Are you finding that you’re just not getting the number of quality referrals you want from your clients? Chances are you said yes because that’s the case with most sellers. Oh, sure, we all have some clients that will give us referrals all day long. Just ask and they’ll give you name after name. Other clients, the majority, aren’t nearly as generous with their referrals.
The biggest problem in both cases is so often the referral we get isn’t much better than pointing at a name in the phonebook at random.
How can you guarantee that you get great referrals? Simple. Make sure the client gives you a great referral by finding the referral for them to give you, rather than relying on them coming up with a quality referral to give.
The reality is that clients really don’t know who we’re looking for and most of them just don’t have a real incentive to invest the time and energy to come up with a great referral for us.
But we know who is a great referral for us. And certainly we’re willing to invest the time and energy to find a great referral (if we’re not, we have some real serious issues to deal with).
Since we’re the one with the need; and we’re the one with the desire; and we’re the one who knows who makes a good referral for us, why would we rely on anyone else other than our self to come up with the referral?
So how can we come up with the referral for our client to give us?
Here are three steps to guaranteeing you get great referrals from your clients:
- 1. Get Your Client On-board to Give Referrals. Most sellers wait until after the sale has been completed before they bring up the idea of referrals. Bad idea.
Most clients need time to get comfortable with the idea of giving referrals, so bring up referrals early in the relationship. Don’t ask for referrals; just let your client know that your business is built on referrals and then drop referral seeds as the sale progresses. Since your prospects and clients aren’t stupid, if they hear you mention referrals often in a casual manner, they’ll get the impression referrals are important to you and they will be expecting you to ask for them at some point.
- 2. Find Out Who Your Client Knows. We’ve already established that in order to get great referrals you have to do the work for your client, so do it by discovering during the course of the relationship who they know that you know you want to be referred to.
How do you find out? Through small-talk (who do they mention in conversation they know); paying attention to what’s in their environment (pictures, association directories, membership plaques, and such); their background (where did they work previously); their work (what vendors and suppliers do they interact with). Your job is to be a detective and to uncover the relationships they have with people or companies that you know you want to be referred to. The more you uncover the more quality referrals you uncover.
- 3. Don’t Ask for Referrals, Ask for THE Referral. Now when it comes time to ask for referrals, you’re not going to be like every other seller and ask a weak question such as, “Donna, do you happen to know anyone else (or another company) that might be able to use my products or services (or that I can help—or any other such weak question)?”
Instead you’re going to ask for a specific referral: “Donna, I’ve been trying to connect with David Jones for some time without success. You mentioned that you’ve worked with David for several years, would you be comfortable introducing me to him?” You know she knows David. You have reason to believe David is a good prospect for you. Don’t waste Donna’s time with that weak general referral question; ask to get connected to a person you know she knows that you know you want to connect with.
Referrals can be the foundation of your sales business if you just develop the skills necessary to be a referral-based salesperson. If Donna knows three people or companies you know you want to be referred to and you can get introductions to them from her, how much time and energy have you saved getting those three introductions through referrals instead of cold calling or sending out direct mail or hoping to bump into them at a networking event?
Forget what you’ve been taught about asking for referrals. Referral generation is a PROACTIVE process where you do the work, not your client. Your client doesn’t have the motivation, you do. They don’t have the understanding of who makes a good referral like you do. Your client doesn’t have the time to invest in figuring out a good referral like you do. It’s your business, not theirs. Make it easy to give quality referrals—you’ll get a ton of them if you do.
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Pingback by Tweets that mention Three Steps to Getting Hiqh Quality Referrals From Your Clients « Sales and Sales Management Blog -- Topsy.com — September 1, 2010 @ 2:08 pm |
Great post. Thanks. I would recommend that anyone interested in developing their skill set should read The Go-Giver co-authored by Bob Burg and John David Mann and Endless Referrals by Bob Burg. The issue is seldom, if at all, addressed properly. A referral is often asked for in such a crass way that it NEVER works: “Do you know anyone who would be interested in my product [or service]?” It’s a bit like asking anyone if they know a good joke; yes like we all carry a stack of those in our head. A funnel technique as advocated by the uber sales trainer Tom Hopkins is what is needed. Give the client, mid-term the relationship, a very clear vision of the pool or group of people that you are interested in. “Mr [name] you mentioned that you played golf. Do you play regularly with anyone?” If they say yes, then drill down into that group. This is not always going to work and you may have to go through an A-Z of professions in the same but you have to be specific to be terrific with this.
Regards
Julian
Comment by Julian Summerhayes — September 1, 2010 @ 2:49 pm |
Thanks for input Julian. I certainly agree that Burg’s book is well worth the investment–but I’m going to modestly suggest that my “Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success Through Client Referrals” is equally valuable in the area of referral generation. I’ve taken the best practices of 47 true million dollar a year sales superstars whose businesses are primarily referral based and I lay out a detailed process for generating a large number of high quality referrals.
Comment by Paul McCord — September 1, 2010 @ 3:03 pm |
Paul
I think Bob many mention this in his CD version of Endless Referrals. Do you have a chapter or two that I could take a look at? Sorry to be a bit cheeky but if you don’t ask … .
Kind regards
Julian
Comment by Julian Summerhayes — September 1, 2010 @ 3:07 pm |
Just go to the book’s Amazon page http://tinyurl.com/29l6gxw and click the “Look Inside” icon. You’ll have the opportunity to read a fair portion of the book.
Comment by Paul McCord — September 1, 2010 @ 3:28 pm |
thanks Paul.
Comment by Julian Summerhayes — September 1, 2010 @ 3:29 pm |
Excellent advice Paul, as always, you are the master at referrals. I’m amazed at how many sales people 1) do not have “getting referrals” as part of their pipeline strategy and 2) those who do look for sales referrals simply call and say “who do you know…”… putting all the work on our clients.
Comment by Online Sales Training — September 2, 2010 @ 8:59 am |
Thank you for the kind words, Michael. And I agree–why in the world we expect our clients to do our jobs for us is beyond me. Yes, they know people who would be great prospects for us, but it isn’t their job to do our prospecting. All we have to do is think about marrying our prospecting activity with their contacts–do the work and then ask for the introduction. Make it easy for them and they’ll make it easy for us.
Comment by Paul McCord — September 2, 2010 @ 9:07 am |