Do your business referral sources only send you local clients who have very general needs or have you developed business referral sources that send you clients who are dispersed geographically and who have very specific needs? To help think about these questions, let's digress to consider the movie rental business for a minute.

Have you tried to find an old movie that you enjoyed? If so, you may have started your search by visiting a few of your local movie rental business. You probably discovered that these businesses only carry old movies that are popular among the masses and, unfortunately, the movie you want to see is not popular as you would have guessed.

the movie rental business standpoint, this makes sense. These businesses have a limited amount of shelf space. In the local market, there will probably be more consumers who would rent popular movies. This precludes these local businesses from carrying less popular movies.

Indeed, national movie rental businesses may find that a majority of their business comes from renting these less popular movies. This phenomenon has been described using the term "long tail." For example, Chris Anderson applied the term to business strategy in his book entitled The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More.

As applied, the term describes the relationship between popular and less popular products. The idea is that the broader consumer base will include more consumers who want less popular products, and there may be more of these consumers than the few consumers who want more popular products.

Here is an example. With our local versus national movie rental businesses, assume the local business carries 100 movies that can be classified as being popular. Also assume that the national business carries an additional 10,000 movies that can be classified as being less popular movies. All things being equal, the national business will fare much better than the local business if both businesses rent 10 percent of their inventory. Of course, the national business will fare even better if clients like you are willing to pay more to rent rare movies to satisfy their eccentric movie tastes.

This business model helps to define the how a business referral network might operate. On the one hand, a business referral network may operate like the local movie rental business. It may provide your business with local clients who have very general needs and who are willing to pay regular business rates for these more popular goods and services. On the other hand, a business referral network may operate like the national movie rental business. It may provide your business with clients who are dispersed geographically, who have very specific needs, and who are willing to pay higher rates for these goods and services.

This concept is at the heart of the value that Passitto provides to its users. Passitto can help you expand your business referral network and do so in a way that fits with your particular business model.

Unlike other referral systems, Passitto can operate as the local or national movie rental business or both - depending on what is best for your specific business. Using Passitto you are able to make this type of decision on a case-by-case basis by bidding or not bidding on individual referrals. You might only bid on referrals placed in your local market for very general goods or services or you might bid on referrals placed nationwide for very specific goods and services.

In the past, many businesses were not able to make this type of decision without making drastic changes to their business referral networks. These efforts required quite a bit of time and energy. Now, with Passitto, businesses can retool their business referral networks on the fly. This presents Passitto users with a unique advantage over other businesses that have yet to discover and take advantage of Passitto.

Labels: business, leads, Long Tail, passitto, referral, sources

posted by Passitto  # 8:22 AM