What are referral services? A business may used this paid service to refer to them direct prospects that are actively seeking the company’s product or services. Simply put, it’s where you pay a bit to have a service tell you who is looking for what you have. This can greatly increase your ROI over standard cold calling to gather new clients.

Most of these services, however, especially those that supply non-exclusive leads, leave a lot to be desired. I’m sure that almost everyone has had the problem of buying a leads list that has already been called on by the competition four or five times already, leaving both those prospects and your sales force feeling both annoyed and let down. Which is why choosing the correct type and kind of referral services for your company is of paramount importance.

Putting money towards something eventually might pay off, but it works quicker if you have basic data about your prospective referral service before you start.

Where are these leads generated from? From their own marketing, or from an amalgamation service such as Monster, are the leads supplied? How many other companies have these already been sold to? Does this service have some sort of return or duplicate policy? When and how often will you be provided with new leads from them? (Not the best choice having a service that supplies 200 fresh leads once a month if you have 5 salesmen to support). Does this service give me thesupport I mahy need in other areas? (A client referral program etc..) Will their referral services be able to expand and grow to support more demand from me, as and when I need it? What are their current clients’ conversion ratio’s, for a similarly priced product or service as yours, when you are the referral services leads?

These questions may seem obvious, but too many people using a service seem to just fall asleep after they sign up. Decide on whether to use a service by applying the most basic form of business equation – will I make more by buying and using this, or not? The same basics apply to whether or not the service is right – Will I get what I pay for and need from them?