Creating Value…Being Valued

by | August 10, 2022

If you are an accountant, attorney, banker, consultant or any other service discipline, whether in the early stages of your career or well into those years, listen up. Your value to your firm is in direct proportion to the value you create.

We identified and implemented a process many years ago that creates a consistent flow of client referrals and has changed the lives of  professionals in a very positive way.

After carefully analyzing data from our program as well as other professionals who have been impacted by the pandemic, we decided that two professionals need to be on the same platform to be able to collaborate and understand the critical success factors if a referral relationship makes sense.They also need to define and agree on the nature of the mutual commitment to ensure each other’s expectations are met.

Our phones are a part of our everyday lives and after assessing different strategies, we decided that the best way for two people to be on the same platform was to convert this successful process to a mobile app. I am very pleased to share that we developed a mobile app called “Relpip” in 2021 to meet the objectives as set forth above. The app was successfully launched in 2022.

Your ultimate value to your firm is your ability to do great work for clients and to be able to consistently bring in new clients.

In the early years of your career, you are focused on honing your skills and giving value to your clients. Your clients need your expertise to help solve an issue at a reasonable cost.

As your tenure as a professional grows, your value to your clients and firm can grow as well. You will handle more complicated issues, but you must also bring new clients to the firm. Once you make the shift to being a revenue producer, your value to the firm begins to grow exponentially.

Why? As a revenue generator you become an integral part of the profitability of the firm. As the value you create for your firm increases the more the firm will want to ensure they demonstrate how much they value you. If you are not feeling “the love” you will have many alternatives including setting up your own shop.

So, how do you get to a point where you have greater autonomy and respect?  Simply put, it is about making your phone ring!

When another professional calls you with a client referral that is in your wheelhouse, there are many reasons why they picked you and not the other professionals they might know.

More than likely, you have a close relationship with this referring professional who is confident you will be able to provide the necessary skills to help solve their client’s issues. They are putting their reputation on the line and have the knowledge and trust  that you will perform. How does that happen?

Close relationships happen over time. Through ongoing interaction two people get to know one another. Mental assessments are quietly made about the respective  qualities of each person.

Every interaction creates a greater level of comfort, or not. At some point, the “likability factor” is high or the relationship begins to fade. How do you get to the point where you can really assess a person and whether they would be a candidate for a long term mutually beneficial relationship?

First, put yourself in position to meet the right professionals who have the discipline and specialty that you believe would be relevant for the type of clients you like to serve.

As an example, let’s say you wanted to meet an accountant (CPA) whose specialty is tax. Since you like to serve privately held companies that do between $5 and $50 million in revenue in the capacity of a commercial banker, you are interested in someone who is also in that market segment. As a CPA, they are a trusted advisor and have a close relationship with their clients.

You can typically meet people at various networking functions in your community. Other professionals who depend on referrals are just like you. They need to meet others as well.

Plan on meeting one or two people that may have potential. Your goal is to see if they have the right “four connectors”. That is, their discipline, specialty, type of clients and size clients.

Let’s assume that you do meet a  CPA and her name is Sue. You both enjoyed the time together at the event and found that you indeed had the right “four connectors” in common.

Now that you have met someone who has potential, the process to see if a referral partnership can work will begin if you take action. What are the critical success factors? How do you both know what the commitment will mean? What period of time will you need to know that you are making the right decision? How will you know if you are on track?

The pandemic and all of its residual issues have made it difficult to meet new people. It has also been difficult to stay in touch with people that you have already met who also might have potential to become a referral partner. While those issues are real, you cannot allow them to be an excuse. You must make your phone ring!

Referrals are still being given and you deserve to get your share. The question becomes  – how committed are you to making your phone ring? It is about investing time in people where you both can mutually benefit.

Just because Sue met you does not mean that she is going to call you if that right referral comes along. She probably has multiple people that do what you do and can choose whomever she wants.

Up until now, it has been challenging to get two people on the same page to go down a path where they both understand the same vetting process and criteria. It can be confusing and unclear on what it will take for both people to enjoy the referral success they need and want.

RelPip was launched to help professionals around the country create clarity through a proven process to get results. It will take you from the point you meet someone who has the “four connectors” and then through a vetting process to see if a referral partnership makes sense.  If it does, you will will reach agreement to help each other with a significant event over the course of a year.

If at any point in the vetting process it does not make sense then you both will know. You may remain friends but you will know this relationship is unlikely to produce the right referrals for each other, saving business time and money.

The app is free. It is in the Apple App Store as well as the Goggle Play Store. We would encourage you to invite someone you know to join you in the app. A verbal invitation might be something like this:

“Sue, I believe we may have the potential to help each other in a referral partnership where we both can be successful. There is an app called “RelPip” that we can join for free. It will guide us through a vetting process to see if it makes sense for us both. If it does, it will then give us the guidance to create an agreement to meet our mutual expectations. Would you be willing to invest a little time to see if we can create a referral partnership that could produce great results over the long haul?”

Once someone commits to doing this they will know you are serious about helping them! It will energize them to be a committed partner in the process as they know the collaboration could have very positive implications.

If you are able to covert just 10-15 of these committed referral partners over a three year period you will hit your numbers. Think about it, what would it mean to have your own salesforce where you have 10-15 people looking out for you where you don’t have to worry about your competition as they have been made irrelevant?

By the way, once you have completed the process with Sue you both can stay in the Relpip community if you choose. Those people want referral partners like you and you will see their “four connectors” to see if it makes sense to connect. 

Please take a serious look at our informational website at https://relpip.com to see if we are right for you. Thanks and we wish you much success.

 

 

 

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