ask Mary if they could have a 121, and chances are, given the favor that Sharon did, that Mary will accept.
A few months later in the story, Sharon is now Mary’s go-to makeup pro.
Please keep in mind that Sharon is not gaming the system. She is legitimately building relationships, and by doing that she’s given herself the opportunity to prove that she’s the best makeup professional in the city.
And there is another bonus here, and that is by subbing at another NYC chapter, Sharon also has the chance to pitch her services to another audience of 30 or 40 people.
Next, I want to talk about how we can use LinkedIn to meet more of these referral partners.
Again, let’s use Sharon Becker, our Makeup Maven, as an example.
Sharon loves working with Wedding Planners because they are a solid upstream partner for her.
So she’s going to go to LinkedIn and do a search for “Wedding Planners” and she’ll select 2nd level connections.
The search results will show Wedding Planners that are only one level removed from her, and she’ll see the person who they mutually know.
Her next step is to connect with each Wedding Planner and add a note with her connection request, something like …
Hi Mary, I work in the wedding industry and I’d like to invite you to our networking event next Wednesday on Zoom. There will be over 100 professionals attending and they often ask for referrals to Wedding Planners. Let’s connect here and I’ll send you the call in details if you’re interested.
If Sharon connects with 20 Wedding Planners, a few good things are going to happen.
First and most important, 8 of them will attend this meeting; 3 will apply for membership, and we have one new Wedding Planner inducted next month.
Next, she might be able to leverage those new LinkedIn connections into 10 or more 121s, and secure a bunch of new referral partners that each refer her multiple times per year.
To wrap it up, if you think about your best referral partners that aren’t in Elevate; and then use NYC and LinkedIn to build relationships with them, I guarantee that you will make more money!
