All of you have friends that are business owners, and if you are a genuine person, you are going to help your friends in business. We are going to look into what you can do to help them. Sometimes you overlook what you can do and how this can assist your friends, and how your friends can assist you grow YOUR business as well.

Support your friends in business

Let’s say your friends sells a product, instead of you trying to wait for him/her to give you one… Maybe purchase one at full price, don’t look for a discount, don’t look for a freebie. Just support your friend. Ok if he/she’s selling houses or cars for hundreds of thousand of dollars… Might not apply to everyone. But if your friend is selling product that you can afford, that you need. Give them the support. They will be the ones insisting to “Hook it Up”!

Share your friends in business

In the past ten years, most of the population is on social media. We all have followers, and there could be people that we know and people that we don’t really know. Depending on the businesses your friends are in, don’t hesitate… Share their content, invite your contacts to follow their facebook page, their Instagram account. Get them an audience, help them get engagement, conversion. It does not cost you anything… Just 5 seconds of your time at most. Now it has the potential to make a BIG impact on your friend’s business. Don’t you have five seconds to help your friend’s thrive?

Give them referrals

You know someone looking for a product/service that one of your friends does. And they are good at it, then refer them some people. You can guarantee that they will thank you for it, and provide you with an incentive, could it be a meal, a present, or even better… a wire transfer. Why? Because they profited from it. Are they looking to profit more, so you can refer them more people… Hope they do.

I can tell you a thing, and this is why I do not have business cards. I have been running this business for 18 years, most of my clients come from referral, and all those referrals get compensated. Could it be to former clients, current clients and even friends. They know I’ll provide top quality service and don’t have to worry about how it will impact their relation to the referred party. It’s a Home Run for them. They wrote my name on social media, gave someone our phone number and told them “make sure to tell them you come from me”. That’s it, took 5 more seconds, and this one can actually get YOU something.

Better believe in it

What about if you don’t believe in your friend’s business… Yes it happens. You know someone, they run a business, but you don’t think it’s going to be successful, you would not use their services. Then we are hitting something completely different. You can’t do a direct referral, because you won’t be convincing “He’s OK” – thanks to a mobile company for this slogan. You don’t want to refer someone who is OK. So Instead you help them out, like with social media that I listed above. What will happen, they will get more traffic, get a bigger audience. Some people will find their standards sufficient, and will become happy customers, they will still get profit. But your involvement is minimal.

After you use services from your friends in business

Let’s say you use your friends in business, you are satisfied with what they provided. Hit them with the trifecta: Google Review, Yelp Review, Facebook Review. You can be creative and write a long and detailed review, or something short and to the point. If you are satisfied by something, let people know. If those people have your friends and have provided a service that helped you out or a product you are satisfied by. Let people know, write reviews.

You have a blog, feature them in it. You have a podcast, interview them. Youtube Channel, make a video about them. It will help them out.

Now don’t let honesty get out of hand, if your friend didn’t provide a service for you, or you didn’t try/enjoy their product. Even better if your friend “asks you” for a review for something that you didn’t use… Is he really your friend? Or is he putting your honesty in Jeopardy to gain from it. Ok it’s minor, they are not asking you to bury a body in your backyard… but you see where I’m going with that.

I seem to be inspired by this subject, as it blends between personal relationships and business relationships. Shows the kind of person that you are.