When you give a referral, the people on both sides should feel like they are being treated with respect – like V.I.P.s or the very important persons that they are. You should be able to give a perfect referral so that the people on both sides get back to you expressing their gratitude for your having made the referral. To give a perfect referral, there needs to be a perfect process and it needs to involve perfect people. You will need to create your own process according to your style and preferred approaches. Whether you only have enough time to squeeze out a few phone calls and emails between things or can fly to Jamaica for a round of golf or day of windsurfurfing to make proper introductions depends on your circumstances. Whatever your process, it needs to be sound. There is a sliding scale of referral process quality from bad to good. Where do your referrals fit on the scale? Making referrals should not be a high volume operation. One good one done well is better than making 10 crappy ones that can embarrass a bunch of people. To ensure a perfect referral is given, you need to give it to the right people. These people should have the following attributes: Everyone involved in the referral should be treated with respect. Since first impressions count and referrals by definition are for making introductions, everyone involved with the process should be mindful of the consequences of a bad first impression that can be caused by a glitched referral. For you as the referrer, the goal is to have both sides thank you after the referral has taken place. This will make it easy to obtain referrals later from these people when you need them. The perfect people using the perfect process creates the perfect referral. Can you say that three times fast? Peter Paul Roosen and Tatsuya Nakagawa are co-founders of Atomica Creative Group , a specialized strategic product marketing firm. Through leading edge insight and research, sound strategic planning and effective project management, Atomica helps companies achieve greater success in bringing new products to market and in improving their existing businesses. They have co-authored Overcoming Inventoritis: Happy About® Not flushing Away Your Innovation Dollars now available.
