#you can see scale patterns printed out all over his flesh

[c1trvswurld]

Ik genjis fleshy bits that he still has are conventionally attractive for selling and character appeal reasons but I really do appreciate the idea of him having heavy scar tissue around his face. I like art that depicts the pure engineering and scientific marvel that he is. The way his organic blends in with his mechanical as processors and pumps are constantly at work to keep him alive. Love the idea of him customizing as he got use to it, accepted it more. Like to think that his lower jaw doesn't move when he talks, in fact his jaw is completely able to be removed and the only thing needed to communicate is his voice box, customized and attuned to change to the strength of the hue on his visor depending on how loud he wants to be.

He'd take the time for repairs and check ups to meditate and love his body as he polishes the metal along with his swords, use it to think about how far he's come. Because he loves his body, prays about it, appreciates it, takes care of it.

[sugar-petals]

How about typing some NCT members. Not all of them of course but whoever you wanna do.

Key for the types: 

D: Dramatic, SD: Soft Dramatic, N: Natural, FN: Flamboyant Natural, SN: Soft Natural, C: Classic, DC: Dramatic Classic, SC: Soft Classic, G: Gamine, SG: Soft Gamine, FG: Flamboyant Gamine, R: Romantic, TR= Theatrical Romantic.

I love this! The ones that stood out to me type-wise are:

Johnny: Soft Dramatic

I prefer him in constructed, elongated looks that do a lot for all Ds, less so in FN’s bold irregular lines. Really pulls off glamorous stage clothing & huge ornaments. Is/appears (that matters in Kibbe) too tall for all other categories 😂

Taeyong: Dramatic

Excluded N fast, disappears in wide/loose styles + fluffy hair. Was torn between D & DC. Striking YANG face (no way he’s R) but symmetrical. Body is also YANG but the vertical line is not as prominent? Judge for yourself, imo a C outfit feels weird. I prefer D style: deep V, stark fabric, sleek hair, large angles — it takes away excess sharpness, doesn’t contrast (!) his lines. As for G/FG: He’s overwhelmed by detail & less mature styles & doesn’t have YIN going on anywhere. He’s rather lean & straight all over. If I had to dress him at his best, I’d pick a ‘Billy Idol’ concept. Intense, edgy, head to toe black.

Lucas: Soft Natural

His sexiness clouds my judgement! What doesn’t work: Detail (R,G). Quirky style, comic print (G). Pattern mix (G). Stiff/sleek/cropped hair (D,G). C office wear: cool, but doesn’t make him stand out. YIN garments — it’s not ‘Yukhei’ we see. Since D + SD feel foreign on him despite his height, I figured blunt > sharp YANG. Wide shoulders, muscle definition, less of a waist, quite some vertical line. Needs casual N stuff. All other types are too manicured/severe. Plush fabrics bring out how cute he is. Hot in sturdy jeans. Softly layered hair with less contrast is good. Not FN, can’t go too big. Not pure N because doe YIN face. SN it is.

Chenle: Soft Gamine

Oh my god. NCT Dream couldn’t carry such a youthful image without some SG energy. Surprisingly YANG body but soft YIN especially in the face, but also the limbs. Cute and sassy styles work perfectly, 100% adorable and chic.

Xiaojun: Theatrical Romantic

YANG: too much/large, does well on the YIN side. The swirly watercolor outfit with a bit of angularity was quite a statement. I see Drama in his bones, so not pure R. Both YIN/YANG at work, at a YIN scale since he’s petite, but for G imo Xiaojun doesn’t look ‘youthful’ enough. I think he makes for a good ‘homme fatale’ instead, that’s TR. See also Regular.

Mark: Flaymboyant Gamine

Those boyish features with a bit of YIN, rather straight body. Tall, but his head is bigger in proportion to the rest giving the impression of petiteness. Has a bit of blunt YANG broadness (arms) also which is very G: contrasting lines. Looks good in vibrant styles. 

Yuta: Dramatic

Tall, slim. Wide garments of N drown him out as does ruffled hair, even C is loose on him cuz he’s so slender. Needs large geometrics, they really make him memorable. As with every D type, powers up with his hair sleeked back to show the bone structure. Awesome head to toe black. Really awesome I mean. Sharp shoulders work so well. All D indicators.

Winwin: Gamine

More of a quick intuitive choice. Bubblegum neon concepts blend with him, it looks great.

Kun: Soft Natural

Wide, not too tall bone structure, a bit of softness. Does mix and match w/ jeans well.

Hendery: Soft Dramatic

Also quick type, very YANG skeleton but carries huge lavish detail well. Keanu-esque.

Ten: Theatrical Romantic

Looks petite, has some sharpness to him, but spunky G doesn’t showcase him. Instead, he is memorable in iridescent, thin R fabrics. You can easily put ornate florals and sharp shoulders on him. So R + YANG makes sense to me. He looks fantastic in ‘Count Dracula + velvety suits ♥️ Waist emphasis, too. A sparkly, all-draped shirt: amazing. More glitter and drapes: only TR pulls this off without looking like a fool. My favorite: This neckline, blended makeup, rhinestone effects. TR needs maximum decor.

Jaemin: Gamine

Petite, round face, angular body. Looks good in contrasted geometric outfits with whimsical detail like these round glasses.

Jaehyun: Soft Dramatic

R & G excluded, too towering in stature. Bluntness in the face led me to think N, but e.g. relaxed looks & jeans jackets don’t give him that wow effect. Minimal & symmetrical fits don’t bring out his 100% either. C feels too short. I vote for this knock-out SD look. Divo-like, chiseled, monochrome, boldly luxurious. The broadness is YIN flesh in the face! SD has that. 

Haechan: Gamine

I thought, that cute moon face effect I know. From Yoongi, same type 😄 Haechan’s features are YIN but the rest of the body is chiseled, short, narrow. Needs something very animated or fitted to match that. Gamine can tolerate a lot of weird items.

Doyoung: Soft Dramatic

The same outfit as Jaehyun’s makes him look cool (coiffed hair, velvety finish, angular head-to-toe color scheme). Has that D vertical line, narrowness, sinewy limbs. Anything distressed (N) / oversized doesn’t do him well so it’s sharp YANG. SD shines with a lot of polishedness. For pure D his limbs would have to be less softened.

[royal-writer]

The Ring of Disguise

People really need to keep me away from everything dnd; homebrew or not, becuz I’m guaranteed to ingest it and write about it someway somehow.

If only the rippling reflection in the sink of water was the lie, and not the version she left everybody to see. Trick mirrors and illusions crafted by the eye to make sense of things not actually there. Like seeing faces in grains of wood and shapes of bodies in clouds, or things in dappled lightning not truly there. It would be easy to wipe away the idea you’d seen something after a laugh with a friend. You could pretend it never was, content believing only in an overactive imagination.

But the mirage was the fake altering her features. The truth of her ugliness was shown to her in everything she looked upon. In the water, in glass, bouncing off of sterling silver weapons. Wherever she looked, the truth followed.

Holding her hand up, Essätha gripped the enchanted ring from her finger and ripped it off. The facade people saw; if they did not catch her true appearance in any reflective surface, disappeared. The slits of her pupils, the patches of scales, the shape of her tongue all appeared as they were without the charm of magic veiling her. A perfect lie. What things about her that gave hesitation to trust appearances visible once more, and made her once more the demonized fiend of fairytales.

No one looked at a Yuan-Ti and thought mesmerizing. They saw a beastly creature, and anyone who knew of the time when the serpent-people from books and stories all knew to fear not just appearances, but their darkness. Cunning people filled with ill intent; damning the world with their prejudice system and annihilating anything not remotely like their own. They were hideous on the inside as they were on the out. Crafty plans, sinister lies, whispers to make you feel charmed only to strike and feast upon the gullible or sacrifice them to their gods in hopes of becoming more and more like the snakes they lived in the grasses. A hungry ouroboros with no end.

“What are you looking at?” she grumbled at the image of herself in the mirror. Turning her eyes away, she dropped the Ring of Disguise on the vanity and grabbed for the rag. Soaking it in the lukewarm water, she rung it a few times before wiping her face with the damp cloth.

If only she had the ability to look the way the ring made her appear, permanently. Ever since she found that ring on one of the damned they’d been forced to exterminate, it had given her a secret life. It took a while to figure out what it was, and what it could do, but once she’d gotten to know the object and attune it to herself, she had become impossible. So long as she tried to avoid things that could reveal her identity to people in windows, goblets, and silverware, she was normal.

Most people liked normal. They didn’t judge it; didn’t question. Folks didn’t ask about her heritage to Dragonborn, or try musing how powerful her lineage to something she had no relation to. She was no longer a ‘powerful mage’, her ancestors blood showing in her scaly form. She was nearly invisible, but hardly forgettable. Charming and simple all at once.

Tossing the cloth over the edge of the counter, Essie released the water into the drain and dabbed a dry cloth over her face before reaching for her moisturizer. It felt strange, circling the lotion around the scales on her face.

What did people see when they saw the illusion, that she could not? Someone happy? Someone cute? Did they want to get to know her? Was she approachable? Trustworthy? Were they interested in what she had to say?

Sighing heavily, she closed the jar and grabbed her things from the vanity. Pitching the towels into the hamper, Essie padded quietly through the hallways. Tiptoeing for her bedroom; trying to remain as unheard as possible to those who might already be sleeping. Though, judging by some of the laughter down the hall, she judged not many were interested quite yet in that idea.

She reached for her doorknob, fumbling with it between all the nighttime ritual items in her hands.

“Need help with that?”

Hissing with alarm, her handful of serums and creams fell to the ground. By the surprising grace of the gods, not a single jar or container broke or popped open.

The amusement in Amon’s eyes quickly vanished as she looked up to him. Quickly turning her head away so her hair fell between them, she pushed the ring shakily against her finger.

Why was he sneaking up on her like that? Couldn’t he see she was busy?

“Here let me help you,” he commented, bending at the knee. There was a quiet thunk as his knee hit the floorboards, and he stalled.

“Essie, you don’t need to do that. It’s only me-”

She flinched reactively as fingers touched her wrist. Cool fingertips, worn with calluses. Her eyes bugged wide in their sockets as she whipped her hair aside with a jerk of her head, staring down at the hand that had retracted from her. Her gaze followed it down to the startled face looking up at her. Dark eyes and a gaping mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he remarked with soft-spoken guilt. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” she exhaled roughly. Her fingers shook as she turned the ring around in her fingertips, gripping it into her palm before sinking down to her knees to retrieve her items.

Lord Amon already swiped much of them up, and held them in the bend of his arm to his chest. As she reached for one of the last concoctions filled with a coconut milk and honey for a leave-in hair conditioner, a hand grazed atop hers. Goosebumps rose along her arm at the light contact, and her breath caught.

Swallowing her nerves, she clenched to the bottle and moved to raise her hand.

Gentle fingers held to her hand. Hypnotized by the soft caress of his touch, she relaxed her hold on the jar so he could take it from her hand, and rest it along with the others held to his chest.

A small smile shone on his face as she dared to meet the weight of his gaze upon her. Transfixed by his dark eyes, she didn’t recognize the hand that reached for her once more until his palm rested atop her hand. Fireworks and tingles met where he touched, sending her nerves hyper-sensitive relays of every line and groove of his prints.

“I like you better, like this,” Amon informed her softly; his fingers rubbing along the speckling of scales over her hand. “You don’t need to hide who you are from me, ever.”

Warmth appeared on her face like a flash-fire. Sudden and unexpected, as Essie’s mouth hung stupidly open at the comment. She closed her mouth, and managed to swallow passed a forced smile as pulled gently on her arm.

“You’re used to seeing me like this; the scale-less version is just unfamiliar-”

Amon shook his head, his hand tightening upon hers a little. Not a snared trap, but a wordless plea for her not to pull away.

“The ring does not show who you really are,” he disagreed. “It’s just a disguise. You look…”

He stalled. The rhythm of his fingers still circling over her patchwork of scaly flesh. His eyes shifted; pupils moving over her in slow patterns. There was enough depth and concentration in his face and the way he studied her that made it almost physical; like hands were moving over her instead.

She shivered unexpectedly as Amon seemed to catch his breath in a surprised rush.

“You look breath-taking, Essätha. Magnificent and inspiring without trying, inside and out. The scales do not characterize you, or define who you. The ring is a tool used to hide your identity, but it is not you. You should not be ashamed of who you are, or how you look. Do you know why?”

Numbly, she gave a small shake of her head. She could easily argue the point here, but found it hard to think a single thought. It was difficult to think of anything, with those enveloping eyes swallowing her whole and leaving her feeling naked and shy. Tongue-tied and unable to find her words.

With a wide smile, Amon continued drawing over her scales with the pad of his thumb as he whispered: “You are radiant. Unmatched in beauty. Your soul shines through your eyes, and your smile is filled with splendor and kindness. Your scales are just a small part of a whole in who you are; they’re natural to your heritage, and don’t paint the whole picture of who you are. You are your own person; brave, confident, gentle and wise.”

“Be thankful to your body,” he assured her. “It has not failed you thus far, even before you had the ring. There is nothing to change about how you look. The woman before me is perfect and captivating, just as she is, and being herself. True to her heart, and to her beliefs.”

Her mouth hung open. Closed, and opened again in wordless astonishment. She watched the shape of Amon’s pupil dilate as color burned into his face. Even his hand felt a little sweaty, as though embarrassed for speaking so boldly and openly.

He dipped his head forward gradually. A bow of his head as he raised her hand, placing a chaste kiss upon the scales on the back of her hand like a chivalrous gentleman to a lady.

“Pardon if I misspoke, miss Essätha.”

“N-No that’s- that’s okay I appreciate it,” she wheezed, smiling timidly as he raised his eyes upon hers. She slid her hand free of his grasp, worried that he’d feel the dangerous way her heart was beating in her chest.

Planting his feet firmly, Amon raised himself up from the floor. He offered his hand once more, which she accepted long enough to accept help being pulled to her feet before brushing him off shyly.

He didn’t meet her eyes, as he got the door for her and made for a gentle sweeping motion. She held to her timid smile, sliding in the room past him with a nervous giggle.

“I can take those-”

“Nonsense, I’ll set them on your dresser for you. I made you drop them in the first place,” he noted, seeming to glance over the small spectrum of containers made from different materials, with different labels on them. He looked up to her once more; catching the corner of her eye as he questioned sincerely, “Were you headed to bed so early?”

“I am; its been a tiring day.”

He nodded slowly as he passed her in the dim room. While he placed the jars carefully on the chest just beside the doorway, Essie reached for the nearby lantern to light a flame to wick.

Pausing as he turned to leave, Amon glanced back over his shoulder at her. His hand took the doorhandle as he murmured, “Sleep well, Essätha.”

“I’ll leave a light on for you, when you come to bed.”

Was it her imagination, or did his breath hitch?

“Thank you,” he replied somewhat gruffly, stepping out to shut the door quietly behind him.

Sighing heavily now that she was by herself, the Yuan-Ti woman looked down at her palm. The band of silver, weaved with the script of whatever spell held it to the disguise wrapping around the exterior, felt a bit less heavy in her hand than it normally did.

Usually so careful to tuck it someplace safe, she tossed it into her bag as she approached it, a ghost of a smile on her face.

Sleep felt like it would come incredibly easy, tonight.

[chasinganecdotes]

A Trial of Flesh and Bone

It was not just human bones that haunted the shadows of the tunnel. Shards of skeletal beasts taunted me too- the desolate sockets of a longhorn skull, the shattered maw of a shark. They whisper in the dark, as if their souls were still trapped inside the marrow of the bones, purging their screams on what is left of their bodies. The woman in black does not seem to notice, does not even move, just stares at me through unseen eyes hidden in the shadows of her robe. Yet it is all I can do to drown out the plight of that wall of bones.

She pulled back the hood around her shoulders, cascading the satin down her body, and letting it pool at her feet. At first, I notice only the sinuous line from her breast to her waist, the grace of her body ethereal as if it were infinity written across the sky. It wasn’t her nakedness that pounded a sickening hunger through me though, a desire for pleasure so strong it was a verge of madness. It was that she was evil crowned in flesh and bone, incarnate of the darkest demons I’d ever let myself dream. She was beautifully sinister, two ebony ram’s horns crowning the violet curls rippling down her back. And on her brow, two crescent moons inked back to back, daising an even fuller moon as if it were a third eye. But her eyes, they were a milky veil of oblivion, totally bereft of iris or pupil.

“Do you wish to see the stars now?” the demoness slithered, scratching a nail down the pulse in my throat.

I wanted to wheel her, to sin against the cave wall with the same heretical nature she was essence to. I could see the compulsion like an inky fog tazing my mind, her backside slamming into me and my hands wrapped around her neck. Whether by pain or pleasure she would let escape a moan that would tear through me, ravage me, until I was undone. But no.

No, that was not what I was summoned here for.

“Yes. Show me the cards.”

She smirked, a cruel upturn of her lips. “But first,” she said, disappearing behind a golden weaved tapestry, “a little insurance.” She reappeared, a python coiled down the length of her arm. It was not so much a snake as it was a mythic serpent, its scales raw obsidian that looked as if it had been bathing in black blood, and incisors so large they mottled its flesh.

I stumbled back, falling almost entirely into the wall of bones. “What is that,” I demanded.

“A python. But also,” she smiled again, “insurance that you satisfy your end of the bargain.” She began to unravel it, holding it out to me like an offering. “Place it around your neck. It will only squeeze if you begin to disent.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you will not receive what you came here for.” She was not cruel in saying this, just simply stated it as if it were no matter to her whether I obeyed or not.

I held out my hand, the serpent crawling from one ring of flesh to the other, torquing its belly around and around until its full length wrapped my shoulders. Everywhere its icy, wet skin touched mine sent shivers of panic through me, quickly dispelling any lecherous thoughts. From head to tail, it was a vise grip on my neck. A chain.

“You are foolish, my boy. Hasn’t anyone ever told you better than to make deals with the devil.”

“Just show me the cards, damnit.”

Her eyes flashed, if you could call it that. A dark sheen of something shaded the whites, a depthless terror I had no name for, though it was gone in an instant. She pulled from her fallen robe a deck of tarot cards, a print of scarlet and gold hieroglyphs that were similar to those on the tapestry. They were symbols I did not recognize, though some of the runes seemed to resemble the sun and moon. She knelt to the ground, chanting in an ancient tongue as one by one she fanned out the cards in a circle around her. A ring of smoke began to rise from the cards, an infernal breath of magic ripping the veil between here and hell. She flipped over the first card just as a rivulet of black blood began to leak from her eyes.

The breath suddenly cut from my chest, a pain like drowning burning all the way up my throat. My hands pried futilely at the serpent wrapped around my neck, trying to gasp in strangled air. But the feeling wasn’t the serpent- it was coming from inside me. It was as if every nerve in my body were short circuiting, spasms the like of an epeleptic shaking me to my knees. A series of images tore violently behind my eyelids, too fast for me to grasp onto, though each impact hit me just the same. Over and over they ripped through me, like a tornado uprooting buried memories from the ground- faces and bodies, though I had no name for who they belonged to.

A man crouched atop me, his face a mere shadow, though he held a lit candle in one of his hands. He did not touch me, though the way he hovered just a hairsbreadth from my naked body made me uneasy. He tipped the candle so that the wax began to drip inside my legs- hot, burning, bone melting. I bit down hard on my tongue so that I wouldn’t scream, blood filling my mouth. Though my legs lay bare of flame, everywhere the wax hardened along my skin felt like it was being peeled back to the bone. The burn kept clawing deeper and deeper, tearing through me with such savage force that I felt as if I were melting right into the ground. I cried out, a pathetic whimper of pain.

Abuser. The word hissed through me like wind.

The man moved his face into the light of the flame. Please, please have mercy on me, I thought. But as his face began to take shape, I felt the world begin to sink, shoving me down through the earth. Dirt shoveled in around me. Burying me. The burning sensation ceased but just as another replaced it. My skin felt as if it were crawling- as if things were wriggling between my bones, sliding through flesh. Maggots and worms burrowed into wounds that appeared long festered, digging through me as if I were a corpse. I wanted to vomit, to shed my skin. Narcissist. I looked to the sky just as the last bit of light was closing up my grave, whispering the first word of prayer I’d ever spoken in my life. But it was not God looking down upon me. It was the mirror of my own self, smiling back at me, as he threw in the last of the dirt that would bury me alive.

. . .

The world was black.

A black box with no light save for the reflective pane that cut holy patterns across my cheek. The pane slid back. Except it was not a pane at all but a screen, one where the patterns had been etched into iron and stained glass had lain beneath, projecting the warring image of lion and lamb. A place to bleed out sins and bathe in sacrificial redemption. A confessional. I had the vague sense of having lived this moment before. A vision- no, a memory.

“What is it you wish to bargain for?” A silky vixen voice, one I knew. The demoness.

I longed to peer through to the other side, but it was as if my body were snared in the memory. Everything in me struggled against what was to come next, this singular moment of damnation. There would be no mercy on the other side of that confession. No salvation.

But my lips still betrayed me, formed the word even though I willed them not to.

“Eternity.”

But of course what I had really meant was the permission to steal and fight and fuck for as long as my miserable soul defiled the earth.

“A body forged in eternal steel, without age or loss of prowess.” The demoness sighed. “Predictable, I’m afraid. All you young Napoleon types striking deals to the same effect.”

I don’t think at the time I quite understood what she meant, but I had a feeling I was about to.

“There will need to be a reading of the cards, of course,” she continued. “The cards do not profess what is to come, but rather speak truth to what is already there. The tarot will decide whether you are worthy of the Dark Lord’s unholy power.”

My lips quirked up in an arrogant smirk. “So the devil dares to dance, huh? Lucky for him, I know how to tango.”

And then the memory shifted back to the wall of bones, the tarot reading, only this time I was outside of myself, totally disconnected from my body. I sat motionlessly vacant amongst the chanting and the smoke, back rigid and unflinching as the demoness began to rise from the ashes of her incantation. There was something amiss about this picture, something that unsettled me more than any other torment I had witnessed tonight. My eyes had begun to change, a slow burn from azure to black, swallowing all color with the same depthless venom as the demoness’. The opposite side to the same sinister coin. Black to match her white. Both, it seemed, a vessel of hell.

“How do your dance moves fare you now?” She straddled her legs over my thighs, smoothing back a lock of hair from my forehead. “Pain until death, death for pain. A fair trade, wouldn’t you agree?” She began to unravel the serpent from my neck, letting it slither back to the unknown cavern of horrors that was sure to lie behind that tapestry. “Occultism, even of the darkest natures, must maintain a balance.”

Something about her words itched in the back of my mind, as if I were flirting with the edge of some understanding. I had bargained for an eternal body, yet somehow I still remained detached...

The demoness licked her lips, smearing the black blood that now painted her cheeks. “Do you know what they call me in that dreadful tomb of a book you mortals so worship?” She leaned closer, her breasts swinging dangerously close to my mouth. “Seductress. Temptress. Eve.” Mother of the woman scorned. And mother of wrath. “Oh you do understand, don’t you? For the countless bodies you have stolen from my children, you are equally thieved of your own.” The images that once plagued me began to focus, bleeding through until each became a name and a face. The children of Eve. The women I had hurt.

Eve tilted her head, her eyes cutting up to where my soul was watching. Trapped, I realized, amongst the wall of bones. “Have fun burning in hell.”

[ncmagroup]

by Dale Dupree

  Everyone seems to be an expert these days on getting referrals. It seems that every blog on the block right now has an article on how to ask for referrals or build a referral program.

Too bad most of them lack any actual luster.

A solid referral program is not built on a foundation of getting. It’s the reward you naturally receive for giving everything you’ve got to the business relationship you are developing with your prospect or client.

It is about interrupting the normal and traditional patterns of your buyer and creating a new experience that has a bigger picture focus.

Below, I’ll share some advanced strategies for building a referral program… how to ask for referrals… who to ask… and more. And it all starts with something I call the Referral Machine.

What Is a Referral Machine

A referral program usually refers to a system for generating quality leads from satisfied clients. Lots of businesses have this type of program. But honestly, not many are doing it well.

Which is why, in this article, I’m going to give you a better way to ask for referrals — a system I call the Referral Machine.

With this machine, you can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars of business. And you can do it while building lasting relationships with leaders in your industry.

But it’s important to understand…

This machine isn’t an automated email sequence or follow-up process. In my system, you, the rep, are the referral machine.

Sure, your company has a stake in the process. Your ability to get referrals depends largely on the products and services they offer and how well those products serve your clients.

But the real value is YOU, not some system that works behind the scenes.

Keep reading to see the entire concept fleshed out, including how to earn a referral, who the players are, and everything you need to know.

4 Ways to Successfully Win Referral Business

The Referral Machine

Referrals From Face-to-Face

Referrals Through Fellowship and Friends

Inception Referrals

Build Your Referral Machine

How do you build a referral program? First things first, how does your client feel about your organization?

The strategy behind creating your Referral Machine starts with a very happy end-user who doubles as your point of contact at any particular firm.

That being the case, you need to have a high-level conversation with them about your products/services and get feedback on how well they’ve been working for the client to date.

To get this kind of feedback, I like to use the 1–5 Method. This is as simple as asking:

“On a scale of 1–5, how would you rate our performance?”

Please note the most effective way to present this is on a very warm and welcoming printed marketing piece or an online survey that you can take them through one-on-one.

Something like this.

My recommendation is to find 4–5 categories that measure your client’s satisfaction — areas where, if you’re doing your job right, should give you straight-5s.

Of course, the number of categories depends on the product you sell. Think intentionally when putting this together. The purpose of this is to show full transparency and communicate to the client that you want to know if anything is wrong… because you are about to ask for a referral!!

If they give you low marks, get to work! Earn their trust by fixing any existing problems and you will earn referrals like never before.

However, if you get high marks from the client, you will have the opportunity to ask them the following question right on the spot.

“Would you be willing to refer me to other businesses in your network based on your high level of satisfaction?”

It’s pretty much a no brainer for your client to just say yes.

Your job then is to turn their verbal agreement into an ACTUAL referral. And for that, I recommend you use another printed piece you can give the client on the spot.

Put it on your letterhead so your contact information and brand logo are clearly visible.

On the top half of the page, put the numbers 1–5. For each, provide two fields labeled, “Contact Name” and “Contact Number” or “Friend’s Name” and “Friend’s Number.”

On the bottom of the page, put “Referral Machine” with an image that suggests the variety of rewards you will give your client for passing along a referral.

Something like this.

  This is supposed to be a fun experience for your prospect, so play around with the design of this piece. Make it interactive for your client!

Tell the client that it’s not your intention to TAKE. You are looking to REWARD them when a referral pans out.

There are a few things you can do here. Consider giving the client…

a referral of their own from you

a gift card to Starbucks to show your appreciation

a month of free service on the product they’re subscribed to

Get creative and keep skin in the game!

How to Get Referrals from Face to Face

Do not underestimate the power of networking groups! There are so many good ones out there.

Traditionally, at an in-person networking group, you find nothing but other sales professionals, a few small business owners (such as electrical contractors or handymen) and every MLM profession on the face of planet earth (IE: Amway, Juice Plus, etc.).

The problem here is that most of these people have the same mindset — that going to these types of events should yield them business directly with the membership. That is not the right way to approach these events!

Your goal isn’t to get business, but to find referral partners. Create an army of salespeople who help you get referrals. In return, you can get referrals for their business. Done right, they’ll leave the event excited about promoting your products to their business contacts, friends, family, and so forth.

I like using the internet to find these groups.

Search for “Networking Group *insert city you work in*” Click through the results that show up first on your search engine.

If you are a Millennial, search for “Young Professional Networking Group *insert city you work in*” and go meet some other hustlers out there trying to build their network.

Is it really that simple?

Yes! At one of these events, I met an individual who provided me with over $200,000.00 in sales revenue over the span of the 4 years we passed business back and forth.

Here are some other ways to get referrals through face-to-face networking…

Invite your current customer base to these networking groups. Then introduce them to other professionals who can help them grow their business.

Or host your own networking groups. Invite all your clients and introduce them to one other. This is a powerful option that will result in long-term relationships with your clients. It will also help you get referrals that will continue to grow your business.

How to Get Referrals Through Fellowship

This approach is satisfying to the soul. It will help you take your clients, prospects, and referral partners to a whole new level alongside you.

Here’s how it works…

Clean off the deck, sweep the pool, and invite your business connections to the house to meet your family, meet your friends, and enjoy fellowship with one another. This gives you a natural and healthy way to build long-lasting relationships with your business connections.

In fellowship events like this, you can still talk business. Chat about goals, community, and accomplishments in order to get to know your clients better and to help them understand your long-term outlook.

Don’t want to invite people to your home? No problem!

Have everyone meet you at a local park or the local coffee shop. These types of venues are happy to accommodate “community events.”

Another idea is to pick a local charity and get these same groups of people together to serve. Spend time with underprivileged kids, clean the beaches, help a family in need. There are a ton of options here.

This concept is all about humanizing the business relationships you are cultivating and focusing more on impact than anything else. It is about breathing life into your community, clients, and prospects alike. As a bonus, it will help you build your referral machine and give you a natural way to ask for referrals.

How to Create Inception Referrals

This is an idea that is coming out in my upcoming book, Tales of The Copier Warrior: A Sales Rebellion. The concept is this: The decision-maker, C-level exec, or Owner of a firm you are serving can actually be a TERRITORY within your TERRITORY.

Leonardo Dicaprio as hell, right?!

Essentially, you don’t need to sell this individual anything, ever. You just need them to open doors for you.

I once met a decision-maker who told me HE LOVED my marketing and my cold call approach — but he would never buy from me. Then, he told me he wanted to get lunch because, as he put it, “I think I can help you grow your business.”

At that point, I became extremely intrigued!

After our initial meeting, this individual had me out to all his big events, invited me to private dinners, even took me to sporting events with his friends and introduced me to some of my LARGEST sales ever.

From this point on, I actively looked for mutually beneficial referral relationships to help me with cold outreach — especially if my prospect was “all set” and did not need my products or services.

You see, the C-Level Executive at a business you are serving is most likely well connected. You can either be a vendor (and nothing more) or become a valuable member of their network.

Hint…

You will always just be a vendor if you do not approach this individual from a unique perspective and work to earn trust and credibility with them.

I recommend using interrupt marketing techniques in order to get on another level with them.

Remember, most “founders” and C-Level Execs had a dream, just like you, once upon a time before they built their success. Mirror the “founder” mindset and the same behavior they used to build their business. That will help them see you as a peer.

For Inception Referrals to work, you need to tap into the unique emotional drive that propels your contact.

Whether they are your client or just a referral partner, they have an entire territory that you can tap into and gain warm introductions through.

Take your game up a notch.

It’s Not for the Weak of Heart

To sum it all up, this is how top sales producers get referrals.

Not just any referrals. High-quality referrals that generate sales.

But these types of referrals only go to salespeople who are willing to sacrifice time and energy to cultivate a next-level relationship with the people they serve or are acquainted with in the community.

To review:

Create your Referral Machine (the marketing tools that will help you gain referrals and earn more respect with your clients).

Get out in your community and serve!

Build more meaningful relationships with your business contacts.

Find the right kind of networking events and get face to face with your community.

Cold call for referrals!

Find the territory within your territory.

This is a selfless approach where you are constantly GIVING in order to GAIN.

It is the heart of a servant leader and the attitude of someone who is not focused on instant gratification. Rather, it is the type of sales rep that one day becomes a Legend.

  Go to our website:   www.ncmalliance.com

Why The Sales World Sucks at Earning Referral Business and How You Can Change The Game by Dale Dupree Everyone seems to be an expert these days on getting referrals. It seems that every blog on the block right now has an article on how to ask for referrals or build a referral program.

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From Frank Stella to Louise Bourgeois, 9 Artists Who Designed Stunning Jewelry

Is jewelry art? These wearable works bridge the museum gallery and the runway, the art collector and the fashion plate. Some are one-off collaborations with legendary goldsmiths, while others reveal a lifelong dedication to the form—but all of these artist-designed baubles glitter with creativity (and, more often than not, gold). From Niki de Saint Phalle’s miniature monuments to Frank Stella’s nebulous neckpieces, here are 10 artists who created show-stopping jewelry.

Man Ray

Before the dawn of windshields, Man Ray sought out durable lenses to wear while driving. (Diane Venet, a jewelry collector who guest curated a 2011 show at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design, says he was “always breaking his glasses and he loved to drive fast.”) Man Ray and his collaborator, the Italian goldsmith GianCarlo Montebello, spent months in the early 1970s perfecting a design: the Optic-Topic gold mask, which features a dense network of pinholes where one would expect to find cutouts for eyes. Although a few small dots wouldn’t seem to do the trick, Venet, who owns the gold mask, has revealed, “You see through them as well as with glasses.”

Another GEM Montebello collaboration, Pendants Pending (1970) are more fondly remembered as “the lampshade earrings” because they allude to Man Ray’s 1919 spiral lampshade. Forever immortalized by French actress Catherine Deneuve, the artist designed them to be placed over the ears, so as not to weigh down the wearer’s lobes with five-and-a-half-inch spirals.

Yves Klein

Petite Vénus Bleue, 1956/7. Yves Klein Artware Editions

In 1956, one year before he would trademark International Klein Blue, the artist began producing Petite Vénus Bleue in an edition of 500. Each version is mounted within a Plexiglas box outfitted in gold leaf, a miniature addition to his brilliantly hued oeuvre. Klein often appropriated classical symbols, like the Venus torso, in order to strip them of their academic connotations. Whether worn as a brooch or strung as a pendant, the small Venus takes on new meaning, providing something secularly sacred to wear.

Niki de Saint Phalle

Photo by Bert Stern/Condé Nast via Getty Images

Brooch (Serpent), . Niki de Saint Phalle Alpha 137: Prints & Exhibition Ephemera II

The forward-thinking de Saint Phalle was a multifaceted artist with a feminist agenda. “I’m following a course that was chosen for me,” she explained of her enormous, ebullient, cartoonish sculptures of women, “following a pressing need to show that a woman can work on a monumental scale.”

But she didn’t shy away from the small, either. As one of GEM Montebello’s more prolific collaborators, de Saint Phalle scaled down her massive work without nullifying its message. A one-time model for LIFE and Vogue, de Saint Phalle struggled with her own relationship to her body. Her bright, enameled jewelry—featuring joyfully dismembered bodies strung on necklaces or bulbous pendant figures—slyly subverts the fashion industry that may have contributed to her nervous breakdown at age 23.

Meret Oppenheim

Fur Ring , 2014. Meret Oppenheim GEMS AND LADDERS

In the spring of 1936, Oppenheim proposed the idea of a fur bracelet to fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli (rival to Coco Chanel and frequent artist collaborator). Schiaparelli signed off; the bracelet, a furry metal cuff, appeared that year’s winter collection.

Sporting her new accessory, Oppenheim ran into Pablo Picasso and his then-lover Dora Maar at the artist haunt Café de Flore. They were enthralled by the design, which must have stood out even on the modish Boulevard Saint-Germain. Picasso remarked that fur could transform any object. “Even this cup and saucer,” Oppenheim famously replied. From there, she hit the department store, purchased a cup, saucer, and spoon, and wrapped them in a pelt. The final work, Object (1936), became an emblem of Surrealism—and the first work by a woman artist acquired by the Museum of Modern Art.

Carlos Cruz-Diez

Chromfinger D, 2014. Carlos Cruz-Diez Galerie MiniMasterpiece

ChromoInterference, 2013. Carlos Cruz-Diez Galerie MiniMasterpiece

Venezuelan painter and Kinetic artist Cruz-Diez focuses on line, color, and perception. In 2013 and 2014, Familia Cruz-Diez and Elisabetta Cipriani crafted these limited-edition earrings, necklaces, and rings to reflect two types of Op Art categories: Physichromie and Chromointerférence.

Did you catch that? Despite their complicated monikers—both coined by Cruz-Diez—the pieces are viscerally fascinating. With a series of porcelain or acrylic panels arranged in an accordion-like fashion, the jewelry (like his paintings) changes according to the position of the viewer. The Physichromie pieces trap light to produce a range of color that varies according to the wearer’s environment. The Chromointerférence designs, on the other hand, produce patterns and waves of color based on the wearer’s movement.

Louise Bourgeois

To the untrained eye, a brooch in the shape of an arachnid might appear eerie—but for Bourgeois, the spider was a loving tribute to her mother, a tapestry restorer. In her 1995 text Ode to My Mother, the artist explained her fascination: “The friend (the spider—why the spider?) because my best friend was my mother and she was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable, neat, and as useful as a spider.” From monumental sculptures to this miniature golden pin, the spider served as a recurring motif throughout the French-American sculptor’s long and influential career.

Max Ernst

Grand Tête , 1974. Max Ernst Louisa Guinness Gallery

Oiseau Perché (P.H. 1746), . Max Ernst Louisa Guinness Gallery

It was 1959 when Ernst sculpted his first piece of jewelry out of plasticine. Back in France following the end of World War II, he struck up a collaboration with his old friend, goldsmith François Hugo (also the great-grandson of Les Misérables novelist Victor Hugo). Wary of the blazing summer heat of Aix-en-Provence, which threatened to melt his models, the artist handed over his work to Hugo at the eleventh hour. The goldsmith managed to translate the Ernst-invented techniques of frottage (rubbing) and grattage (scraping) into an entirely new medium. Copied in gold, the 34 brooches and pendants were collectively called “masks” for their resemblance to geometric faces.

Frank Stella

Ring, 2008. Frank Stella Elisabetta Cipriani

Venet reportedly begged Stella for months to create something for her collection. She asked him herself. Then her husband, sculptor Bernar Venet, asked. No matter how she implored (or whom she employed to plead), Stella declined. Finally, one day in 2008 when the Venets were visiting, Stella dug into a nearby drawer and pulled out a neckpiece for Diane. She was delighted by the wiry, spiraling, 11-inch-wide structure. He went on to collaborate with Ernest Mourmans and Marc Benda to incorporate his signature tangles into a limited-edition ring. Consisting of 28 parts painstakingly welded together, the piece took six months to develop. “You wear nothing else,” Venet later said of the ring. “Maybe just a simple black dress.”

Jenny Holzer

Silver snake ring inscribed "With you inside me comes the knowledge of my death", 1994. Jenny Holzer Didier Ltd.

One of the most acclaimed conceptual artists in the United States, Holzer uses language to provoke viewers, disturb complacency, and initiate reflection. Her maxims (including “Let your hand wander on flesh to make possibility multiply” and “Protect me from what I want”) have appeared on posters, marble benches, condom wrappers, LED displays—and this limited-edition sterling-silver ring. For With you inside me comes the knowledge of my death (1994), Holzer collaborated with Munich-based jeweler Patrik Muff to create a message all the more potent when actually worn.

from Artsy News