Business Referral Network

I’m actually going write this with two different hats on.
I’m the president of my local rugby club and I’m also a car dealer. This has worked very well for me, the local business community and the not for profit rugby club that I help to run.

I started a “Business Referral Network” with three goals in mind;
1.Generating business for the members of the club with their own business or if they worked in sales of some type.
2.Generate sales for the local business community.
3.Raise much needed funds for my rugby club.

We have about 300 families in the club so the potential is not huge but it works very well, here are some of the results of last years networking scheme. As a medium sized car dealer with a huge competitor on my doorstep and selling into my area I had to stop them.

• My dealership sold 96 cars new and used through referrals generated from this scheme and I paid the club $200 AUS for each unit delivered. $19200 for the club and everyone attached to the club bought from me, the small guy local dealer instead of a huge dealer just down the road.

• Local real estate office paid $50 per listing and between $300 - $600 for every home sold; plus a flat $100 for every rental listing. They sold over 25 homes in a competitive market and the club generated about $10000.

• We have a pool service guy who now has everyone in the club on his books as do some plumbers, the local bakery, liquor shop, you name it!!!

This works really well for my dealership, for the small local businesses and the club, win-win-win, give it a try.

Snowman,

That's a great idea! Perfect way to give back to the community and still generate needed business for you. You're right, it's a wonderful win-win situation for everyone!

Thanks you!

Pam

That is a very helpful idea Snowman. Thank you for sharing.

We are a tourism promotion company, Snowman. We sell tourist packages to people outside our local area. Do you see a way of adapting your idea to this sort of business?

Originally Posted by rlabston We are a tourism promotion company, Snowman. We sell tourist packages to people outside our local area. Do you see a way of adapting your idea to this sort of business?

rlabston
If you have some target cites you could find out who the bigger kids sporting clubs are and offer them a referral fee for any of their members that booked with you. This could work very well as you could also get that club to advertise free to their members, website links etc.

The beauty of this type of system is that it is totally measurable in terms of cost, it’s one of the best types of marketing this side of free referrals!!!

Originally Posted by Snowman rlabston If you have some target cites you could find out who the bigger kids sporting clubs are and offer them a referral fee for any of their members that booked with you. This could work very well as you could also get that club to advertise free to their members, website links etc. The beauty of this type of system is that it is totally measurable in terms of cost, it’s one of the best types of marketing this side of free referrals!!!

We have one target city in mind because of its proximity to our region. I guess my biggest question would be how much benefit we might get from this sort of effort and how much effort it would cost to get that benefit. I have no idea how many members these clubs might represent. If we are talking a potential in the range of a 1000 new visitors, it could be interesting. If we are talking about 10 here and 10 there, we could probably find more valuable ways to put that effort to work.

One thought that seems plausible would be to offer incentives to a national ski organization that represented ski clubs across the United States. Here we would be looking at a large enough market to make the effort interesting.

Another thought I had, but havenèt figured out how to approach it is to develop a college and university program. Our target city has over 200 colleges and universities. Any ideas?

What about a referral fee to the university or the fraternity on behalf of the individual or their fraternity?

Its realy very innovative idea, making money out of social work is just great.

Originally Posted by Snowman What about a referral fee to the university or the fraternity on behalf of the individual or their fraternity?

rlabston

would this work?

Snowman

Originally Posted by Snowman Originally Posted by Snowman What about a referral fee to the university or the fraternity on behalf of the individual or their fraternity? rlabston would this work? Snowman

It would be possible to pay the university or fraternity, but for our initial promotion, it would mean taking money out of an already pared-down price. We are trying to keep the price under $500 which fits conveniently on the typical new credit card that each student receives upon entering college.

I like better the idea of giving a vacation away for a set number of packages sold. The reason is that the extra vacation includes a room that would have been empty otherwise and a lift ticket that would have gone unsold. The only out-of-pocket expense is the seat on the bus, so the value to the referrer is greater than could be paid in dollars.