by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief Social Media Strategist at xynoMedia Technology

I make the above statement more often that I'd care to admit.

I take recommending people very seriously. If I've ever referred anyone to you, you must really have your stuff together. Congrats!

Because I'm known as a straight talker, I always get asked for referrals to virtual assistants, consultants, PR pros, designers, computer technicians, you name it. People know I don't recommend people with whom I have not personally had an above-average experience. My reputation is too important to me. I've got too much to lose.

So, when my friend, Karly (not her real name), told me some months ago that her hard drive had crashed and she wanted to salvage any information she could from it, I immediately thought of two people, Andy and Ian (not their real names).

I called Andy first because he was local and I know his rates are more reasonable. After arriving late to Karly's office, he took the hard drive to his office and tried for a day or two. He couldn't do anything to help so he only charged her a small fee and hand-delivered the hard drive back to her office.

Then I called Ian. He's a great guy and I've worked with him a few times in the past for on-site technical support for clients. He couldn't come to get the hard drive so he suggested that Karly ship the hard drive. The fee would be $800 but, Karly was prepared to pay. She was building a company and her planning documents and web site design were on the hard drive -- and she didn't have a back-up.

She sent the hard drive via FedEx and didn't hear from Ian for over a week despite repeated calls from her. Finally, she told me what was going on and I called Ian myself. At this point, I'm ticked off. (Note: If I make a referral to you and I have to get involved because you're being unresponsive, you can forget it. Forever.)

Ian returned the phone call. He called Karly -- but never bothered to return my call. Now I'm angry.

He told Karly that he was going to ship the hard drive out to the restoration service that his company uses and he'll be in touch shortly.

Weeks go by and nothing from Ian. Karly called him again and this time, he told her that the box she sent him via FedEx was empty. When it arrived at the restoration service, they said the box was empty! Which, of course, it wasn't - the weight on the FedEx airbill proved that.  But, that meant that Ian had shipped the hard drive out without even opening the box!

Long story short, Ian finally located the hard drive some weeks later but, the restoration service couldn't do anything to save Karly's data. Ian felt so badly about what he had done, he never charged Karly -- so he lost out on his ability to collect his fee...in effect, wasting his and his company's time. To this day, Ian has never called me to apologize for how he treated my referral and to this day, I'll never refer anyone to him ever again.

They say that good help is hard to find - and it is. Which is why it's so damn easy to do a good job. You don't even have to under promise and over deliver anymore - just freakin' DELIVER! If you can't be above average it's OK. Sadly, by being average, you're still ahead of the game nowadays.

I used to have a great relationship with Ian, but he will never get another referral from me again and if anyone asks me about my experience with him, they'll hear the same story you just read.

Just because a referral doesn't result in a big ticket sale doesn't mean you shouldn't value the referral. The person making the referral could be testing you, as I do. I make small referrals first. Then, I make larger referrals once you've proven you can handle the small stuff.

Bottomlines:

1) Invest in an automatic, off-site, redundant back-up system (AtBackup is a good one) so you don't have to deal with crappy situations like Karly had to.

2) Show up. Deliver. Do what you say. Don't make me regret knowing you.

3) Treat referrals and referrees like gold.