BUILDING REFERRAL BUSINESS THROUGH CONFIDENCE
(July/August 2003 Issue)

A thriving private practice is built on abundant referrals. Think for a moment... Where do you think your BEST referrals come from? It's a multiple choice quiz:
A) Friends & Relatives?
B) Recruiters, therapists, and other life-work professionals?
C) People who've attended a speech or workshop of yours?
D) A client for whom you did a resume?
E) A client you helped to identify their ideal job/career?
F) A client who got a new job/promotion through your counseling/coaching?

Answer: the greatest referral sources are completed (successful) clients. These are not people you've helped just with a resume or career focus, but people who have actually scored a new job or promotion with your coaching. They're the greatest source of referrals not only because of the quantity of referrals, but in the quality: their recommendation goes a long way to having the referral/prospect be "pre-sold" on you before you meet. So what's the key to getting completions like this? Developing client self-confidence.

Our prospects have low self confidence. This doesn't mean that clients are entirely deflated in every aspect of their lives, but they've become deflated in the domain of job hunting and career search. Either they don't know what they want to be when they grow up and they search the want ads in vain to find their career "Shangri-La," or they do know what they want to do but can't find or win interviews to do it. Typically, this means no luck with want ads.

All this adds up to low self-confidence for job-hunters. When it gets low enough and the suffering finally becomes intense enough, they call us. Our job, then, becomes restoring enough career self-confidence to become clients; then enough self confidence to conduct a referral campaign. If we rebuild a person's belief in themselves, then gain their trust enough to show them a better way to discover and land a career position, we have a client. This doesn't mean we have a "completion" yet; for that, we have more confidence-building to do.

Now, we can't build self-confidence directly. It's not like putting air in a tire or dispensing a self-confidence pill. Instead, it's done indirectly. We use three distinct actions and one campaign analysis tool to enable our clients to increase self-confidence.

The three actions are:
1) proper campaign preparation with rigorous tests to pass,
2) a contract that does not "disincentivize" the work together, and
3) intense interaction around the first three networking interviews.

The campaign analysis tool is known as the "Tripartite Job-Search Campaign." Explanation of each of these elements follows.

1) Proper campaign preparation with rigorous tests to pass.
Most career advisors use some form of skills awareness as the basis for the campaign. However, unless the skills analysis is done correctly, the client ends up with a list skills but no change in confidence.

For instance, let's say you use a checklist from which the client picks and chooses words to express his skill set. Or, perhaps you use tests: the Strong Interest Inventory may indicate a client's skill set as Social-Realistic-Investigative, or Artistic-Social; or the Myers Briggs tells her that she is "ENFP," and therefore a highly enthusiastic person concerned with possibilities for people. These may both be accurate, but information by itself doesn't necessarily change self-confidence.

In the case of the word list, it's important to have the client dig into their own vocabulary to find words s/he is comfortable using. You may understand the meaning of the word "segue," but never use it in your daily conversation. That word, then, is not a tool you'll use readily to express yourself. The same principle applies to "skills" lists with words that may sound too high-flying for a client to be comfortable using; the wrong word list can actually work against a client's ease of expression and decrease self-confidence!

On the other hand, making clients do the work of analyzing their successes can increase their self esteem if they are forced to come up with the words on their own. By starting with several descriptions of their past successes and coaching them in putting together all the words that express what it took to be successful, you can help clients build an active skills vocabulary. Additionally, when clients remember and relive successful times, that exercise in itself provides a self-confidence boost; the words become anchored to something they have direct experience of, not just a test result, and clients "own" those skill words.

The same ownership principle applies to the resume. You may be the veritable Shakespeare of resume writing, but if you write a resume "for" candidates, they will always think of it as someone else's work. However, if you make them come up with the key elements and descriptions while you take the role of editor, clients will have increased ownership of the resume, pride in it, and self-confidence about it. Did someone say, "self confidence"?

Once clients' skills and resume are successfully owned, though, you still need to take enough time to cement their confidence in both. Don't let them out to interview until you can personally attest that their self-confidence comes through their "elevator speech." Be relentless on this point; letting clients skate by on this will not serve them. Unless and until they look and sound confident, all that will happen is that the people they contact will think, "Hmmm, s/he's not really sure s/he's worth anything."

[B.T.W. my name for this self-presentation is a "Couple-Minute Profile." If you'd like my instructions and comments on this interviewing tool, send me an e-mail with "Couple-Minute Profile, Please" in the subject line.]

2) A contract that does not "disincentivize" the work together. Billing services correctly can make all the difference in how well your work goes with a client, so consider carefully how you charge for the work you do together. If you charge by the hour, you may not get enough time to make sure clients are feeling and talking confidently before you send them out on interviews. Why? Well, each time they come in costs them more money. Let's say you know they need an extra session. It's clear to you, but their experience is, "Yipes, I've come in 4 times already and it's still not right!' They'll feel like they're "paying and paying" without seeing results. Clients may start wondering whether you really want them to interview, or if you just want to build your bank account. Or, they may feel like things are getting more expensive than they had planned. Either way you can find yourself in a bad situation.

On the other hand, if you have a contract where the client pays one fee for which you work with them from beginning to end, then you can call them in as much as you want—you eliminate the stress of a financial decision every time. Additionally, if clients pay a substantial sum for a whole project covering them all the way to a job, then they'll use you for just that: the whole enchilada. After all, that's what they're paying for, to work with them until you feel confident that they feel confident.

If you charge by the hour, by contrast, they'll only keep working with you until a) they feel they don't need you (That's never the case; bad decision.), or b) they're stuck, so why call you again when you haven't helped so far? (Again, poor decision.), or c) they're close enough to the job that they want to save a little money by doing the rest on their own (Penny-wise and dollar foolish.), or d) they just plain run out of money. In that case, they might know they need you and even feel like the process is working . . . but with no money to pay you, either they have to stop coming, or you have to work for free—both bad ideas.

So, making a contract with clear aims in mind for both of you—a new job/promotion/own biz, etc.—assures that you'll get what you both want. They get the career advancement, and you get someone out there singing your praises. [Remember, this article is about getting referrals by cranking out successful clients singing your praises.] Spelling out less-than-specific goals and fees up front can lead to clients saying, "Well, it was good in the beginning, but then it didn't work," or ". . . it got bad," or ". . . I ran out money." None of these is the kind of testimonial you want floating out there in connection with your name!

3) Intense interaction around the first three networking interviews. Job campaign interviews have many names. You might call them referral interviews, information interviews, networking interviews, advice & information meetings ("A&I"), or other names. Besides these exploratory interviews, clients might even be going out on job interviews right away. But no matter what their name or their purpose, your job is the same: you have to protect your Job-Search babies.

When these "newborns" first go out on interviews, they are the most vulnerable, and this is the easiest time for them to go backwards. You can keep that from happening by using good "baby" care:

1— Protect them like you would a newborn. Keep in communication with them every day, before and after each telephone calling session, briefing and debriefing each appointment-setting success and setback and analyzing each interview.

2—Secretly set them up for a good experience waaaaaaaaay before the fact. Here's how: in your first or second session, have them make a list of three to five references, then have them send a letter to those references saying, "I'm doing some new things in my career campaign; I may need you for a reference. No need to do anything now, but I'll contact you when I'm ready, probably to run my new presentation, new resume, and updated focus by you. Okay?"

Guess what you've got? Three referral interviews in the bag!

This sets them up so their first three referral interviews are not only successful, but painless, since they never knew they were setting up interviews, they didn't get the heebie jeebies — they just thought they were setting up their references.

Analysis tool: the "Tripartite Job-Search Campaign."
A person-to-person networking-and-referral type of campaign takes place in three distinct phases, so make sure you know these three phases and explain them thoroughly enough so your client understands them.

The three phases are 1) market research, 2) focus and validation, and 3) position development.

[Historical note: This immensely valuable distinction was invented by Howard Payne in the St. Louis office of Bernard Haldane Associates in 1979. He brought it with him to Right Associates who have incorporated it into their counseling program as the "FIT" aspect of referral interviews. FIT stands for "Focusing In Technique." Howard passed away in 1986.]

If the "tripartite" nature of their interviewing campaign is not clear, clients think each interview is like the last one—so after they go out ten or fifteen times without generating a job interview, they start to lose confidence again because they thing "I'm not getting any results." If they understand the "tripartite" model, however, they can see progress in their campaign, even if they haven't secured a "job" interview yet. Seeing the process work motivates them to continue the process.

[If you would like to receive full information on the three phases of job interviewing, email me with "Tripartite Campaign" in the subject line, and I'll send you info on it.]

In Summary
Your desired outcome—a thriving private practice—results from eight factors.

Eighth and last: a continuous stream of prospects that come from...

Seventh: clients who are eager to refer others to you because they experienced more than "good feelings;" they saw measurable success —a new job, promotion, or own business; they did this by...

Sixth: experiencing success interview by interview by getting out and interviewing in the hidden job market;

Fifth: The reason they were willing to interview in the hidden job market was because they feel self-confident;

Fourth: They got that high self-confidence through owning the skills in their successes and which helped them develop a secure, comfortable-sounding couple-minute profile;

Third: that self confidence was further anchored by overcoming inevitable insecurities in presenting themselves by "rigging" success in their first three interviews;

Second: this created clients who succeed in their first three times out of the box thanks to you supporting them like crazy; and

First: your solid support, enhanced by a clear, flat-fee system that eliminates stress about how, or how many times, clients pay for services.

So, in summary, the basis for a successful campaign is a firm foundation of trust, plus the "self-fulfilling prophecy contract" that says, "Mr./Ms Client, we won't count the hours; what's important is that we're in this for better or worse . . . until job do us part!"

Jack Chapman is author of:
Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute
He is a career consultant in private practice and runs ongoing support and training teleconference sessions for career consultants in private practice.
He can be reached at 847-251-4727 or jkchapman@aol.com.