To The Next Level
Determine Your Referral Success Rate
It's about quality, not quantity.
By M. Stephen Brown

As members of the largest, most successful networking organization in the world, each of us strives to become the best networker we can be.

In fact, at BNI chapters throughout the world, hundreds of thousands of connections are made among members who share the single guiding principle that "Givers Gain."

If a referral turns out positively, you can bet your bottom dollar that that person will someday refer business to you. "Givers Gain" is a powerful business philosophy that, if earnestly followed, can become the single greatest source of your success.

Formula for Referral Productivity
With this in mind, I recently began analyzing my referrals. More specifically, I wanted to find out how successful I had been in referring business to chapter members. Each week, I diligently submitted white slips into the referral basket. Occasionally a few of those slips would result in someone submitting BNI Bucks in acknowledgment. But I really wanted to know what that meant in terms of my referral productivity.

On the chapter report, I could see that I gave "X" amount of referrals, but I couldn't determine how many of those referrals had been successful. To help me find the answer, I devised a mathematical formula. The formula has been so effective in helping me become a better networker—make that a "Better Giver of Referrals"—that it is now the standard by which every member in my chapter determines their referral productivity.

The formula looks like this:

Referral Success Rate = Number of BNI Bucks Slips Submitted/Referrals Given

Use me as an example:
I had given 20 referrals between June and September. Of those, four resulted in business.

.20 = 4/20

Therefore, for the period between June and September 2007, my Referral Success Rate was 20%. That means two out of every 10 referrals I gave were successful.

Ultimately, each of us shoots for a 100% Referral Success Rate. In reality, however, not every referral is going to be successful. That's okay, because the Referral Success Rate is designed to help people make the absolute best referrals—ones that stand the greatest chance of becoming successful.

Think of it in terms of a hitter's batting average in baseball. The more hits, the higher the batter's batting average. The same holds true here: the more BNI Bucks (green slips) submitted as a result of your referrals, the higher your Referral Success Rate.

The most successful BNI members (and there are thousands of them) understand that it's not the quantity of referrals, but rather the quality of referrals that matter most.

M. Stephen Brown is BNI Assistant Director, North Shore, Wakefield, Wilmington, & Woburn, Massachusetts