Two gold miners strike gold. One miner believes she should distribute her resources across the entire mine and only spend a fraction of her time where there is gold. The other miner believes she should spend the majority of her resources where she found gold.

Which miner will come out ahead?

Your database of client relationships can be a gold mine for generating referrals. But not all client relationships are created equal.

Just like the first miner, too often businesses get into trouble because they invest their resources evenly across all clients while a small fraction account for the majority of referrals. Instead, maximize your referral efforts by investing the majority of your resources in those clients that are most likely to refer your business.

Segment Your Database by Value

In order to invest in the right relationships, you must first organize your database of clients from highest to lowest potential for referrals. To do so, bucket your client relationships into segments using the A, B, C, D method.

• A's - This segment should consist of your top 10-15% of client relationships that have the highest potential to refer you. Include clients that already refer you regularly or those you believe are likely to in the near future.
• B's - This segment should consist of your next strongest 25-30% of client relationships. Include clients that you believe have the potential to eventually become A's with a little more effort on your part.
• C's - This segment should consist of those clients that you have an average working relationship with but you're not sure if they'll ever refer you. This group will make up the next 40-50% of your database and should consist of relationships that you believe have the potential to move into the B category.
• D's - The last group will make up the remaining 10-15% of your database and represent a segment of clients that either 1) you don't like working with and/or 2) they will likely never refer you.