Synergetic approach helps

The Life: Phil Bedford teaches companies to sit back and wait for clients to come calling. But the method involves a little more effort than it first suggests.

Phil Bedford, the Middle East master franchise owner for the Referral Institute, has 60 consultancies in 16 countries. Christopher Pike / The National

Phil Bedford, a business development consultant, uses what some might consider an alternative approach to growing his own and other people's companies: sit back and wait for clients to come calling.

But he is far from lazy - it would simply go against everything his company represents to cold call, advertise or market his services.

Mr Bedford is the Middle East master franchise owner for the Referral Institute, which helps businesses grow with the help of other companies.

And if his Referral Institute is anything to go by, it is a successful strategy. It sold its first franchise in 2004 and now has 60 consultancies in 16 countries.

This approach has also helped Mr Bedford land hundreds of clients.

He says it is a strategy any business can use. "If you take most small business owners, one of their biggest challenges is that they do not have large amounts of cash for marketing and advertising.

"So how are they going to get business? Referrals - but the problem with referrals is they always tend to come by chance," he adds.

However, the institute has devised a way to make them more predictable.

"Think of businesses, or people, who would have the same client but are not your competitors," he says.

That may sound confusing but is actually quite simple, he insists.

Take, say, an estate agent. "A synergistic business would be a mortgage broker, as would an interior designer and a removal company," says Mr Bedford.

They all share the same customer, which means they could use each other's networks to help find new clients.

"Every time one of you gets a client, potentially, all the rest could," says Mr Bedford. "And because you're all working together you can refer people back and forth because you know the other companies are going to do a good job."

Those who do not know "synergistic businesses" have to start networking - but they have to be careful about how they do it.

"This is where a lot of people mess up," says Mr Bedford.

Some people treat networking like cold calling, where they try to sell to everybody they meet.

"It makes it very mercenary," he says.

Instead, networking should be treated as the chance to meet people and be remembered favourably for business opportunities in the future. "If I go to a networking I am trying to find people who have synergistic businesses with the same clients," says Mr Bedford.

To be successful at networking, an individual must start with what they can do for someone else.

"See how you could help them," suggests Bijay Rajnikantt Shah, the national director of the business networking organisation, BNI Middle East and East Africa.

Ask questions about themselves and their business to identify their goals and see how you can help them achieve them, he says.

Once people feel comfortable there is a genuine desire to help, chances are they will return the favour.

"That's when you can say, 'You could refer me to your friends,'" says Mr Shah.

The strategy should help companies get a lot of their business for free, he adds.

"You don't have to spend money marketing yourself.

"You just have to teach yourself how to do that," he says.