You will set up a simple system that tracks referrals from ask to thank-you.
Arjun can remember most of his referrals if he thinks hard, though a few always escape him. He also can't remember who he thanked, who he forgot to update, or which friend he promised to check in with after their baby arrived. The details live in WhatsApp threads, his memory and a few scraps in his CRM. That's how the client in lesson 6.3 slipped through.
This exercise sets up one simple system that tracks every referral from the moment someone offers a name to the moment you thank them. Then you fill it with every referral from the last year you can recall, so it's useful from the first day.
Keep the tracker in your CRM or in a spreadsheet, whichever you'll actually open. The best system is the one you'll use. If your company's CRM already has a way to record referrals, use it. If the CRM is clumsy and you'd avoid it, a spreadsheet on your phone is better than a perfect system you never update.
Wei Ling's company CRM has a referral source field, so she uses that and adds a custom field for thank-you status. Arjun's firm's system is built for compliance records, not referrals, so he keeps a separate spreadsheet that holds no client financial details, just names and stages.
Your tracker needs five fields, one column each.
Referrer: the client or contact who introduced or suggested the person. Contact: the person they referred. Date: when the introduction or referral happened. Stage: where things stand now. Use a short set of labels such as asked, introduced, first conversation, meeting, client, not now, or not a fit. Thank-you: whether you've thanked the referrer and sent an update, with the dates.
Add a consent note to the contact column if your CRM doesn't already have one, carried over from lesson 5.3, Consent comes first. Resist adding more columns. Every extra field is another thing to keep up, and an incomplete tracker is one you'll stop trusting.
A tracker that only records things won't stop you forgetting, so set two kinds of reminder alongside it.
First, a follow-up reminder for each new contact. Set it for the day after an introduction, so you reply within a day as lesson 6.1, The double opt-in introduction, taught, and again for any check-in date you agreed with a contact who said not now.
Second, an update reminder for each referrer. When a referred contact reaches a new stage, remind yourself to tell the referrer within a few days, within the confidentiality limits from lesson 6.3, The thank-you that brings the next referral.
Most calendars, CRMs and phone reminder apps can do this. Pick one and use it consistently.
Now go back through the last year and enter every referral you can recall. Search your WhatsApp and email for words like "introduce," "my friend" and "referred." Check your CRM for clients with a referral source. Look through your calendar for first meetings with people you didn't find yourself.
For each one, fill in the five fields as best you can. Where you've forgotten a detail, put a best guess and mark it. You'll find gaps. Arjun found that out of 14 referrals in the past year, he'd sent an update to the referrer for only four. That left 10 referrers who had never heard what happened, including the client from lesson 6.3. He sent short, honest updates to the ones where it still made sense: "I realised I never thanked you properly for introducing me to Jason last year. We've been working together since. Thank you."
Wei Ling found nine referrals, and was surprised to see that seven of them came from just two clinics.
Once the tracker is filled in, set a monthly reminder to review it. It takes 15 minutes. Look for three things. Which contacts are stuck and need a follow-up? Which referrers haven't heard from you? And who refers most, and why?
That last question is the most useful one. Wei Ling's two most active referrers were both clinics whose managers talk regularly to other clinic managers. That told her to spend more time with clients who are well connected in their field and to look after them especially well. You'll pull this into your monthly review in module 8.
A finished tracker has the five fields, every referral from the last 12 months you could find, reminders set for open follow-ups and updates, and a monthly review in your calendar. The activity below asks you to set it up and fill it in.
Set up a referral tracker with the five fields and enter every referral from the last 12 months you can recall.
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