Nice photo, right? Actually, the NY Post is something else. A case study in good copywriting, for sure. (Best headlines besides the National Enquirer!)

All the chatter about Wall Street sure has a lot of people freaked out… including, probably your clients. The media sure isn’t helping either, rattling everyone’s cages with every form of negativity.

For many of you, I feel your pain. So I went ahead a put together a professional, calming and reassuring sample letter to use with clients, which can also encourage client referrals.

Here’s where you can download this sample letter. (MS Word doc)

The goal of this letter is not to generate referrals; rather, it’s ongoing communication. And good communication always fosters experiences – which is what we, as social creatures, share with others during the course of our week and month. Communicating now isn’t always easy to do, especially when the economy and market conditions suck.

So this letter may help you take the first step, before your competitors do.

Remember, as with any personal communication, edit it and adapt it to your own style and make sure it passes your own compliance and ethical standards.

In all, there were some good observations (but no definitive winner). 

Going through each of them, seems the common theme was… referrals and relationships are interconnected.

No doubt. That’s true. But it’s not what I was driving at with the diagram. As I said, the picture revealed much more.

I’m quite surprised someone didn’t figure it out. So… here’s the CORRECT answer…

If you study the diagram closely, you’ll notice that each Center of Influence (COI) (clients, prospects, family, etc.) I purposefully labeled in different COLORS.

This was to visually show you where the true VAST majority of new relationships can be found. And, the answer I was looking for was this:

The vast majority of referrals can be found in strategic alliances. ( I colored this COI blue in my diagram).

Now that may seem counterintuitive to many of you. In fact, you might be thinking, “Yeah, but my best referrals come from existing clients.”

I won’t argue that point. I agree with you. But what I will say is that from sheer inter-connectedness… strategic alliances will always present the greatest opportunity for vast, deep referral relationships.

Why?

No, not because of “volume” of people.

But business people are already “in” a business mode or mindset. It’s their focus daily. It’s what they do. So the people they connect with are often others that are seeking help and solutions to their business problems. This is good news for you, as a business person who solves other’s problems with X.

Focus on developing your strategic alliances. It is the fastest way to grow your strategic alliance relationships pipeline.