You may have thousands of contacts in your phone book and on social media but how many of them have you taken time to build a referable relationship with?

A few years ago, I met the Director of well-respected digital marketing agency at a networking event. We had heard of each other through mutual contacts but had never actually met. We struck up a conversation, swapped contact details and agreed to catch up after the event.

When we met up and started digging a little deeper into each other businesses, we touched on our pain points and discussed how we could help each other.

This is when our relationship moved from casual connection to potential referral partners and that only happens when you take time to learn about someone’s business, their story, proud moments, activities, relationships and knowledge needs so you can recognise referral opportunities for each other.

Most networking fails because people stop at introductions. Great referral partnerships happen when people go further, when they take the time to discover where their clients overlap, and where they can genuinely create value for each other.

And once that SPARK happens, referrals stop feeling forced. They start happening naturally.

If you would like to experience a SPARK moment in your business create a Local Recommend profile or visit a meeting and discover how powerful real referral relationships can be.