1-to-1 Meeting Questions for Referral Partners (with a Template)

A 1-to-1 is a meeting between two members of a referral group, away from the weekly meeting, to learn each other's business well enough to refer it. It is where most referrals actually start. Sixty seconds a week tells the room what you do. Forty-five minutes tells one member how to recognize your next client.

Before you meet

• Choose on purpose. Start with members whose customers are your customers: the realtor and the mortgage lender, the accountant and the attorney, the contractor and the insurance agent.
• Read their profile and website. Don't spend the meeting on what you could have looked up.
• Bring one ask. A type of client, or a specific person or company you would like to meet.

A 45-minute template

1. 5 minutes: settle in. How you each came to this work.
2. 15 minutes: their business. You ask, they talk.
3. 15 minutes: your business. They ask, you talk.
4. 5 minutes: who do we each know? Name one person you could introduce to the other.
5. 5 minutes: next steps. Each of you commits to one thing, with a date.

Split the time evenly. A 1-to-1 where one person talks for forty minutes is a sales pitch.

Twenty questions

You won't use all of them. Pick six or seven.

Their business

1. What work do you most want more of this year?
2. What do you do that most people don't know about?
3. What is your favorite job from the last three months, and why?
4. What work do you turn down, and who do you send it to?
5. How do most of your clients find you today?

Their ideal client

1. Describe your best client. What do they have in common?
2. Is there a size of job or client that is too small or too big?
3. Which towns or neighborhoods do you cover?
4. Which other professionals already send you work?
5. Who is one specific person or company you would like to meet?

Spotting a referral

1. What does someone say right before they need you?
2. What is happening in their life or business when they call?
3. What question should I ask to find out whether they are a fit?
4. What is a sign that someone is not a good referral for you?
5. What do people try before they come to you?

Making the introduction

1. How would you like to be introduced: by text, by email or in person?
2. What should I say about you in one sentence?
3. What happens after I pass you a referral? What will my contact experience?

Working together

1. Which of my clients might need you, and which of yours might need me?
2. What is one thing I can do for you this month?

Question 11 is the one to keep if you keep only one. "What does someone say right before they need you?" gives you a phrase to listen for, and that phrase is what you will hear in your own work next week.

After the meeting

• Send one introduction within a week. It doesn't have to be a closed deal. It has to be real.
• Write down what you learned: their ideal client and the phrase to listen for.
• Record the 1-to-1, so the chapter can see that members are meeting.
• Meet again in six months. Businesses change.

Three ways a 1-to-1 goes wrong

1. Selling to each other. You are there to learn who they know, not to make them a customer.
2. All small talk. Pleasant, and nothing comes of it. Use the template.
3. No ask. If neither of you says who you want to meet, neither of you will know what to do next.

Tracking 1-to-1s

A chapter that counts 1-to-1s can see why referrals are rising or falling. On Ecoferral, members log each 1-to-1 in a few taps and earn points for it, and each member's home screen suggests who is worth a 1-to-1 next. See how referral networking grows a small business and what is a qualified referral.