Jealously guard your brand

In the Greek of 2000 years ago, there were not two separate words for Jealous and Zealous, they were the same word "zelos."

Liz Strauss asked today about the practice of soliciting links from other websites.

You receive an email that reads like this?only yours is from a real domain name.

Dear Sir/Madam:

Would you like to link to us?

Website: http://www.ilinkwithstrangers.com

Thank you very much.

What?s your opinion of this practice?

Whether you are online or whether you are offline, you should exercise extreme caution about who you recommend. When you recommend another person, that person's conduct may taint your brand. Your clients will evaluate your concern for their well-being upon the quality of the people whom you recommend.

Building a brand is important to your long term success. Zealously seek reliable resources which will help your clients and friends and jealously guard your brand from being damaged by reckless referrals.

A website link is a referral and should be treated the way you would treat the giving of recommendations.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Try to find out how pleased your client was with the quality of service they received from your referral. If your client is unhappy with the referral, investigate before giving that person as a referral again.

2. How does the referral handle a crisis? If your client is unhappy and the referral bends over backwards to try and resolve the client's problem, this is a good referral to keep giving.

3. How does the referral treat you? People who are takers and not givers, tend to take from everyone. If someone wants you to feed them but feels no sense of responsibility to try to feed you, then they may also "take advantage" of your clients.

4. If someone who desires to get referrals from you, is sending business your way or is trying to help you, (especially if you have not given anything to him or her yet) this may be the best referral your client receives from you. Although it is true, that there are those who appear to be "giving people" but who are in reality takers who are trying to "prime the pump," a true giver will also seek to truly help your client.

Two books which I recommend regarding the giving and receiving of referrals are:
Dig Your Well Before Your Thirsty by Harvey MacKay
and
Endless Referrals by Bob Burg

Your brand is too important to be treated lightly. Give referrals which will cause your clients to come back and thank you profusely for helping them find the perfect problem solver.