Imagine for a moment that you had an endless stream of new clients being referred to you regularly.  Imagine if other businesses were happy to co-promote and share buyers with you.  The folks who easily attract this kind of treatment are those who are perceived to be able to reciprocate.  Fortunately, you don’t have to wait years of ‘paying dues’ to get this advantage.

Leapfrog Your Competition With Authority and Influence

There are differences in being seen as an ‘Authority,’ and an ‘Influencer.’  It’s a good idea to have a healthy dose of both if your mission is to magnetically attract prospects to your work.  While an Authority may be seen as an expert, it takes the empathy of an Influencer to create the desire in someone to do business with you.

Notice how people are drawn to Influencers.  Companies want the endorsement of an Influential person or celebrity.  PR firms send press releases about their clients to media.  You can get others to chase you rather than you chasing them simply by becoming an Influencer.

Once you position yourself as an Influencer and an Authority, you will have a lot of folks knocking on your door and you can cherry-pick the ones who you can exchange the most value with.

4 Ways To Attract Natural Referral Partners

There’s no question that authoring a book is a great way to demonstrate Authority and Influence, but there are other ways that are just as sexy and faster to implement.

Become The Media

I discovered ‘Authority Media’ on accident.  When I was a local club DJ, I made my own dance records which got played on the radio and in all the clubs.  With luck, Chicago House Music emerged, and as a pioneer, I got worldwide notoriety.  I found that having my music played on the radio and in the nightclubs, along with having a record label, drew many up-and-coming DJ’s and Promoters to contact me offering me endless club gigs and parties in hopes of getting my help with their careers.  “Media” comes in many forms, and you can duplicate this in any local business. I’ll give you several examples…

• Create a Group or Host Events That Will Help Natural Referral Partners – Think of what your best referral partners want.  The smart ones (who you want) will want a place to network, share best practices, and learn better ways to market their businesses.  The best will reciprocate.  If you’re a wedding professional, you could bring together other complementary vendors.  You create the group or event – and you gain the Influence.  You can use direct mail invitations, trade ads, and Meetup.com to promote, just to name a few.
• Create A Real Radio Show Around Your Subject – Radio has many layers of opportunity.  A mortgage professional can host a show to educate consumers and also to gain co-operation from real estate agents.  I’ve helped college advisors use a radio show to gain accelerated acceptance from ACT prep, sports academies and driving schools. I’ve helped Executive Coaches recruit clients using radio. The real opportunity is beyond the listeners.

Radio is a major Authority Media, and you can leverage a radio program to position you the preeminent authority in whatever you do. There are dozens of online sites today that offer you the opportunity to host your own internet radio program for just a few dollars per month.

Now, you may be thinking that you don’t have the time or money to effectively promote your program to the point where you would have enough listeners to truly monetize your efforts. But you’re missing the point. It doesn’t matter if anyone is listening to you or not.

Simply record your program and send it out to your list – effectively creating an audio newsletter. Post the recording front and center on your website, and just the fact that prospects see it will dramatically increase a prospects perception of your authority and expertise. You could even record you hosting your radio program via video similar to the way Don Imus does it and post the video on YouTube.

All of these various mediums position you as THE authority in whatever you do.

• Create A Newsletter Targeted To Your Dream 100 – Too shy for radio?  You can achieve a similar goal with a Niche Newsletter.  Make a list of your dream prospects, and one-by-one, invite them for an interview.  Make them look good and mail your newsletter at least monthly to that list.  They all like to read about themselves and you can keep their attention.  Be seen as the connector and Influencer.  The key is consistency and relevance.

If you decide to host your own radio program as mentioned above, have the program transcribed and edited and presto – instant newsletter. A percentage of your clients and prospects will prefer to read versus watch or listen, so this is a quick and inexpensive way you can provide all formats to appeal to individual preferences. For inexpensive transcriptions, try using the contractors at www.fiverr.com.

• Create Information Products – Attractive to those who would make good referral partners, and to your end customer. You might consider placing all of your radio, video recordings if you go that route and your transcriptions into a collection to create an informational product. Title it: Expert Interviews for the XXX Profession or something similar. You may not choose to sell this new product but you can offer it as bait for lead generation or to position your authority and expertise to a new prospect.

And finally, want to write that book I mentioned at the start of this article?  When you outline several episodes of your radio show, monthly events, or newsletter content, compile them all together and you have the makings of a book.  You can find an editor or a writer to whip up a masterpiece from your content and become an Author without having to write it yourself. When you focus on helping people, watch the referrals come pouring in.