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Growing Your Referral Tree A business cannot survive without customers— a simple fact. Without them it doesn't matter how good your widgets are, how  well you manage the books, how good a boss you are, how qualified a professional you are. For a business to grow and prosper requires a  steady flow of new customers. Most business people and sales people look at the growth of their business much like the diagram below:                 C--|                      |-- C                      |                 C--|                      |--C                      |                      |                 C--|                      |--C            _____|_____  The "tree" represents their business, each "C" branch is a customer. You add them, care for them and work to keep them. The problem with this concept is it's not really a very healthy tree. Try building your referral tree more along the lines of the example below. (This is an example of an actual branch from my referral tree.)                                                            |-->KS($)     |                                 |-->MM-->JD($)-->RR($)     |                                 |      |                                |                   |-->CB($)     |                                 |-->BZ($)     |-->MS($)     |                                 |                   |-->AE($)     |                                 |-->KG($)--> |      |                                 |      |                                 |                        |-->JL($)     |                                 |                        |      |--RN-->RM--RR-->PB-->MH($)-->LM($)-->KH($)     |                                          |-->PS($)     |  __|___ In this example each pair of initials represents a real person. (Some of my clients who read this will recognize themselves in this branch.)  You will note that part  of the branch doesn't have dollar signs ($). These are people who led me to someone else in the branch but they never became customers themselves. The most interesting point here is that I had to go 5 levels deep before I finally found money. This lesson was taught to me many years ago. When I started putting it down on paper (yes, I literally have my business charted on paper this way) I became a passionate believer in this concept. I'm good at prospecting. I'm good at marketing. I'm good at sales. But when I became good at growing my referral tree, at training my circle of contacts to help me grow it, my business began to take on dimensions I never before imagined. Try it. You'll be amazed.

JUMProductions po box 522 arlington, tx 76004 vox 817.261.2108   fax 801.881.2717 contact us via email copyright 2003 JUMProductions/Michael J. Stammer, All Rights Reserved JUMProductions, the JUMProductions wordmark and the gyroscope logo are all trademarks of JUMProductions and Michael J Stammer.

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