FAQ
The Overview - What Is It?
Our automated referral system allows you to become a member and add your business contacts to your personal referral network. Then, our system automatically refers those contacts to other members in your referral network, to each other weekly.
When a person in your network becomes a member, we automatically add you to the new member’s referral network.
As each referral happens, if the two contacts are members, we automatically add those members as contacts to each other’s referral list, so now you will receive referrals from the members you are referred to, thereby exponentially increasing the number of referrals you receive weekly.
Also, every contact you are referred to is automatically added to your own network, thereby increasing the size of your contact list.
Over time, the number of business contacts, leads and referrals from an ever increasing number of members will resolve the largest issue all people in business have - lead generation or a lack of prospects.
What if you could be confident and assured that you would be automatically referred to 10, 20, even 30 or more referrals ... each month ... or even each week? - It can be a reality with Automated Business Connections.
How does Automated Business Connections work?
Our automated membership system implements a process whereby a person becomes a member and adds their contact list (business relationships) to our online database.
Our process automatically refers the people on the contact list to other members.
When a person on the contact list becomes a member, our process automatically adds the referring member to the new member’s contact list.
As each referral happens, if the two contacts are members, our process automatically adds them to each other’s contact list, so each member will receive referrals from the members they are referred to.
Also, every contact you are referred to is automatically added to your own contact list unless you choose to block it, thereby increasing the size of your contact list.
Over time, because the member’s contact list continues to increase in size, as does the number of members’ contact lists they are on as contacts, our process provides each member an increasing number of business contacts, referrals and sales.
Analysis – The BIG Picture - What is really happening?
Multiplying this process for a more realistic analysis:
If you add 50 contacts to your list, and only 10% or 5 become members – then you are automatically placed on 5 contact lists … 50 contacts each = 250 new referrals – 5 referrals per week for the next 50 weeks.
Then, with 250 total referral contacts, and if again, only 10% or 25 become members -- then you are automatically placed on 25 contacts' lists. That is 1,250 new referrals or 25 referrals per week.
You will be getting 30 business contact referrals a week at this point for the next 50+ weeks. And that doesn’t take into consideration the growing number of referred contacts and new member referral partners you gain, the longer you are in the system.
You likely never have to prospect again. But, you do still need to add personal referral messages for each contact and member that is added to your contact list, and continue to build personal relationships outside the system with networking meetings and such, and slowly add them to your contact list for even more potential leads and sales.
PLUS:
- We also provide an auto-reply message for all the referrals you receive. Our system will reply for you within 24 hours to try to get the referred contact to talk about scheduling a phone call.
- We also text message all referrals to let them know they have received a personal referral from you. We do this to bring it to the front of the mind and to make sure that any that land in spam folders will be found.
- We also will send out an encouragement email for you on the 3rd day after the referrals go out, urging the connections to connect.
What are the different membership levels?
Your level of success is based upon your follow up with the referrals you are given, and the number of referable contacts you maintain on your personal referral network / contact list.
What is a referable contacts? They are the contacts and members in your personal referral network (your list) that you have written a personal introductions for.
What are System Referrals? We will attempt to provide a referral from members that are outside your personal referral network (contact list) if you qualify. We call these system referrals. These will be members with their own contact lists, that you will have an opportunity to network with.
MEMBERSHIPS
Note: The number of referrals for each membership level listed below is the maximum provided for each week.
Standard
$39 / month
1 referral / week if you maintain at least 15 referable contacts --- and we will also provide you a bonus of 1 system referral -- 4 referrals / month, if they are available to be referred to you.
2 referrals / week if you maintain at least 30 referable contacts -- and we will provide you another bonus of 1 system referral -- 8 referrals / month, if they are available to be referred to you.
4 referrals / week if you maintain at least 50 referable contacts -- 16 referrals / month, if they are available to be referred to you.
Premium
$49 / month
6 referrals / week if you maintain at least 75 referable contacts -- 24 referrals / month, if they are available to be referred to you.
8 referrals / week if you maintain at least 100 referable contacts -- 32 referrals / month, if they are available to be referred to you.
Premium Plus
$59 / month
10 referrals / week if you maintain at least 125 referable contacts -- 40 referrals / month, if they are available to be referred to you.
12 referrals /week if you maintain at least 150 referable contacts -- 48 referrals / month, if they are available to be referred to you.
There is an extra week every 3 months, and we send referrals per week. You will continue to receive your referrals on those extra weeks, so over a year, you get a free month of referrals!
How do I get started?
Although you can use a phone to setup your account with us, you will find it much easier if you initially use your computer, and not the phone. It is also much easier to add many contacts at one time with the computer. After your account is setup and running, managing your account using the phone is very easy.
- Sign up to become a Standard member.
- Confirm your email.
- Click Your ARN Profile and confirm your phone.
- Click Your ARN Profile and complete your own personal profile. - We strongly suggest you record a quick 1-2 minute video introducing yourself, load it onto YouTube, and place the link where it asks you to. This video will be used in all referral emails and will greatly improve your success in connecting with people for leads and sales.
- Click Your Contacts or Add A Contact and add your contacts with all the required info on each one, along with the personal referral message to start the automated referral process.
Our system will send out referrals once a week on Tuesday mornings. Each referred contact will also receive a text message telling them that you have referred them and that they need to look for the email and check spam if they do not see it.
Our projections to achieve success are based upon initially adding 30 contacts. The more contacts you add, the better success you will enjoy - because a percentage of your contacts will become members and you will be added to their contact lists. As long as they write a personal referral for you, you will receiving referrals from them. Our averages thus far, are 1 out of 10 contacts become members.
How do I add my business contacts?
The total time it takes to manually type in a contact is about 3 minutes.
Most people with 30-50 contacts will spend about 2 - 3 hours at most, depending on how quickly they fill in the required info on each contact.
- You add each contact one at a time. This is the best and easiest way to add contacts. (We do have a CSV upload option, but you will still have to open each contact and finish adding their information)
- If your contact is already in our system, their current info will be copied over to your list and you can make any updates or changes to it if you choose.
- Your must write a personal referral message for each contact you add - otherwise, they will not be referred. We have a personal message builder to help.
- We strongly suggest that once you have added all your contacts, that you consider doing manual referrals to the ones you think should be connected, then allow the system to handle the rest.
Will all my contacts be referred to one another?
Yes, if you write a personal introduction for them.
Yes, unless you choose to pause or block them.
Contacts are not guaranteed any referrals, but we do eventually refer them to all the other members that are on your contact list. Our philosophy is to refer all contacts to members first, and then later to each other.
If a contact chooses to become a member, you will be automatically added to their contact list and you will start getting introduced to their list, unless they choose to pause or block you.
In order for people to be referred to one another, they have to have the opportunity to sell one another. Therefore, if 2 people have exactly the same business category, and no others, they will not be referred to one another, If they both have a second business category that the other does not, then they will be referred to one another.
If someone else has already referred your 2 contacts to one another, you will still have an opportunity to do so. You can either manually do it, or our system will reconnect people after 90 days from their last connection, as long as the referring member is different. (We do this in an attempt to take advantage of different relationships people have with different people and to address that the timing might be right at a later date to be connected.)
Also, each contact is considered to be a local reach business limited to a 150 mile radius from the contact's zip code, unless they create a Free membership and make adjustments to their own contact info.
Members can reduce the size of the radius down to 10 miles, or increase to the entire nation, or add states one at a time. They can even block any business categories that they don't want to be referred to.
Can I control the referrals?
You have the ability to block any pair of contacts so that they do not get referred to one another.
You have the ability to block any contact so they do not get referred, or if you do not write a personal referral message, the new contact will not get referred.
You have the ability to do manual referrals at any time.
We have also provided an auto-reply message that you can write yourself or use our message builder. This auto-reply goes out 24 hours after the referrals are sent. If you choose to write a personal one at the time of the referral, you will need to log into your app and turn the auto-reply off on the Referrals Received page. You can also turn the auto-reply off if you do not want to communicate with the referral, and even have the option to block them, or simply not write a personal message for them.
Advanced Referral Filters (not usually recommended)
You can control who you get referred to on others’ contact lists, thereby increasing the percentage of relevant referrals targeted to your client profile.
BUT ... Although this can be of benefit, it has major drawbacks. It will block many secondary referrals because you're not communicating with referrals that you chose as “not in my target list”. Many of those referrals are (or will become) Members. If you block yourself from getting referred to them, you miss the opportunity to possibly gain access to their contacts, because you will never be added as a contact on their list. Remember, you never know who they might know.
Control Options:
- Ability to lower or increase your reach from 10 miles radius to nationwide. Individual states can be added as areas you work in.
- Block referrals to you by business type.
- Block referrals to you by business category.
- Block referrals to you by business association.
What is the guarantee? (of referrals)
We provide referrals, based upon the number of qualified referable contacts you have (contacts with all their information complete and a personal introduction has been written).
If you add and maintain at least 30+ referable contacts, we will try to provide you the maximum weekly referrals for your level in the business – in the beginning, 2 per week. We will also provide a bonus of 2 system referrals from outside your personal referable network.
As you increase your list of referable contacts, you will be given the opportunity to increase your number of weekly referrals by purchasing the next membership level. We start at $39 per month.
Why 30 referable contacts? In order to continue to grow your personal referable network, it takes at least 30. With 30, you should receive 3 new members from your contact list. That would eventually provide you a minimum of 3 referrals per week, and it should continue to grow from there.
What are System Referrals? We will attempt to provide a referral from members that are outside your personal referral network (contact list) if you qualify. We call these non-referred system referrals. These will be members with their own contact lists, that you will have an opportunity to network with.
If you are opening an area of the country where we do not have representation, until we gain more members in your area, the only referrals we can give at that time will be members whose businesses are at the state level or national level – if your business is also at those levels. When we do have members to refer, we will keep count as to how many referrals we owe you, and will provide those to you as quickly as they become available.
Are we a networking group?
No. But we do enhance and help networking groups work smarter and better.
But you don't have to be in a networking group for our system to revolutionize your business.
Most people can easily take their current business relationships and create unlimited personal referrals with our system.
Networking Meetings
We fully support and encourage attending local networking groups and meetings. It's a great place to meet people to expand your network. Unfortunately, most people do not give and receive as many referrals as one would expect. Automated Business Connections can enhance and dramatically increase the success you achieve with these groups by enabling the people, who are members of ABC, to vastly increase giving and receiving referrals on an ongoing weekly basis.
Imagine how different most networking meetings would be if most of the people were exchanging referrals on a weekly basis to everyone in the group?
Automated Business Connections can make that happen quickly.
Is this MLM?
No. There are no signup fees that are paid out as commissions. There are no setup fees. There are no sales from members to members, or members to contacts. There is no override money or bonuses being paid to anyone. The only money changing hands is from members to the company in exchange for the ability to have your contacts automatically introduced to one another, with the opportunity to possibly be added to other members' contact lists.
We are NOT an MLM. We are not governed by MLM laws.
Is this cold calling?
No. Most people are not referred without a personal introduction, written by the referring member. If you do not provide a personal introduction, the contact or member will not be referred.
The only exceptions is if a member is added to your network, you have 45 days to write a referral, pause, or block them, otherwise they will eventually be referred to others in your network.
On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being a cold call, and 5 being someone wanting to buy now, our referrals land in the middle, a 3 or 4. It is partially dependent on the member, the contact, the personal introduction, and the service or product being offered.
It is the personal introduction that we strongly encourage that protects our network from becoming a cold call system.
Is this like Alignable?
No. Automated Business Connections offers an unlimited reach. We also offer unlimited referrals which are achieved through an automated referral system focused on personal referral messages.
Alignable is an online business community that offers free and paid memberships. It is sort of like an online Chamber of Commerce, based around small areas or communities, as they call it.
While it does offer the opportunity to connect and share referrals with others, there are several issues we have identified:
- The free version offers little in terms of benefits, and the paid versions generally don't pay for itself for most people
- Their communities are not large enough in our opinion to achieve any great success. It appears you need to buy up to the Regional membership, which only includes about a 25 mile radius vs our unlimited radius (if your business operates in an area that large - otherwise it's generally a 150 mile radius, but you get to decide).
- Extremely time consuming to try to have success. In order to have any success, you must spend a lot of time on the website participating in their forums and making connections. It is very much like traditional LinkedIn marketing. With us, once you have initially entered your 30-50 connections, it's only about 15 minutes per week to keep things moving.
- The target is generally businesses - like LinkedIn - and not individuals in business. This really comes down to branding. Most small business will have better success when the focus is personal relationships and not business relationships, which is why our system is mostly a relationship model.
- Most people have a negative view of Alignable due to the way they built out their network of free users by importing all the contacts of the free members, and sending invites using your name and reputation. We do not do this.
- Although you can do personal referrals on the system, it is not automated and must be done mostly manually. Our referral network is automated and you still have the opportunity to do manual referrals if you choose.
Automated Business Connections provides the best solution for small business when it comes to referrals.
Why should I pay to exchange leads and referrals?
How many referrals do you give and receive now? ... weekly? ... monthly?
How much are you spending per month at these activities?
- Meeting potential clients for coffee, breakfasts, lunches, and happy hour drinks?
- Google Ads? ... Facebook Ads? ... NextDoor Ads? ... Instagram Ads? ... YouTube Ads ... Craigslist Ads?
- Print Ads? ... Post Cards, Mailed Brochures, Weekly Mailed Ads, etc.
- TV and Radio Ads?
- How about Alignable, LinkedIn Ads, or LinkedIn Premium?
Networking Meetings
We fully support and encourage attending local networking groups and meetings. It's a great place to meet people to expand your network. Unfortunately, most people do not give and receive as many referrals as one would expect. Automated Referral Network can enhance and dramatically increase the success you achieve with these groups by enabling the people, who are members of ABC to vastly increase giving and receiving referrals on an ongoing weekly basis.
Imagine how different most networking meetings would be if most of the people were exchanging referrals on a weekly basis to everyone in the group?
Automated Business Connectionis can make that happen quickly.
Can I cancel my membership at any time?
Yes, but there will be no refunds provided. You can cancel your membership and it will end at the end of your monthly payment date. When you cancel your membership, you will no longer be automatically added to your contact's list if they become members. Your contact list is frozen with no new added contacts and members.
You will continue to receive a monthly referral if you are on others' contact lists, unless you choose to opt out of those members' lists, or block all communications with us.
If a previously connected contact that you were introduced to becomes a member, you will not be automatically added to their contact list.
If you decide to re-activate your membership at a later date, your account will still be there to re-activate, unless you unsubscribe from all communications, in which case, you must start over again.
Can I unsubscribe from your communications?
You can opt out of our internal marketing, technical, and partner offer emails. These are handled by our newsletter system.
You can block (unsubscribe) yourself from a particular member's referrals.
You can block (unsubscribe) from all system communications. If you do this, your email will be blocked from ever receiving communications from us.
If you are a member, and you block (unsubscribe) from all system communications, your account will be cancelled.