9 Reasons To Say NO To Strategic Referral Partnerships
Strategic Referral Partnerships aren’t for every Service or SAAS business.
(I mean, I haven’t actually found one yet where they wouldn’t be suitable, but it stands to reason, right?)
So, with that in mind I thought I’d take a look at nine reasons why partnerships as a source of highly qualified, timely, leads into your business might not be for you.
1./ You Already Get Referrals Anyway
I get it.
It's already one of your prime sources of new business so you’ve got this covered.
I mean doubling down on an already proven source of leads would be insane right?!
Why would you want more of a good thing?
Who would want that?
If you’ve got happy customers and great external relationships that are providing you referrals already then you may want to leave it at that, rather than looking it as a platform for building something truly scalable.
2./ Working With Others – No Thanks
An unfortunate necessity of partnerships is that they involve more than one party.
Yep.
So now, as well as having to deal with your own team, and those pesky clients and prospects that are so demanding on your tine, you’ll have additional stakeholders to add to the mix.
We spend most of our lives having to work in harmony with others, whether through choice or not, so deliberately working with a 3rd party who shares our values to work towards a common goal sounds like something altogether too painful.
Much more fun to go it on our own.
3./ Quality & Quantity Of Leads Has Been Poor In The Past
Ok, so you’ve tried this route before and the leads you’ve received either haven’t been ideal, or they’ve been so few and far between they’re barely worth a mention.
Or both.
First up we’ll just presume that they were the right partner in the first place.
They were having congruent conversations with your target market, from a position of authority that means the introduction would be easy and valued.
No conflicts of interest and, in fact the opposite. A vested interest, that they understand, in referring you consistently.
So, with that in mind the lack of quality leads is almost entirely likely to be your partner’s fault.
They should have been dropping everything they were doing to grow their own business and work on filling your pipeline.
After all you gave them all the support they needed in terms of who / what to look out for, seeing where your service fitted in within their own customer journey.
You let them know who your ideal client was and gave them all the collateral they needed (presented in a way that matched what they need) to pro-actively get you in front of their audience in a value add way.
And when the leads didn’t flow, or were poor, you took it as an opportunity to see how you could help support them more fully.
You did all these things, with the right partner, and still no good leads.
So definitely not worth giving it another go
4./ It's Not the Right Time to Work on This
You’re right.
Much like having a baby, or any other big decision in work or life, there’ll be this perfect moment where all the planets align and now, NOW, is the time you can work on developing that partner strategy you’ve always wanted.
OR
There’ll come a time when you could really do with the leads, go to turn the tap on and realise you’ve not got any of the plumbing in place.
What’s that saying about planting trees? The best time to do it is 10 years ago, but after that it's when you need the shade immediately?
5./ Other Marketing Spends To Prioritise
Spending your time and money on every other type of marketing channel under the sun because that’s the norm and it’s already in your budgeted spend is a perfectly valid strategy.
After all, if you do what you’ve always done, and what everyone else does, you’ll get radically different results.
We’ve all heard of the marketing mix and it’s a vital part of a rounded campaign that builds both broader brand and immediate leads.
In fact, it’s an essential piece of the social proof needed to form rock solid partnerships – partnerships just shouldn’t be allocated any of that initial spend, I get it.
6./ No Time to Implement
Getting this stuff right does take time.
Time that could be much better spent on short term activities that may deliver more immediate results.
Ok, they’re activities that you’ll need to repeat for evermore, and probably require a heap of extra resource to scale but spending time now on something that will deliver huge results in the future, and that only compounds as time goes on, takes a level of commitment that just isn’t feasible for you right now.
And it’s not like there’s anyone out there who could help you get this stuff done quicker and more efficiently, skipping out the mistakes that everyone makes so you can scale quickly, is there?
7./ Not Sure How to Reward Introductions
Urgh.
That horrible conversation about money.
I mean these conversations are always much worse than they seem when we have them aren’t they?
Especially when they’re with people with similar values who know, like, and trust us.
And with the right partners it’s not like there could be something else that’s the main driver that makes this conversation easier, is it?
Much better to just avoid it as a strategy altogether.
8./ This Stuff Just Happens Organically
Word of Mouth is the oldest form of marketing, centuries old in fact.
Surely nothing has changed in that time that means we could do things in a more strategic, intentional way. After all, other, newer, forms of marketing have stayed exactly the same.
Referrals just happen and if we try to push them too hard and build a scalable channel, they could just dry up completely.
How can we do something both intentionally and in a way that feels as natural as it ever has done?
9./ Don’t Know Where to Start
We don’t know what we don’t know, and it seems like a behemoth of a subject to tackle when we’re already juggling multiple plates.
If only there was resources and experts out there who can help us.
So, there we have it. 9 reasons why you probably shouldn’t be looking at a building proper Strategic Referral Partnerships right now.
That’s it. No next steps. Nothing more to see here………
Ok, so number 9 might have been a blatant plug – but if any of this has resonated and you’d like to find out more then drop me a DM, check out the free events I run each month, or have a browse of some of my other content.
If you’re reading this during Feb ’23 then my next ‘5 Steps to Awesome Strategic Referral Partnerships’ event is on the 28th and you can find that here:
https://www.linkedin.com/events/5stepstoawesomestrategicreferra7028376748631187456/about/
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