“I Have” – Guidelines for Reporting Closed Business, Testimonials and Referrals

There are two intentions of the “I Haves” portion:

1. Build the trust factor between members to increase the comfort level that members will have referring to each other.

2. Illustrate to visitors that activity is happening and that members are seeing results (i.e. closed business).

Three options for what a member can say during this portion.

1. “I’m recording closed business.” The member should say the amount of closed business and then should describe how the closed business came about. This will educate the other members on what a good referral is for the member reporting the closed business. E.g. I had closed business of $50,000. It was a referral I received from Jim. He has a friend who lives in Boston and was looking for a pied-a-terre in New York City.” Everyone hears that and learns a whole heck of a lot about Steve’s business.

2. “I gave a referral and here’s how it came about.” The idea is to educate members on how to refer to the member being talked about. E.g. I met Google’s NYC office manager at a networking event and I asked him if he’d like to save some money on document shredding. He said yes so I connected him with Glenn!” Everyone now has some ideas about who a good referral for Glenn is.

3. “I have a testimonial for another member.” This can take three forms:

3a. “I had a 121 with another member and I learned such-and-such about that member.” This should only be used when the thing that was learned will be something that will build confidence in other members referring to the person being highlighted. E.g. “I had a 121 with Dimitrije and learned something about his business that he doesn’t mention during his commercials. He gives free consultations to property managers who are looking for a new electrician!”

3b. “I hired a member in our chapter and I have great feedback on my experience.” E.g. I hired Paul to to handle my company’s move and the customer service was excellent. They went above and beyond in taking good care of us and the move happened in only half the time we expected it to.”

3c. “I referred a member in our chapter I have great feedback.” E.g. I referred a friend of mine to Wayne and they came back to me raving about their experience working with him. Wayne saved my friend $1,000 on their family cruise and they had an amazing time! My friend said that Wayne took care of all aspects of the trip so that he could really relax while he traveled and he didn’t have to worry about anything.

Additional guidelines:

Each member should report only one thing per meeting (i.e. ONE piece of closed business; ONE referral given OR ONE testimonial). If a member has more than one thing to report, they should save the others for following weeks. There is no requirement that any of these things be reported at the meeting right after they happen. The emphasis during this portion of the meeting is quality and not quantity.

Do not acknowledge the speaker. Acknowledging the speaker does NOT satisfy either of the two intentions of this section. (See above.)

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