And, if you have someone on your team that is responsible for sales, how do you help them be more effective?

These are the questions I asked myself…

And that led me to design my own Strategic Alliance Army.

It’s my agency’s client referral network, and…

it sends our agency (great) leads, and…

… many of these leads are way more likely to buy!

Let me explain how this works…

A Strategic Alliance is another business who has the same clients as me, but is not competitive.

Meaning, they sell to the same customers, but they don’t sell them websites, digital marketing or anything like that.

Here’s a few examples…

1. Advertising agencies

2. IT or Computer Repair

3. Business coaches

Since these businesses already have the relationship with the client, they can refer those clients to me!

But how do you get them to do that?

Here’s what I do:

1. Build a relationship with them (aka… Make friends! Take them out to coffee, lunch, etc.)
2. Educate them about what I do.
3. Show a (genuine) interest in learning what they do.
4. Ask them which of their clients they think could use my help.
5. Stay in touch with them.

By nurturing these types of relationships, referrals come in.

And, I don’t have to spend more time on prospecting for clients.

I just get the benefit of more leads.

Here’s an example of this working in my agency…

Just last week, one of our strategic alliances (an ad agency) asked us to get one of their clients (with 6 locations) setup with our review management service.

That represents a $13,800 sale for us.

And, the best part is, we didn’t really have to do any selling!

I’ve found that teaching my strategic alliances about online reviews has been one of the best ways to form a referral relationship with them.

Even better is when I actually provide review management services for that Strategic Alliance!

Reviews is a topic I find many business owners are willing to talk about.

It’s something they can all relate to and is important to their business.

The benefit of educating my strategic alliances about reviews is it gives them some great information they can then share with their own clients.

And, when they share that information, it tends to open up an opportunity for the strategic alliance to introduce me to their client!

This strategy has worked really well.

I’d like to invite you into a training I put together where I explain everything about reviews and why it’s an amazing opportunity for agencies.

It’s a great way to get your foot in the door with new clients,

It’s an amazing upsell to existing clients.

And, it’s an incredible way to build and nurture strategic alliances to build your own referral army.

If you’re wanting to be more efficient with sales or…

You want to grow without also growing a sales team, or spending more on ads…

Check out this training.

Mike Schmidt
Founder
AgencyCoach