How Can A Musician Generate Referrals For Your Business?

How Can A Musician Generate Referrals For Your Business?

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How Can A Musician Generate Referrals
For Your Business?

In this day and age, referrals are key to a healthy and thriving business. After all, nothing beats a personal recommendation from a trusted contact when looking for new business! But after spending years and years working your network, reaching out to your go-to contacts, and attending networking events, it’s often pretty easy to hit a wall in finding new referrals. There’s only so far you can go with the same group of people!

But how do you break through this wall when you’ve exhausted your reach within the industry? Easy – look outside the box. Go somewhere completely unexpected and new to find fresh contacts and promising referrals that you may not have considered and/or had access to before.

Ready to take on that wall and get new referrals and boost your business? We have the perfect place to look for you – the music industry. But why consider musicians? They’re typically not involved in the business world and seem a little out of touch with what you’re looking for, right? Wrong. Musicians are an untapped resource of new business referrals, whether you’re a real estate agent or a financial advisor.

Still on the fence about tapping the music industry for new referrals? Here are some must-know reasons to branch out for your immediate consideration.

#1 – MUSICIANS ARE A CLEAN SLATE

Let’s talk about something we’re all definitely familiar with – professional loyalty. Most industries are already familiar with referral groups and networks, and often have pre-existing loyalties to their groups that are difficult to break or break into. It can take years of time and effort to even make a dent!

On the other hand, because business professionals have rarely if ever networked with musicians, it’s highly unlikely that there are already pre-existing loyalties within your industry. In other words, they’re a clean slate and when they come across a referral opportunity, they are more likely to refer that person to someone they know and trust in their network, like you!

#2 – MUSICIANS DON’T HAVE CLIENTS – THEY HAVE FANS

Let’s take a step back for a minute and talk about the word ‘fan.’ Derived from the root-word ‘fanatic,’ this word refers to someone who is a loyal follower or admirer of another. No matter what level a musician is at in their career, they more than likely have at least one fan. That one fan could potentially be a client for every single member in the musician’s referral group. Better yet, if a musician joins a referral group, they can even notify their fans that they’ve joined a music networking group and need help promoting its members. This will help open the doors of opportunities with other music industry professionals, including booking agents, radio hosts, venues and opening slots for national acts.

#3 – MUSICIANS CAN HIT IT BIG

In the music world, it’s all about connections. But, a misconception lies in that these connections only come from the music industry. Most big breaks for musicians actually come from people who know people within the industry. For example, a financial planner’s newest client could be the organizer for the Coachella Music Festival, or the mortgage lender’s next-door neighbor could be the drive-home DJ for the city’s most popular radio show.

The ease of making an introduction or sharing a musician’s music with these high-value connections can potentially be the catalyst that transforms them into a national icon. And, once they’ve amassed thousands of new fans, earned plenty of new income, and networked with well-established musicians, producers, and promoters, they’ll never forget the members of the referral group that helped them back when they were nobodies.

You hear musicians say it all the time: “They’ll be sorry when I make it big one day.” Luckily, the opposite is also true. Can you imagine the impact on a business professional’s business when their website is shared with a musician’s millions of loyal fans?

Ready to take the plunge and start networking with up-and-comers in the music industry? MNO is here to help you get started. With just a couple of clicks, an MNO member can share their fellow member’s links using the right wording to help them grow their business via referrals. Musician members have demonstrated numerous times that their shares generate more referrals for their fellow members than those of business professionals.

What are you waiting for? Start growing your business now with MNO!

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10 Tips On How To Generate Referrals

10 Tips On How To Generate Referrals

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10 Tips On How To Generate Referrals

When it comes to building your business, there’s nothing quite like a well-intentioned and well-thought-out referral. After all, nothing quite beats a personal touch when it comes to growing a business! Referrals from trusted connections are often more effective than an old-fashioned sales pitch, as they’re seen as more an endorsement than a straight-up sale. But how do you effectively generate referrals without losing all of your time, money, and sanity in the process?

If you’re feeling a little stuck on generating referrals for your business, we have you covered. Here are some of our top tips for getting the ball rolling and getting your business really growing. Keep reading to learn more.

 

#1 – IDENTIFY YOUR TOP PROSPECTS

Step one in generating referrals is taking a look at your top prospective clients. This will help you narrow your focus into the right zone, getting you where you need to be to generate new referrals.

For example, if you’re working as a realtor, ideally you would want prospects who are looking for or interested in buying or selling a home. You can narrow this down even further by focusing on life events that would trigger a home purchase or sale, such as moving into an area or out of an area.

 

#2 – IDENTIFY YOUR TOP CONNECTIONS

On the same note as identifying prospects, you should also take a moment to figure out who your top connections are. Which contacts are the most reactive, most supportive and have the best ability to reach the most relevant people? These friends or acquaintances will be a gold mine of new referrals and be happy to help.

For example, if you’re a financial advisor, a great connection would be a contact who is a CPA – they can recommend your services to their clients when examining their financial documents.

 

#3 – GET TO WORK ON YOUR BLOG

Once you’ve identified your top prospects and clients, the next step is to elaborate further on what you’ve learned. Craft a blog post for each case study and share it on your social media to generate interest in your business.

 

#4 – DON’T BE AFRAID TO GET VOCAL

When attending networking events or meeting up with new networking groups, don’t be afraid to say exactly who and what you’re looking for in a referral. This is the best way to get in touch with your target groups. Once you’ve identified attendees who can help you get in touch with these groups, share your relevant case studies and blog posts with them and ask them to also share this information with their networks and on their social media. Get vocal and get the word out there!

 

#5 – SKIP THE HASSLE AND GO STRAIGHT TO THE SOURCE

If you want to bypass the entire previous step of finding folks to help you share your case studies, you can skip the hassle and go straight to the MNO Member App. Through this app, you can directly share your case studies and other information across multiple platforms and with a network of relevant individuals via text or email without the hassle of networking.

 

#6 – IT’S A GAME OF GIVE AND TAKE

When asking others to share out your links for referrals, it’s important to also be proactive and share out theirs, too. This builds a network of trust and will mutually benefit both of you. In addition, it’s easier to sell someone else’s services, as it comes off as an endorsement rather than an actual sales pitch.

 

#7 – A TOP CONNECTION IS A TWO-WAY STREET

When securing a referral for your partners, don’t be afraid to ask for a referral in return. The networking game is a two-way street and is a gift that will keep giving, as long as you both work together to mutually benefit one another.

 

#8 – DON’T BE AFRAID TO STEP OUTSIDE YOUR INDUSTRY

When networking, we oftentimes get stuck in the idea that we need to stay within our industry. Take a walk on the wild side and try cross-networking with other industries – these unique partnerships are highly effective, as they’re often involved with industry-specific circles that are slow to trust outsiders.

For example, many business professionals are reluctant to network with musicians. However, musicians are connected with a variety of other potential referrals, including booking agents, managers, producers, more established artists and fans. If you’re a realtor, perhaps a musician contact would have a manager who is looking to buy a home. In this case, don’t forget to act first and share the musician’s work and attend their shows. If you’re ready to get involved with this cross-industry networking, MNO does offer a Musician-Tier membership.

 

#9 – DON’T FORGET TO BE GRATEFUL

Always keep the referral-giver in the loop with the progress that you’re making with their referral. And if it results in business bucks for you, don’t be afraid to give back and work to help them generate new clients to keep that referral running. If you have the MNO Member App, you can track the progress of a referral directly and notify the referral-giver of the progress, too.

If they’re a musician, try creating a client appreciation event at their next show or buy their merchandise to gift to your clients.

 

#10 – NEVER STOP EXPANDING YOUR REACH

Even if you’ve identified a top connection that will feed you plenty of referrals, never settle. Keep looking for more connections and don’t let your business get complacent. If your top contacts end up retiring or moving industries, you don’t want to get stuck. So, all in all, keep building your network!

If you want an easy and effective way to keep growing your network and reach, you should absolutely look into a referral group, like MNO. With a networking group like MNO, you can attend weekly meetings with new and existing members to help you keep building your network without any of the extra hassle.

Music Network One (MNO) is a global online business networking platform that will help you increase sales and grow your following. Check out the concept of MNO and what differentiates us from traditional networking groups. Visit a chapter or contact us below. Take that first step today!

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MNO: A Summary for Business Professionals

MNO: A Summary for Business Professionals

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MNO: A Summary for Business Professionals

MISSION STATEMENT: 

To revolutionize the music industry while building local businesses and their communities along the way.

THE BUSINESS OF MUSIC:

Unlike any other industry, music is an experience that can be listened to or viewed. The reach of a successfully promoted musician has the potential to be in the thousands locally and even greater on a regional level.

To dispel the common myth that musicians may not be in the market to use a business professional’s services, they are influencers and are able to relay the business professional’s services to their fans effectively.

Unlike any other industry, a successful musician can sway the opinion of their fans with a single post.

There are cases where musicians have pulled up their fellow business professionals onto the stage and introduced them to their adoring fans. The results were new clients for the business professionals.

The very nature of a musician is that of a promoter. A musician in Music Network One promotes his fellow business professionals because of the Play It Forward philosophy.

Knowing that they’re not burdened by having to promote themselves as much frees them up to promote their fellow members.

MNO MEETINGS

Weekly meetings are designed to keep promotion of each other’s businesses alive and strong. Since the meetings are open to all and MNO has a strong inviting culture, there are usually around 10 new faces in the room.

The relationships and trust between the members grow in time as does the knowledge about each other’s music and business. This coupled with the opportunities generated by the weekly influx of visitors ensures the success of every member.

MNO SESSIONS

In order to ensure musicians and fellow members truly understand each other’s business, there are MNO sessions. These sessions that are scheduled between two members dig deeper into each other’s business to truly understand how to promote them. Opportunities are uncovered and referrals are usually generated during these more focused sessions.

Members use these sessions as a training of sorts to become each other’s most informed  sales force.

SUPERGROUPS

Supergroups are alliances that are formed between business professionals. In addition to the ease of passing their clients to each other’s complementary services, activities such as the below can bring in new clients and opportunities:

  • Workshops

  • Seminars

  • Client appreciation events

Musicians in the chapter may provide the entertainment to bring value to these events while providing exposure and new opportunities for the musicians.

MNO SHOWS

Music is the only industry that provides an opportunity to have your business promoted to a captive audience.

MNO Shows are structured and planned performances by members and prospects, but are also major networking events.

In addition to promo material that would be available to the attendees of concert, business professionals are brought on to the stage to promote their business.

The crowd is given the opportunity to hear the “why” behind the business professional’s choosing of their career. Members of the audience who are in the market for a business professional’s services are more likely to hire them.

PLAY IT FORWARD

Play it Forward is the core philosophy of Music Network One. When every member is playing it forward for each other, the need to promote one’s own business isn’t as crucial.

The collective effort of an MNO chapter to promote each other always comes from the heart because of the strong bonds created through the weekly meetings, supergroup activities, sessions and the MNO shows.

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