When maintaining your referral network thereare a few online tools essential for maintaining a healthy and active networkthat actually drives quality leads. You likely already have the basic businessessentials setup and in use for customer engagement, tracking, and support. However;make sure to leverage these tools with business partners that send commutator armature overreferrals. Every business referral network partner should be included in yourcustomer relationship management database, connected on social media sites likeLinkedIn and Twitter, and depending on the individual's role in your referralnetwork, be part of your project management system.

Tracking Leads is EssentialTracking the success of each individualin your referral network is critical and the most logical place to store thisdata is in your customer relationship management system. Depending on thesophistication of your system you may be able to have a field for leads associatedwith the contact who referred them and then follow that lead all the waythrough your sales process to know if the deals are closing or not. Generatinga monthly report from your referral network partners will help you manage youractivities and know who you owe a referral fee to or at the very least whodeserves your time and future business leads according to the agreement youshare.If you do not have a CRM system deployed for your small business, checkout the low cost solutions from Zoho or Salesforce. Depending on the needs ofyour business both are excellent solutions. Using Excel spreadsheets, notepads,and other means just wonÂ’t cut it if youÂ’re getting more than one or two leadsper week. It would be worth the time, money and effort to invest in a CRMsystem to manage your contacts properly. Neglecting to track the success orfailure of referral partnerÂ’s leads means youÂ’ll lose important data that canhelp your business grow.Engage with Partners SociallyOne way to remain at the forefront ofyour referral network partnerÂ’s minds is to engage with them through socialmedia sites such as Linkedin, Facebook Pages and Twitter. These sites areextremely beneficial as your referral partners are likely to be connected withother business leaders who have followers that are also focused on business inyour industry.

When your referral partners post, tweet, comment or participatein online discussions you have the added value of additional exposure to newpotential partners, clients or customers. This will help make sure you arefamiliar to the ecosystem of people that associate with your referral network. Additionally,when you have something relevant to share be sure to do so. Remember the key tosocial media is engagement with the online community your business is a part of.Leverage online tools to enhance theeffectiveness of your referral network. Make sure you track communications andengage in conversations that can help develop your brand in the community. Referralnetworks can drive high quality leads when managed properly. Be sure tointeract on social networks and take advantage of the excellent low costsolutions available to small business owners to engage hundreds and thousandsof individuals in your industry.

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