At the March Customer Reference Forum in San Francisco, some 100 reference professionals spent a very intense half day addressing three critical issues in reference management:

1. Measuring the value of a reference program
2. Gaining executive support
3. Recruiting customers

1 and 2 are important because “everyone knows” that references are critical to sales, marketing, advertising and public relations — but executives can get sticker shock when they find out how much a good reference program costs. As for #3, this is a trickier issue, but let’s just say that if you’re working too hard to recruit customers to act as a references, the problem isn’t with your reference program.

The report that emerged from that collective effort is quite good, if I do say so myself. BEA’s Amy Shever said, “I thought the report was excellent. I have printed it & have yellow highlights covering most of each page! It’s very useful information.” Amy got so enthused she organized a group of reference professionals in the Bay Area to continue meeting and sharing experiences.

Plus, we’re selling it for a song, so I thought it wouldn’t be too egregious to let folks know about it:)