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Can’t find a basic Referral Form when you need one? Here is one that is always at your fingertips. To use it you will have to print it out.

Agent-to-Agent Referral Form

Developing your own referral network

In the previous post I suggested three steps for developing a strategy for generating referrals from other agents. These three steps were

1. Develop a referral network with agents in other cities.
2. Work the network.
3. Send outbound referrals to your network partners as often as possible.

Here are a few thoughts on the first step – Developing a referral network.

First, some agents care about agent-to-agent referrals and some don’t. Sure, everybody talks about it, but only a select few actually are prepared to actively “work” this method of getting business. Look for agents who care about referrals. AgentMapIt is a good place to start.

Second, some agents in your network will “take” much more than they “give”. This is a common complaint about professional networks – some members just sit back and take, take, take, without every contributing anything.

This is not nearly as great an issue in an agent-to-agent network as it is in, say, a local network of different types of professionals. If a fellow member of your agent-to-agent network just “takes” your referrals and never returns any, that is still OK. You still get the referral commission. But obviously that is not as good as having your network partners send you referrals in return.

You can head off this problem by picking and choosing your preferred partners. At AgentMapIt we encourage members to promote themselves as “relocation experts” and focus on generating outbound referrals rather than inbound ones. If you start actively sending referrals, you can be sure you will receive more than your share.

So that is a good place to start. Look for other agents who emphasize their eagerness to send their relocating clients your way. That is one way to be sure they will not just be “takers”.

Third, build as large a network as possible. The more agents you “network” with, the more likely you are to get results. Look for network partners in regional cities that are relatively close by, and in cities across the country and the continent. If you specialize in niche markets such as vacation properties or military relocations, you especially want to find reliable partners in relevant cities and areas.

Fourth, set up a “system” for staying in touch with your partners. This sounds obvious, but most of us simply do not make this a priority and we rely on a “hit and miss” method of keeping in touch.

By far the easiest is an email system. Create an email list and send an update to your partners at least once a month. This should be right up there in importance with sending regular emails to your client and contact base. You do that, right?

Finally, don’t expect instant results. Generating referrals is a long term project. Be concerned with building your profile as a “relocation expert”, not with generating immediate results.

As an agent you need a game plan for getting referrals, and this series of short articles presents some suggestions for developing one.

First, be aware that we are not talking about “regular” referrals here – for example, where a satisfied client recommends you to a neighbor, family member, friend or associate. “Regular” referrals like this are extremely important, and every agent needs a strategy for generating those referrals too. But developing that type of strategy is not what this article is about – at least not directly.

As an agent you obviously know what is meant by “agent-to-agent referrals”. But it might be useful to be a little more precise in defining what we might call…

The Two Sides of Agent Referrals

A typical scenario is where a long-standing client of yours is moving to another city and has no idea who to contact in that city to help them find a home. Should they call around in their new city to find an agent? Should they contact a relocation company? Or should they talk to you – someone they have come to know and trust in real estate matters?

If they do come to you and ask you to make a recommendation this will very likely result in what I like to call an “outbound” referral. Your client comes to you to sell their home. They also ask you for advice on finding a home in their new city.

You say, “No problem. I can set you up with one of my associates…” You phone around, or contact one of your established associates in another city, make an arrangement with the other agent, and eventually you are paid a commission by the receiving agent.

Using similar terminology I will refer to the other side of an agent-to-agent referral as an “inbound” referral. In this case you are on the receiving end of the referral. An agent in another city sends you a client and you take care of helping them find a new home. You get the selling commission, and you give the referring agent a percentage – usually about 25%.

All agent-to-agent referrals have these two sides. It is outbound for the referring agent, and inbound for the receiving agent. It is a good deal for both agents. The receiving agent has a new client dropped in his or her lap, and the referring agent gets a handsome commission for making a few phone calls.

Developing a Strategy

So what kind of strategy can you use to get referrals like this? In a word, it all comes down to “networking”. Networking means first, developing a network of contacts in as many other cities as possible.

Second, it means “working” your network to raise your profile.

Third, it means doing business with your network partners as often as possible – helping them out and sending them new clients. That means sending outbound referrals at least as often as receiving inbound referrals.

But that is only the beginning of an effective strategy. I will expand on each of these points in the next few articles in this series.

The purpose of AgentMapIt is to give member agents a way to increase referral traffic going back and forth between each other.

What do we mean by “referral traffic”?

We mean referrals business that goes two ways:

Incoming referrals – referrals from other agents
Outgoing referrals – referrals sent to other agents

My general impression is that most agents understand the importance of incoming referrals. But they generally do not see the importance of outgoing referrals. Or if they do it is not usually reflected in the conversations I have with them.

Most agents go out of their way to present themselves as trustworthy, competent, knowledgeable and experienced so that other agents will feel comfortable in sending clients their way.

But they spend much less effort trying to generate outgoing referrals. Very few – at least as far as I can tell – actually go out and look for this kind of business.

But agents who only go after incoming referrals are missing an important opportunity.

Why?

First, they are leaving a lot of money on the table. As most agents know, sending outgoing referrals to other agents is easy money – much easier than actually handling the sale.

Second, if all you ever do is talk about the referrals you would like to receive, you are breaking one of the cardinal rules of marketing. The best way to impress your customers, clients and associates is to tell them how you can help them – what you can do for them.

What other agents really want to hear is how many referrals you are going to send to them. As far as I can tell, this is seldom used as a networking strategy to forge relationships with other agents.

But just think about it for a minute. When you network with other agents which do you think is more effective:

“I’m looking for network partners who will send me referrals.”

or

“I’m looking for network partners where I can send referrals.”

The second, right?

So to all those people (and there have been a few) who have said “I don’t really get into referrals much,” my response is “Why not?” Isn’t that a service you should be offering your clients and their families? Wouldn’t they appreciate it if you could help them with relocation when they require it?

As an agent do you just sell houses, or do you do more than that? Don’t you try to build an ongoing rapport with your regular clientele, provide information when they need it, and make recommendations when you can?

In other words “referral networking” is something you can do with your established clients rather than just with other agents. In fact it gives you something very valuable to say to them – a reason to contact them. Your message can be something like:

“I not only help clients buy and sell homes, but I am a relocation expert. The next time anyone in your circle of family and friends needs relocation advice, don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

From what I can tell there aren’t many agents using this approach. That means there is a service vacuum in your community. And you are the perfect person to fill it.

When we were developing AgentMapIt we wondered if there should be a “free” membership category. At first we decided not to because we didn’t have all the programming in place to differentiate between free and paid memberships.

That changed about a week ago, and we introduced the “free” membership when we started promoting to BC (British Columbia). It was an instant hit, with quite a number of agents choosing the “free” option.

(NOTE: We may eventually start referring to these as “silver” and “gold” memberships).

What does free membership give you? And what does it NOT give you?

Free membership gets you into the directory with a searchable profile. So if you are listed for “Sackville”, when someone searches for “Sackville” your name will be displayed.

But if a paid member has “exclusive” rights to “Sackville”, then only his or her name will be displayed.

This is the first major advantage to becoming a paid member: Exclusivity for your primary location.

The second major advantage is that you automatically become a member of your Regional Network. Only paid members are members of regional networks. When a site visitor looks at a specific regional network, only the paid members will show. These will also be the primary network that other paid members will use for networking purposes.

Third, paid members are promoted – on the site, on the blog, on Facebook, in Youtube, via email, and a variety of other media. Our objective is to raise your profile and encourage other members to network with you. Paid members have a much greater advantage in this regard than free members.

Question: What do Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and AgentMapIt have in common?

Answer: They are all social networking sites.

OK, So what? What does that actually mean?

Social networking sites are places where you can find new “friends” and build relationships. That makes them potentially important marketing resources. So if relationship-building is important to your business, then you really should not ignore the potential of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and AgentMapIt.

Waste of Time?
Of course many people think online social networking is a complete waste of time. As a real estate agent, for example, you might say “I prefer to do my social networking with real people rather than ‘virtual’ people on the internet.”

There is a lot of truth to that. Much of the activity that takes place on social network websites is completely self-serving. There is a lot of navel-gazing and self-promotion going on, there’s no doubt about that.

But on the other hand, you can meet a lot of people very quickly, and if you have something to offer then you can very quickly put your offer out there and see what kind of people respond.

That is exactly what AgentMapIt is about – putting your profile in front of a lot of people who are looking for agents to “network” with and who are interested in sharing referrals. In fact, with AgentMapIt this is such a painless process that it is difficult to know why you would NOT want to do it.

No Effort, No Results

Many people think these sites (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) are just alternatives to magazines or newspapers, and they are disappointed that you cannot just place an ad and sit back and collect the results.

As with all other social networking sites (Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), the benefit you derive from them is completely dependent on the effort you put into them. People who are really good at making these resources work for them – not as entertainment, but as business/marketing tools – are unanimous that you have to work at building relationships online just as you do offline.

What does that mean?

It means you have to really “network” with people by staying in touch with them. And not just by sending out ads or promos to them (although that’s OK from time to time).

Just as in the offline world, the best online relationship-building techniques involve sharing information and expertise, expressing an interest in what others are doing, helping people with their problems and concerns – especially when there is no immediate payback.

Sometimes all that means is just saying “Hi. I just wanted to touch base with you. How are things going in your neck of the woods?”

BTW – You can join the new AgentMapIt Facebook Group – and you don’t have to be a member of AgentMapIt.

The Kitchener-Waterloo area is a very dynamic area with professionals in all fields relocating throughout Ontario, Canada, and the US. We are constantly looking for reliable agents to send these referrals to.

I pay a 30% referral fee for incoming referrals.

Visit my profile.

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