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Who Is In Your Sphere of Influence?
Making your centers of influence, contact spheres, and hubs work for you.
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However, it’s not how many people you know – it’s who you know and how well you know them. Successful referral generation is based on quality—not quantity! Those people who generate quality referrals are tied to the same target market that you serve. Your contact sphere represents the people who do business with your target market.
For many business people, clearly defining a target market is counterintuitive. As business people we think everyone would benefit from our product or service. That’s not a realistic attitude, for a couple of reasons. We can’t do business with everyone. It simply isn’t possible. And everyone doesn’t want to do business with us. Besides, the time, effort, and cost of trying to market to everyone would be prohibitive.
Using a stepping stone approach--defining your ideal client through demographics—you define your target market. Once defined, you know who to network with. From networking, you determine who will be part of your contact sphere.
But what exactly is the difference between a center of influence, contact sphere and hub—and how do you make them work for you?
A center of influence is a person, well-connected and well-respected within the community, who could recommend you to your target market. Usually this person has high credibility with the people you want to meet. A recommendation from a center of influence to your target market is incredibly valuable. A center of influence may also develop into a consistent referral source for you. An example would be a doggie day care center focusing on a well-known veterinarian as a center of influence.
A contact sphere is a group of business professionals, in non-competing industries, that serve the same target market. Cooperative relationships between these businesses can be the source of dramatic competitive strength, and a consistent source of high-quality referrals to each other. A center of influence can, and should, be part of your contact sphere. Businesses in the same mall, for instance, could be a terrific contact sphere.
A hub is the key business within a contact sphere that acts as the lynchpin for the sphere. The hub firm becomes the central force within the sphere. The hub firm leverages the other businesses, organizes the contact sphere’s activities and is generally viewed as the common link between the cooperative firms.
By becoming a hub firm, you make yourself and your organization the key link in a network of businesses. An example would be a renovation contractor who is connected to interior designers and decorators, painters, etc. Over time, becoming a hub firm will substantially increase the number of referrals you will receive. As a successful businessperson, if time allows, you may want to develop your company into a hub firm.
Developing and nurturing effective, mutually beneficial connections with other business professionals is one of the cornerstones of building a strong referral-based business. And that makes dollars and sense!
Christel Wintels is the Executive Director and Franchise Owner of the BNI Golden Horseshoe Region, a Master Franchisee Partner with the Referral Institute Canada, Vice President, Operations, Referral Institute Ontario, a Certified Networker and a Master Trainer with the Referral Institute. Christel has written numerous articles about the art and science of referral marketing and how to build lifetime referrals through the philosophy of “Givers Gain”. She writes a weekly Networking Nugget for BNI members, shares Referral Tips for business owners, and is a contributing author to the New York Times Bestseller,” Masters of Sales”. Christel welcomes your contact by email: christel@bnigh.com website: www.bnigh.com phone: 905.681.1999 or 1.866.340.8740 blog: www.referraltips.blogspot.com
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One Response to “Who Is In Your Sphere of Influence?”
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© 2012 BNI® Published by CZ Strategy
December 15th, 2011 at 11:00 am
Great article Cristel, I agree with everything you’ve written. The only issue that I have is that a lot of the time with networking, you have many living off of the work of few. I believe in referral marketing. However, there have been times when you are forced to take business decisions and “fire” your referral networking partners.