Building Effective Alliances

For many Professional Services practices, working with other advisers - particularly in the area of cross-referrals - is a daunting task.  Too often, professional alliances start with good intentions but fail to develop good habits. By Alliance offers business owners and senior advisers a structured process to refine their approach to cross-referrals and working with “Centres of Influence”.  Depending on the focus, By Alliance, can help you… Find and approach new referral partners to expand your sources Differentiate yourself from competitors when seeking partners Address issues of quality and quantity of referrals from partners Re-engage old or stalled referral partners and rekindle referrals You will also review your previous referral experiences and workshop current alliance opportunities.  Download a By Alliance brochure.

By Alliance will help you...

Find and cultivate more effective relationships with “Centres of Influence” or internal referral partners.

• Address common hurdles
• Motivate partners to actually refer
• Improve the quality of referrals
• Improve introductions to referrals
• Manage referral expectations
• Address competing suppliers
• Get introduced to new partners
• Create a compelling alliance pitch
• Increase number of referrals
• Avoid high pressure tactics

By Alliance is particularly suitable for practices or advisers with...

No referral partners

You will learn multiple strategies to identify and approach new referral partners and alliances.

Receiving low quality referrals

You will learn how to (re)approach referral partners and improve the quality of referrals.

Dis-interested referral partners

You will examine strategies to motivate referral partners to provide more, quality referrals.

Approaches which aren’t working

You will be able to examine your previous efforts, identify areas for improvement and reapproach possible alliance partners.

A need for more clients/client growth

You will better understand the opportunity with Centres of Influence, the required action steps, outcomes and success measures.  You can build your activities into a Business Development Plan as a core marketing strategy.

By Alliance Workshop Agenda...

Vue Consulting’s Learning Methodology is called ANALYSE CREATE MOTIVATE, representing the before, during and after stages of a training experience.

The CREATE phase includes our Workshops and face-to-face learning.  By Alliance’s CREATE phase requires up to the equivalent of a full day of Workshop time.  Depending on the focus of the business, certain parts may be removed or substituted.

The Workshop Agenda itself, covers the following modules…

Part 1 - Finding and Approaching

• Review the entire list of possible Centres of Influence
• Effective ways to approach new Centres of Influence

Part 2 - The Pitch

• Review key survey data about alliances and understand why most alliances are ineffective
• Restructure your “pitch” to Centres of Influence to differentiate yourself, motivate referrals and better manage referral expectations

Part 3 - Managing Relationships

• Review and overcome common alliance and cross-referral hurdles

NB:  By Alliance is purely focused on Centre of Influence relationships.  It does not address with Joint Ventures or Client Referrals.