ROC Weekly Marketing Minute
ROC Weekly Marketing Minute
Gaining Vendor Referrals for Your Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center
Vendor referrals are a great way for businesses to help promote each other. They can develop your professional network, help you provide a holistic and complete range of services to your clients, and allow you to gain clients that are suitable for your facility. It helps you and other businesses excel at your specialty, and provides an opportunity to work with others who specialize in different, yet related areas.
How to be a preferred vendor
Here is a list of steps you can take to gain more vendor referrals:
Communicate well: When working with other businesses, be sure to prioritize communication. This means you should reply quickly to emails, return phone calls promptly, and be open, transparent, and clear in all communications. This will help the other business realize your value and build their confidence in referring you to clients.
Work well with others: To gain vendor referrals, it is important to treat the other business and the people you interact with in a way that makes them feel valued. Build trust in your relationships, and add value in everything you do. This will help keep you top of mind and will help your vendors think about how you can be of value to others that they refer.
Interact online and help promote others: It is important that relationships with vendors are mutually beneficial, beyond direct monetary compensation. Do your best to promote your vendors when possible; share their social posts, promote their events, services, and products, and determine ways you can work together for mutual benefit.
Express your thanks: Say thank you and express your gratitude often. If someone you work with does a great job, reach out to them and let them know. By expressing your thanks, you help develop a relationship and exemplify the way you run your business.
Tips to gain vendor referrals
Here is a list of tips you can follow to gain more vendor referrals and build mutually beneficial relationships with them:
Assess who is working with similar clients.
Once you identify the groups, organizations, and individuals working with potential clients, develop a relationship and build trust with them. When a vendor refers clients to your rehab facility, it means that their own reputation is on the line. Be sure to express your abilities and convey what it is like to access your services so they have reassurance about their referral. The goal is to make them look better for referring you.
Remember that people refer people, not companies.
Many people trust and refer people rather than companies. Remember this as you interact with others, especially vendors.
Make agreements with others.
You can create a vendor referral agreement with a group of other businesses to help promote each other, work together, and offer a full continuum of services to your clients. When choosing people to work with, be sure to consider the following:
Learn about the other company- Just as you strive to be worthy of a referral, ensure the other business is worthy of yours. Do some research into their standard of services and remember that referring others reflects on you and your standards.
Outline the benefits- Once you have identified others to collaborate with, outline the benefits of doing so. Think about your client base and services and how you can work together to reach more people and serve them better. By outlining how you can work together to serve the same people, the benefits of the relationship will be more clear.
Create an agreement- Be sure to determine how the agreement will work and ensure that both sides are doing the work. You can clearly outline the services you provide and any limitations that are in place to help streamline the process. Identify the ways that your rehab facility can be suggested to the vendor’s clients, and vice versa, so both parties are informed and aware of the process.
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