What’s so tough about getting a referral from a client? Once you’ve met your customer’s needs, all you have to do is ask them if they know of anyone who might be able to use your products or services. You then go back to your office and call the person you were referred to and set up a meeting. Couldn’t be easier, right?
That’s the core of traditional referral training.
Almost every seller knows it just doesn’t work very well. In fact, it works so poorly that vast numbers of have just quit trying to generate referrals.
The problem isn’t with the concept of generating referrals. The problem is that most trainers have simply accepted the traditional referral ‘training’ and simply regurgitate the pap they were taught about referrals.
For the 47 million-dollar-a-year-income sales superstars who generate the majority of their business from referrals, referral generation isn’t a weak question at the end of the sales process, but is rather a disciplined process that begins from the moment they meet a new prospect and continues throughout the relationship with their client.
Generating a large number of high quality referrals requires that we recognize the foundational aspects on which a quality referral is based and how we might be able to control these aspects. Over the next four posts we’ll take a close look at the four basic foundational pillars of generating a quality referral.
Pillar 1: Your Relationship to Your Client
Conventional wisdom from sales trainers is that clients “love to give referrals; they want to help; all you have to do is ask.”
What bull! Although there is a small contingent of clients
who love to give referrals, most clients HATE to give referrals.
Clients believe that whomever they refer you to will be more demanding and more critical than they have been and they fear they will be embarrassed because the prospect they refer you to will have a bad purchasing experience and will be unhappy with your performance or your product or service.
Clients will only give referrals–that is, real, quality referrals–once you have established a relationship with them that:
• Demonstrates you are honest and trustworthy
• Demonstrates you will do what you say you will do
• Gives them reason to BELIEVE that you will live up to the expectations and demands of those they refer you to
Your relationship with your client must be one built on their EXPERIENCE of your trustworthiness and honesty.
Not your claims.
Not your promises.
Not your intentions.
Referrals are EARNED, not given.
To overcome your client’s natural resistance to give referrals, they must KNOW you will not only not embarrass them in front of the people the refer you to, but that you will HONOR them by giving their friends, colleagues, and associates SUPERIOR service that is based in HONESTY and INTEGRITY.
Honesty extends to how you generate referrals. Many clients don’t appreciate being cornered at the end of the sale with an unexpected and uncomfortable request for referrals. Not only does that last second request annoy the client, even for those few clients who want to give referrals it makes it difficult for them to give a quality referral since it doesn’t give them time to think about whom to refer, not to mention it doesn’t define for them who a quality referral is. Letting your client know early in the relationship that your business is referral based and that once the sales process has been completed you’ll be working with the client to acquire high quality referrals.
Every salesperson promises honesty. All claim superior service. Most intend to be trustworthy. Every client has heard the promises and the claims. They may even believe the intent is there. But they have had few relationships with salespeople where the promises, claims and intent have come to fruition.
You only get quality referrals when your client trusts you with them and that trust is earned by your deeds, not your words. If you don’t back up what you say, don’t be surprised when your client is uncomfortable giving referrals. The good news is this pillar isn’t dictated by chance since you have total control over your honesty, truthfulness, and actions, almost guarantying your client’s trust.
I worked for a enterprise software company that put the request for references into every contract they signed. At first that might seem quite pushy, but they saw it as a promise they had to live up to: if they provided great service, the customer would be willing to talk about it. The expectation was the at prospects would serve as references AFTER the project was live. The result? Close to 100% of their customers are “referencable”, which is pretty much unheard of in the software industry. Of course they had the great software and services to back up the request…
Dave Sohigian
TechDemoGuy.com
Comment by Dave Sohigian — May 18, 2009 @ 10:32 am |
Great post. Maybe it should be changed to “Clients love to give referrals if you’ve earned them with good service and a quality product.”
Comment by Jack Zufelt — May 19, 2009 @ 6:01 am |
[...] to give referrals.” Paul McCord tells us the dark reasons why, and how to deal with it, in The Four Pillars of a Successful Referral, Part 1 at Sales and Sales Management [...]
Pingback by MCE Round Table: The Contrarian Edition | Maximum Customer Experience Blog — May 23, 2009 @ 3:16 am |
I believe there is even more to it than that. I think referrals can be worked even more.
For example, a discount program for loyal customers, and provide any referrals with an immediate loyalty customer discount. And/Or giving out something small like a key chain, T-Shirt. And/Or even giving out a larger item through a raffle. New technology like Twitter can help keep a business in touch with its customers and from there, to their contacts.
There is always a double edge sword of using discounts… since it can generate expectations and customers holding out until a promotion is going on. It all really depends on the niche and the business model being used.
Comment by TomSaleson — January 17, 2010 @ 10:38 pm |