What is a Referral? Why Do We Pay $700.00 for Them?

White Flowers in Glass Vase,
by John C. Drew, Ph.D. Oil on canvas.

I thought it might be smart to take a moment to define what I mean by a referral. This is important, in part, because I am paying folks up to $700.00 whenever they make a referral to Drew & Associates that turns into business. We pay out this referral fee by cutting a check to you or by making a donation, in your name, to the charity of your choice.

To make this system work, I need to make it clear what counts as a referral. Specifically, a referral means that the prospect: 

1. Knows who I am and what I do,
2. Expects a call from me, and
3. Needs my services. 

In other words, a referral should be a guaranteed sale, unless I mess it up. I am happy to talk with you about referrals and our referral fee program greater at length. Please call me at 949-643-8058. When we speak I will answer your questions and give you more of my tips for making great, profitable referrals.

Please rest assured that the client does not pay any more or any less for my services simply because they have come to me through our referral program. My referral fee is an important part of my business because it reduces my dependence on much more expensive forms of business development like telemarketing and direct mail campaigns. We are, in a sense, sharing our savings with you when you make a successful referral.

Although we do not discuss the referral with the client, we will discuss it and provide full details if we are asked. We encourage you to share about the referral with everyone including the client so that others can also take advantage of this wonderful, cost-efficient business development system. 

What is a Referral? Why Do We Pay $700.00 for Them?

White Flowers in Glass Vase,
by John C. Drew, Ph.D. Oil on canvas.

I thought it might be smart to take a moment to define what I mean by a referral. This is important, in part, because I am paying folks up to $700.00 whenever they make a referral to Drew & Associates that turns into business. We pay out this referral fee by cutting a check to you or by making a donation, in your name, to the charity of your choice.

To make this system work, I need to make it clear what counts as a referral. Specifically, a referral means that the prospect: 

1. Knows who I am and what I do,
2. Expects a call from me, and
3. Needs my services. 

In other words, a referral should be a guaranteed sale, unless I mess it up. I am happy to talk with you about referrals and our referral fee program greater at length. Please call me at 949-643-8058. When we speak I will answer your questions and give you more of my tips for making great, profitable referrals.

Please rest assured that the client does not pay any more or any less for my services simply because they have come to me through our referral program. My referral fee is an important part of my business because it reduces my dependence on much more expensive forms of business development like telemarketing and direct mail campaigns. We are, in a sense, sharing our savings with you when you make a successful referral.

Although we do not discuss the referral with the client, we will discuss it and provide full details if we are asked. We encourage you to share about the referral with everyone including the client so that others can also take advantage of this wonderful, cost-efficient business development system. 

What is a Referral? Why Do We Pay $700.00 for Them?

White Flowers in Glass Vase,
by John C. Drew, Ph.D. Oil on canvas.

I thought it might be smart to take a moment to define what I mean by a referral. This is important, in part, because I am paying folks up to $700.00 whenever they make a referral to Drew & Associates that turns into business. We pay out this referral fee by cutting a check to you or by making a donation, in your name, to the charity of your choice.

To make this system work, I need to make it clear what counts as a referral. Specifically, a referral means that the prospect: 

1. Knows who I am and what I do,
2. Expects a call from me, and
3. Needs my services. 

In other words, a referral should be a guaranteed sale, unless I mess it up. I am happy to talk with you about referrals and our referral fee program greater at length. Please call me at 949-643-8058. When we speak I will answer your questions and give you more of my tips for making great, profitable referrals.

Please rest assured that the client does not pay any more or any less for my services simply because they have come to me through our referral program. My referral fee is an important part of my business because it reduces my dependence on much more expensive forms of business development like telemarketing and direct mail campaigns. We are, in a sense, sharing our savings with you when you make a successful referral.

Although we do not discuss the referral with the client, we will discuss it and provide full details if we are asked. We encourage you to share about the referral with everyone including the client so that others can also take advantage of this wonderful, cost-efficient business development system. 

Let Freedom Ring: When to Let the Team Run Wild with Your Grant Proposal

Just as a lack of control can create inefficiencies and even destroy your chances of winning a grant, in the same manner, it is possible to exercise too much control and blind yourself from the amazing insight, objectivity and skills of your other team members. A number of instances come to mind when I think about places where you really need to open up your grant writing process and encourage maximum participation.

Trish Drew Visits Orange County's Great Park

First, I have had a lot of good luck in allowing staff and charity leaders suggest the most exciting dream project for their charity. Their brainstorming is often an inspiring way to build a stronger sense of community, a more intense devotion to the non-profit and an unparalleled opportunity to leverage the knowledge the staff has gained through their reading, conference attendance, or personal experience.  

Second, it is also a good idea to open up your grant writing to national or international consultants who may have an interest in your project. Often these policy gurus can be extremely helpful in terms of pointing you in the right direction, suggesting effective evaluation tools, and perfecting the details that will make your program more effective. 

Third, I have see that it really helps to have multiple people look over your first or second draft and give you their feedback. This does not mean that you should accept each and every suggestion. Nevertheless, it does make sense to notice whether or not multiple people are noticing the same issues. One of the ways I like to encourage honest and straightforward feedback from the team is to assert that the people who read and award these grants are not any brighter than us. Nevertheless, they are not any dumber than us either. Accordingly, if someone of the team sees a flaw in the proposal, it is important for them to speak up because I can guarantee that someone working for the funder will have the exact same issue or concern. 

As much as I encourage everyone to punch holes in the grant application, I don't recommend having multiple people write or rewrite it. If you involve multiple people in the process of writing the grant you are more likely to create a document with subtle writing changes which are jarring to those of us sensitive to writing style. Even someone who is not that sensitive will probably think less of the proposal when it becomes clear that it has multiple authors.

Finally, I think it is important to fully engage your team when it comes to doing research to support the grant. The larger mind of multiple people is infinitely more powerful, all though less focused, than an individual researcher. I go out of my way to encourage folks to bring to my attention the latest statistics, research, or observations in their field. Often large government databases are full of relevant articles. It would be nearly impossible for me to speed read them all, but a larger set of eyes can review these documents, report on trends in the literature, and call attention to the most recent studies which support or can improve the direction of your project. 

Grabbing on for Your Life: When Should You Unleash Your Inner Control Freak?

Although it is good manners to credit teams for our success, I think it is short-sighted and potentially foolish to underestimate the time-saving advantages associated with the focused attention of a single mind. Leveraging the great power of a single mind gives us incredible speed, breath-taking decisiveness, crisp ethical decisions, access to the subconscious, extraordinary intuitive leaps, and the added bonus of internal consistency. 

	"Mountain Pines" by John C. Drew,  16 x 12 inches oil on canvas.

In a practical sense, however, it is important to know when to apply the power of a single mind and when to back off and let the group do its part. As a successful grant writer, I know it is essential to unleash your inner control freak at key moments in the grant writing process. 

For example, at the earliest stages of the grant writing process, I'm very picky about choosing and sticking to the winning theme for any particular charity or educational institution. 

Once I've made up my mind about why the funder will choose to fund them, then absolutely nothing will shake that belief loose -- except for the arrival of completely new evidence or an entirely different competitor. I have found that it is easier to be a control freak at the earliest stages of a project no matter what because at that point in the process it is not so inconvenient or expensive to simply resign if others disagree with your vision. Later on, I am open to all kinds of innovative suggestions, but I will only include those suggestions if they further the key winning theme I chose earlier in the process.

Mid-way through the grant, I am a stickler for high quality research. This is often a bone of contention with employers and clients. In my experience, I think it is unethical to make an argument or assert an idea unless you are certain that you are backed up by the facts, especially scientific research which shows that your organization's take on the problem is correct and that your proposed solution will really work. When I worked for other people as an employee, I was sometimes fired after I discovered that a cherished idea at the employer's non-profit was actually little more than a myth. Surprisingly, I was lucky enough to find work with those who valued my intellectual independence and my ability to sort through a tangled mess of research to figure out what was really going on. 

In a lot of ways, it is easier to be a fearless advocate for the truth when you are working as a consultant. As I like to say in my workshops, I still do the same things that used to get me fired. Now, however, they usually like what I have to say well enough to invite me back for more. 

There is also a lot to be said for exercising absolute and total control of the grant writing project at the very end of the project too. This is particularly true as you get down to the final hours and minutes before the application is completed and delivered to the funder. As Kevin Wiberg, a consultant trainer for The Grantsmanship Center, notes it is particularly important to keep control of the final product: 

Reserving control over the final product means reserving control over the assembly of the final package, with all attachments and all forms. (I've seen someone who wasn't all that engaged in the process keep right on photocopying a proposal after a page folded over.) I watch every page go through the copy machine on the first round. So should you.

In my consulting practice, I am the last one to look at the final grant applications. I reserve the right to control the final product to make sure that we are answering the funder's questions, that the key documents are in the right order, and that we are following the funder's submission requirements to the letter.