Sales and Sales Management Blog

November 22, 2008

The Four Pillars of a Successful Referral

Filed under: Client Relationships, Personal Marketing, Referral Selling, marketing, sales, selling, small business — Paul McCord @ 6:27 am
Tags: , , , , ,

At first glance, a referral is a pretty simple thing.  For most salespeople, managers, and trainers, a referral is just a name and phone number that a client has given the salesperson once the salesperson has completed the sale and has done a good job for the client.

Once a salesperson has received a referral, contacting the referred party is just as simple.  The salesperson either will call the referred party mentioning to him or her that the client, which they know, referred the salesperson to them, or will ask the client to write a referral letter to the prospect and then the salesperson will call the prospect after they have received the letter.  A very simple, straightforward process.

Unfortunately, this process is totally and completely wrong, and has been proven by millions of salespeople to not work worth a darn. Nevertheless, this is what is taught in almost every sales course in the world.  And not only is it a waste of time and effort, it deceives the salespeople who don’t succeed with it into believing that the fault lies with them, not with a “system” that doesn’t work.

Generating a large number of high quality referrals requires far more than “doing a good job and asking for referrals.”  It requires a systematic process of planting referral seeds, watering them at every chance, weeding out problems and issues, and then reaping the rewards.  That is what my PWWR (pronounced Power) Referral Generation System does.

If you want to generate a large number of high quality referrals from your clients, you must understand what a referral is based on.

A Referral is Based on a Foundation with Four Pillars-and you can control 3 of them:

The relationship between you and your client:  you can control this pillar of the foundation.  By instituting the full client relationship building process in detailed in Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (John Wiley and Sons, 2007), you can create a strong relationship with your client built on mutual trust.  Clients don’t give referrals because they like you or even because you did a good job.  Clients hate to give referrals and unless they have a deep trust that you will not embarrass them and that you’ll deal honestly with the prospect they refer, they won’t be willing to give quality referrals.

Your client’s purchasing experience: you can control this pillar of the foundation.  You must discover exactly what your client’s expectations and priorities are, then meet-, and hopefully exceed them.  You cannot afford to guess or “think” you know what these are-you must know exactly and you can only do that by discussing them with your client and then making sure you meet them or exceed them-nothing less will do.

The relationship between your client and the prospect: you have no control over this pillar.  Clients will refer you to people they have very strong, positive relationships with and people they have very negative relationships with.  If the prospect trusts and respects our client, some that trust and respect will be automatically imbued to you.  On the other hand, if the prospect distrusts or doesn’t respect your client, some of that distrust or disrespect will also be imbued to you.  Your job is to find out exactly what the relationship between client and prospect is and then plan you approach accordingly.

Your initial contact with the prospect: you control this pillar also.  If you have built your relationship with the client properly, your client will be happy to contact the prospect in whatever method you desire.  As outlined in Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income, there are a number of methods of contacting clients, each with their own pros and cons, depending on the strength or weakness of the client/prospect relationship.

As seen above, you have control of the majority of the pillars upon which a referral is based.  If any of the above is weak, your likelihood of generating quality referrals will decline and the weakness must be made up elsewhere.  In actuality, if one of the first two segments is weak, you will not be getting quality referrals-period.  However, you can mitigate the affects of the last two.

If the relationship between client and prospect is weak, use a stronger contact method.  Moreover, if the contact method is weak, convert the method into a stronger one.  For example, if your contact method is a phone call to a prospect who has a weak relationship with your client, try to bring in one or two other clients the prospect may know by reputation to build additional credibility.  Better yet, try to arrange a conference call between the prospect and your client.

Generating a large number of quality sales isn’t done by chance or luck, and neither is generating a large number of high quality referrals. Just as you need a well thought out process to consistently sell, you need a well thought out process to generate quality referrals.   You can significantly increase the volume and the success of your referrals if you understand the dynamics that generate quality referrals and then control those dynamics.

October 24, 2008

Why Clients Resist Giving Quality Referrals

Filed under: Referral Selling, marketing, prospecting, sales, selling, small business — Paul McCord @ 8:43 am
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Virtually every advisor has been taught that generating referrals from clients and prospects are the way to success, but less than 15% of all advisors generate enough referrals to significantly impact their business.  Most of the time, the problems advisors have generating referrals is due to the training-or lack thereof–they have received, rather than with the their performance.  The traditional referral selling training has been to “do a good job and ask for referrals.”  Yet, it has been obvious for decades that it really does not work very well.  Using the traditional approach, the typical advisor will get an occasional name and phone number or two from their clients, but seldom do these names and phone numbers result in a sale.  Certainly, on occasion, these referrals become clients, but the close ratio tends to be quite poor.

The failure to generate a large number of high quality referrals actually lies in the traditional method’s approach to the client.  The traditional “do a good job and ask for referrals” approach creates several roadblocks to getting referrals.

First, by waiting until the sale is complete and then asking for referrals, your client has not had the opportunity to prepare for your request.  To the client, the request comes from out of the blue.  When you approach your client with your request without giving them an opportunity to think about it, you have put them on the spot.  You are only giving them a few seconds to go through their mental file cabinet.  More than likely in this situation, they will not be able to immediately produce the number or the quality of referrals you want.

Second, even if your client takes a few seconds to think about it, they really do not know what you want.  It may seem obvious to you, but your client really has not a clue what a good referral for you is.  This may seem a little difficult to accept, but it is true.  You assume that because you sell a whole array of financial products and services, your customer is immediately going to think, “Who do I know who needs or uses any type of financial advice, guidance or products?”  Wrong assumption.  What they actually think is “what does this person want from me?”  Or, more likely, “how can I get out of answering this?”  Without having defined for your client exactly what a quality referral for you is, you stand a very little chance of getting quality referrals.

Third, the traditional method of “do a good job and ask for referrals” does not give your client a reason to give you referrals.  We make the assumption that if we have done a good job, the client will like and respect us and be willing to give us referrals.  Again, this is far from the case.  Most clients will not give good, quality referrals just because they like you or because you have done a good job for them.  You must give them a reason to give you referrals.  They need to understand why it is in their best interest to give you referrals-and after the sale is complete, it is too late to try to explain how giving you referrals benefits them.  Clients assume that whomever they refer you to will be more demanding and critical they have been.  When a client gives a referral, they are putting their reputation and image on the line with the person to whom they are referring you.  They are concerned about what their friend or acquaintance is going to think of them, particularly if you mess up.  Consequently, you must give them a good reason why they should go out on the limb for you.

Fourth, the traditional referral generation method does not give the client an objective standard by which to measure the quality of your performance.  You and your client may “feel” you have done a good job, but when you ask for referrals, they begin to think back over the sales process more critically and question whether you have really performed up to standard.  If the two of you agree up-front on exactly what you need to do in order to “do a good job,” they will have an objective basis to decide if they trust you enough and if you have earned the right to be sent to the people they really know and respect.

And finally, although not a direct result of the traditional referral generation method, an equally serious issue is studies show that the majority of the times advisors do not really ask for referrals-rather they suggest referrals.  Instead of asking a direct question seeking referrals such as “John, which of your friends, family members or acquaintances do you know that I may be able help solve some crucial issues?” the typical advisor will make a weak request such as “John, if you happen to know someone I can help would you mind letting me know?”  Or, “John, if you run across someone who could use my services would mind giving them my card?”  Rather than a request for referrals, these are throwaway sentences, quickly forgotten by most clients.

Traditional referral training is inherently unfair to you, the advisor, and your client.  It does not give the you the tools needed to successfully work with your client to generate quality referrals, and it does not give your client a reason give referrals, nor a chance to become comfortable giving you referrals.

Yet, it is possible to generate a very large number of high quality referrals from your clients.  You need to make sure that your interaction with your client eliminates these shortcomings.  Preparing your client during the sales process to give referrals by informing them up-front that you are a referral-based advisor and expect referrals after the sale; defining for your client exactly what a quality referral for you is; educating your client on why it is in their best interest to give you referrals; and then coming to an agreement with your client on exactly what you must do during the course of the sale to earn their referrals will quickly give you a large pipeline of quality referrals. 

By recognizing and resolving the problems of the traditional referral generation method, you can turn these issues into your strengths, generating a large number of high quality referrals from almost every one of your clients and prospects.

October 17, 2008

Turn Your Client Database into Gold

Filed under: Personal Marketing, Referral Selling, business, lead generation, marketing, prospecting, sales, selling, small business — Paul McCord @ 4:14 am
Tags: , , , , , ,

Right this minute, you are probably sitting on tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of commissions. Most registered reps have a database of current and past clients whose potential referrals are worth several thousand additional commission dollars per month.  Yet, this resource goes virtually untapped for most advisors.

Why?  Simply because most reps have not learned how to successfully convert their client relationships into referral relationships. Acquiring referrals from clients is not as simple as “doing a good job” and then asking for referrals. Generating a large number of highly qualified referrals from a client is a process that starts from the moment the prospect is first met, not a one-time act after the sale has been completed.  It requires an understanding of what a successful referral is based on, and how to exploit the referral to insure a successful contact with the referee.

Every referral involves the interaction of three people and four relationships among those three individuals.  The strength or weakness of each of these interactions will influence the success or failure of the referral for the advisor:

  1. The Advisor/Client relationship:  In order for the client to be willing to give a quality referral, there must have been built a strong bond of trust between the rep and the client.  A client may give a “referral” to someone they do not trust, but they will not give a referral to someone they know well and respect if they do not trust the salesperson.  If there is only a weak bond of trust between the advisor and client, the “referral” the client is likely to give will be to someone the client either believes will not meet with the advisor or someone the client does not know well or respect.
  2. The client’s purchasing experience: Clients will not give high quality referrals if their purchasing experience did not meet or exceed both their expectations and their priorities.  All clients enter purchasing relationships with certain expectations and priorities.  Expectations and priorities are not the same.  A client may expect to be kept fully informed during the course of the sale and may have certain product or service functionality requirements as his top priority.  In order to receive a large number of high quality referrals, the rep must make sure that they meet or exceed both the client’s expectations and priorities.  Despite the current parroting of the buzz phrase, “exceeding the customer’s expectations,” meeting and exceeding client expectations is seldom accomplished.  Few people take the time and effort to discuss with their client what the client’s expectations and priorities are-rather most reps, and companies, assume they know.  At best, all they can knowingly accomplish is meeting or exceeding their expectations of what they think their client should expect.
  3. The Client/Prospect relationship: The trust and respect relationship between client and referee are of great importance.  The stronger the bond of trust and respect between the client and the prospect, the easier it will be for the advisor to set an appointment with and then sell the prospect.  In referral selling, a great deal of the rep’s credibility, or lack thereof, is built on the trust and respect the prospect has for the client who made the referral.  If the client/prospect bond is strong enough, the rep is virtually guaranteed a sale.  On the other hand, if the bond is particularly weak, the referral is little better than a cold call.  Consequently, it is of utmost importance for the advisor to know as much as possible about the client’s relationship, and likely bond of trust, with the prospect.
  4. The advisor’s initial contact with the referee: based on the client/prospect bond, the advisor must determine how best to contact the prospect to produce the greatest opportunity to acquire a meeting.   The weaker the relationship between the client and the prospect, the stronger the contact method the rep should seek to employ.  If the client/prospect relationship is extremely strong, virtually any contact method, including a phone call from the salesperson mentioning the client’s name will suffice, but for a weak relationship, the rep must strive to use the strongest contact method possible.  In descending order, from weakest to strongest, possible methods of contact include a phone call to the prospect from the advisor, an email from the client, a client letter, a client phone call, a client/prospect/advisor lunch meeting.

Fortunately, the advisor can control most of the above interactions.  Only the client/prospect relationship is completely out of the rep’s hands.  Even then, the rep can compensate for a less than ideal client/prospect relationship through using a stronger initial contact method.

If you understand the foundation of a referral, you can quickly increase your referral-based business and begin to mine that gold mine in your client database.

September 7, 2008

Great Tips and a Free Audio Copy of My Referral Selling Book

Filed under: Book Recommendations, Referral Selling, Sales Resources, business, lead generation, marketing, prospecting, sales, selling — Paul McCord @ 6:08 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Would you like a free unabridged audio copy of my bestselling book Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals? Well, you can have one courtesy of Jeb Blount, The Sales Guy. That’s every second of the 4 hours and 18 minutes of the book-and not only do you not pay the Audible cost of $17.95, you don’t pay a penny.

Jeb’s podcast series, The Sales Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips, has arranged for you get a free download of my book in audio form from Audiable.com. Already have the book in hardback or audio form? Would you rather have another book? No problem. You can choose my book or a book by Nido Qubein, Tom Hopkins, Brain Tracey, Steven R. Covey, Harry Beckwith, Zig Zigler, Malcolm Gladwell, Jeffrey Giotmer, Seth Godin, or other top authors.

The best part is you also get great sales tips from Jeb. Hop on over to iTunes, Quick and Dirty Tips, or Sales Gravy, listen to Jeb give you some tips to help you sell and then listen to me tell you how to turn your business into a referral-based business, increase your income substantially, get off the ineffective, discouraging, and never-ending cold calling treadmill, and enjoy your job a whole lot more.

I want to thank Jeb for featuring my book on this offer-and encourage you, whether you get my book, another book, or no book, to head over to Quick and Dirty Tips and improve you sales business.

August 16, 2008

Turning Worthless ‘Referrals’ into Real Clients

Filed under: Personal Marketing, Referral Selling, marketing, prospecting, sales, sales training, selling — Paul McCord @ 8:52 am
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Sales through referrals from clients make up less than 7% of the business for over 75% of all salespeople. Yet referrals are the basis of business for most of the top 5% mega-producers.

Why do so few get so much from referrals when the vast majority of salespeople get so little from the same marketing method?

It isn’t luck.

It isn’t that their clients know more people or are easier to get referrals from.

It isn’t magic.

The mega-producers who work their business from referrals have learned that:

  • Despite what many teach, clients don’t want to give referrals
  • Simply asking for referrals gets you nothing but maybe a name and phone number that is little better than picking a name and number at random out of the phone book
  • Getting lots of high quality referrals is a process, not a question at the end of the sale
  • If you want lots of great referrals you have to make giving great referrals easy for you client
  • A real referral isn’t just a name and phone number, it’s a direct introduction to the prospect
  • By using a disciplined process that addresses and overcomes all of the client’s anxiety and fears about referrals, they can generate 5, 10, 15 or more high quality referrals from each of their clients

If you want to get out of the rat race of cold calling and ‘networking,’ if you want to eliminate the expensive direct mail, the ineffective fliers and the other methods you’re using that aren’t getting you where you want to go, you have to learn to find and connect with high quality prospects the way the most successful salespeople do-through working with your clients to meet and connect with tons of high quality prospects.

You can learn the same process the most successful salespeople use and have the same success in generating the quantity and quality of referrals that will take your business to a referral-based business. The PWWR Referral Generation SystemTM was developed by Paul McCord by combining the best referral practices of 47 true million dollar a year income mega-producers. It is the only comprehensive referral generation process that works with clients to generate referrals in a way that clients are comfortable with and respond to by giving a large number of quality referrals.

Till September 1st, McCord Training is offering special referral training packages at tremendous discounts. You can learn the process and with some packages even have Paul give you direct one-on-one referral coaching.

With these learning materials you learn:

  • Why just asking for referrals doesn’t work
  • Why clients hate being asked for referrals
  • How to create the relationship with the client that will make them want to give referrals
  • How to make giving referrals so easy for the client that they’ll give you 10, 15, 20 or more quality referrals
  • Why just getting a name and phone number is useless
  • How to turn ‘referrals’ into direct, powerful, appointment setting introductions
  • How to turn your business into a referral-based business

No gimmicks, no get rich quick schemes, no tricks. The PWWR Referral Generation System is a PROCESS, not a trick. It is a comprehensive program that makes clients at ease with referrals, gives them an objective basis to determine if you’ve earned the referrals, and makes it easy for them to give you a large number of quality referrals.

These special training packages include Paul’s best-selling book on referrals that is becoming recognized as the authoritative work on referral generation, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals, the companion workbook, 4 hours of CD training on referrals, and some include personal one-on-one referral coaching.

These packages allow you to save anywhere from $50.00 to over $1,340.00 from the standard retail price of the products if sold separately.

Don’t wait as the sale ends September 1st and these types of discounts-almost 50% off retail won’t be offered again until next August-if then.

See and purchase the packages HERE

August 5, 2008

New Referral Book Coming Spring of 2009 from Sales Gravy Press

Filed under: Referral Selling, Sales Resources, business, prospecting, sales, sales training, selling, small business, success — Paul McCord @ 7:31 am
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Sales Gravy Press Signs Best-Selling Author Paul McCord

Author and internationally recognized sales trainer Paul McCord has signed with Sales Gravy Press to publish his newest book, a follow-up work to his best-selling book on referrals, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (Wiley 2006).

Cape Coral, FL (PRWEB) July 31, 2008 — Author and internationally recognized sales trainer Paul McCord has signed with Sales Gravy Press to publish his newest book, a follow-up work to his best-selling book on referrals, “Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals” (Wiley 2006). The new book leads the reader through specific application strategies of the groundbreaking referral generation process laid out in Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income.

“The initial book laid the groundwork for a disciplined, predictable, effective process for generating a large number of high quality referrals from each client,” McCord said, “and now I show salespeople how to apply those principles to specific situations. The first book demonstrated why the training they received hasn’t worked and walked them through a process that not only generates referrals, but generates a large number of high quality referrals. The new book goes even further and shows salespeople how to mine their database, turn cold calls into referred calls, and how to make giving referrals so easy they can generate 10, 15, 20 or more quality referrals from every one of their clients.”

With almost three decades under his belt as a salesperson, manager, business owner, and consultant, McCord’s experience and knowledge is both wide and deep. And like most of us, his life’s journey has taken some strange turns. “I thought I was going to be an academic, teaching Philosophy in a university,” he admits. “But as a doctoral student, it became clear that I didn’t have the personality for the academic life. I was more attracted to the real than the theoretical. I left the program and went into sales — and what’s more real than selling? Now, almost thirty years later, I’m back where I started–teaching, combining my love of working with and training salespeople and managers with the hard lessons I’ve learned over the years in the sales business.”

“Getting Paul on board is a huge win for Sales Gravy Press,” said Publisher, Jeb Blount. “Paul’s large following and proven success as an author are cornerstones in our mission to build a foundation of the brightest authors, speakers, thought leaders, and experts in the sales profession. We are just ecstatic that Paul has joined the Sales Gravy family.”

The new book will be released in the spring of 2009.

July 19, 2008

Prospecting is Getting Tough–Are You Prepared?

Filed under: Personal Marketing, Referral Selling, cold calling, lead generation, marketing, prospecting, sales, selling, small business — Paul McCord @ 6:31 am
Tags: , , , , , , ,

More and more of us in sales are finding it more and more difficult to keep our pipelines full with high quality prospects.  The slowing economy is putting a great deal of pressure on prospects-both business and individual–to think very carefully before they commit to any purchase.  Consumer confidence is down.  Unemployment is inching up.  Inflation is becoming a concern.  Both oil and the stock market are on wild rides.

Salespeople are waking up every morning wondering where they’re going to find this month’s commission check.  And although the signs of an economy that was headed for a major slowdown if not a recession have been around for almost two years, few salespeople took the time and invested the effort to prepare by learning more effective ways to find and connect with quality prospects.

The good news is it isn’t too late to change your prospecting and personal marketing strategies so they more closely match the way prospects want to be connected with and that will identify and engage more high quality prospects.  You can learn techniques that will open more doors, identify more high prospects, and generate more sales.

How?

To start, next Thursday, July 24 McCord Training is offering three one-hour tele-seminars, each deals with a separate technique of reaching quality prospects.

Never a Cold Call, Always an Introduction   1PM Central

Cold calling is a time intensive process that is frustrating for the salesperson and irritating to most prospects.  Prospects have assistants, voice mail, caller ID, and other gatekeepers in place.  Why?  Not because they want to talk to you but because they specifically DON’T want to talk to you.  Does it make sense to bang the phones trying to connect with people who you KNOW don’t want you calling?

No, it doesn’t.  And you don’t have to.  You can learn to turn those cold calls into real connection calls by learning how to gather the information you need before hand to be able to call the decision maker with real information about specific issues you know they have and must deal with.  You can turn your cold calls into referred calls that make your call a welcome, informative call that engages your prospect’s attention and gets you appointments.

The First 10 Seconds  3PM Central

If you do cold call, you have only about 10 seconds to grab your prospect’s attention.  If you can’t get their interest in 10 seconds, your call is going nowhere.  Learn 4 techniques to immediately grab and retain your prospect’s interest.  Learning to get your prospect’s interest will significantly improve your appointment setting ratio.

The PWWR Referral Generation System  5PM Central

Referrals are touted as the single best, most cost effective marketing method any salesperson has.  Yet few salespeople are successful at acquiring a large number of high quality referrals from clients.  Why?  Because what they’ve been taught about referrals doesn’t work.  They been taught to just “do a good job and ask for referrals.”  That’s about the worst advice you can get.  They’ve been taught that clients want to give referrals.  The truth is clients hate giving referrals and most salespeople know that and consequently don’t ask.  They’ve been taught getting referrals is a no brainer-just ask.  It isn’t-it requires understanding human nature and forming a process that conforms to the way clients think and respond and to their interests and goals, not the salesperson’s.

But referrals can be the most effective, highest ROI prospecting method you have.  You just can’t do it the way you’ve been taught.  Generating a large number of high quality referrals requires a disciplined, predictable, client centered process that prepares the client to give referrals, lets the client know why giving you referrals is in their best interests and that makes giving a large number of high quality referrals easy for the client.

Change your 2008 results on July 24.  Whether you want to learn how to be more effective at cold calling or you want to learn more effective prospecting methods, there’s a seminar for you.

Register for 1, 2 or all 3 seminars

Register for any individual seminar $67.00

Register for any two $114.00  and save 15% off individual registration fee

Register for all three $151.00  and save 25% off individual registration fee

July 15, 2008

Referral Sources or Referral Partnerships?

Filed under: Networking, Referral Selling, business, lead generation, marketing, prospecting, sales, selling, small business — Paul McCord @ 7:44 am
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Is your pipeline anemic?

Are you finding yourself having to work harder to find and connect with quality prospects?

Is your call list getting short and you’re not sure where you’re going to find new names?

Whether you’re facing the above issues or not, aligning yourself with others who can expose you to new prospects, help set up the sale for you, and help make life more enjoyable is one of the most effective marketing methods you can employ.

Enlisting other salespeople or companies who sell to the same prospects as you to help you find and connect with quality prospects has been a staple of marketing for top producers for decades—and unsuccessfully imitated by countless others.

Why have top producers found working with other professionals for referrals to work so well while so many others have failed to capitalize on them?

I often hear salespeople and managers–and even some sales trainers–talk about seeking out ‘referral sources’ to help them find and connect with prospects.  These referral sources tend to be salespeople who are likely to deal with people or companies that would be great prospects for the salesperson and who might need or want their product or service.

These ‘referral sources’ discussions always interest me, so I’ll engage the salesperson in a conversation about their experience with them.  Typically my first question will be how much business they’ve closed through these referral sources.  A few will indicate they’ve done well with them, most indicate they’ve seen very little to no real business from their sources.

When I ask the salesperson I’m speaking with what the other salesperson gets out of making the referral, they mention that they are giving the referrer the assurance that they’ll take exceptional care of the salesperson’s client, allowing that salesperson to become more valuable to their client by becoming a trusted source of addition advice and services, or they’ll give the salesperson’s client a discount of some sort that only that salesperson’s clients get, or they’ll give the salesperson a $5 or $10 gift card to Starbucks or wherever for every successful referral–in other words, nothing of value to the referrer.

When I assert that the other person is getting nothing of value, I often get a scornful look and verbal resistance.  Some of the responses I’ve received are:

•    From a mortgage loan officer: “Their client has to have a loan and I’ll make sure their client is well taken care of and gets a great deal—and that the loan will close on time.  That’s real value to that Realtor and their client.”
•    From an insurance agent: “She doesn’t offer insurance, just securities.  Her clients need insurance and she can be assured that I won’t try to steal her clients or infringe on her business in any way and if she doesn’t help her client through me, her client is likely to see an agent that will try to steal her business.”
•    From a salesperson for an IT service company: “I often find additional needs the client has and when I do, if he (the person who referred him to the client) sells that product, I’ll send the business to him.  I’ll be a source for additional sales for him to his client.”
•    From a specialized printing salesperson: “My referral sources are also in the printing business.  Their clients will on occasion need some things done that they can’t do and that I can.  My appeal to them is that by referring the business to me, they are assured that I’ll talk up just how good they are and it keeps their client from going to another company that might be able to not only do what I do but might be able to replace them as well.”
•    From a pool builder sales rep: “I target residential remodelers who do a lot of extensive remodeling.   My company isn’t the cheapest but it is very competitively priced and if they refer their client, we’ll give their client a 10% discount.  We make them look good because their client not only gets a high quality company, but they save a lot of money too.”

In each of these cases (and these responses are the norm, not the exception), the reason given for the referral source to send them referrals is that they are doing the referral source a favor!  “I’ll talk them up,” or “I’ll close the loan on time,” or “I won’t try to steal her business,” or “I’ll make them look good.”  The worst part is these salespeople are serious when they make these statements.

Like I said, these referral sources get nothing out of the deal.  Why do they need these salespeople?  A promise of making them look good, or not trying to steal their business, or closing the loan on time is a dime a dozen.  Actually, they’re more like a penny a hundred.  There isn’t a mortgage loan officer, IT salesperson, pool builder, or printing salesperson alive that isn’t likely to make the same promise.  If you think you’re doing your referral source a favor and that is going to earn you their business, you’re in for a surprise.

The first rule in developing referral business from others is that they don’t need you.  They don’t need your promises, they don’t need you to make them look good, they don’t need you messin’ with their clients.

The second rule in developing referral business from others is they need business too.  They need referrals to quality prospects, just like you do.

The ‘secret’ the top producers have discovered when getting referrals from other salespeople and companies is to forget about ‘referral sources’ and develop referral partnerships—real partnerships where the referrals go in both directions, not jut one.

Salespeople and companies need the same thing you need—business.  If they need someone to make them look good or to help one of their clients, they have no problem finding dozens of salespeople willing to help.  What they need are reciprocal relationships where the people they refer clients to also refer prospects back to them.  They need partners, not moochers.  And if you’re not giving back in kind, that’s exactly what you are—a moocher.

Setting up Referral Partnerships

1.  Identify Your Potential Partners: Look for other salespeople or companies who deal with the same prospects as you.  Define your ideal prospect—you may have more than one ideal—and then look for others who target the same prospect.  You want to find salespeople who are already established in the market; who have the reach and reputation you wish for yourself; and whose quality of products and services match yours.

There is no need to waste time and energy on low producing salespeople as they won’t be able to feed you many prospects.  In addition, the quality and cost of your products and/or services should closely match your potential partner’s since you will be looking for the same prospect.  If your product is top of the line and expensive, don’t partner with a salesperson whose products are on the bargain end of the spectrum.  Likewise, if you are selling modestly priced products, don’t think you can partner with a premium priced company to enhance your image—their clients are more than likely not going to be interested in your company’s products.

2.  Know What You’re After: Once you’ve identified a number of potential partners, develop a plan of approach for each.  What are you looking for with each partner—joint marketing?  Maybe joint sales calls?  Simply referring clients back and forth?

Take a close look at the activities of each salesperson or company you’ve identified to get an idea of how they operate.  Do they do a lot of advertising?  Are they constantly running specials?  Are their sales materials high dollar—or maybe they don’t really use collateral material?  Are there gaps in their offerings that you can help fill?  Do they tend to sell mostly to existing customers or to new prospects?

How your proposed partner works will lead you to know what to propose to them.  If they do a great deal of advertising or direct mail, maybe a joint advertising campaign would be of interest to them.  If they work primarily with their existing client base, referring back and forth might be most appealing.  If they use a lot of high dollar collateral material, you better have material that is equally impressive.

3.  Set an Appointment with the Partner Prospect: Invite your partner prospect to lunch.  Your partnership discussion is important and shouldn’t be a viewed as a casual phone conversation.

Many of your potential partners will be men and women you either don’t know or have only met once or twice very casually.  Many will not know who you are.  Since the men and women you’ve identified as potential partners are the best in their industry in their local market, a very effective way to gain a lunch meeting is to acknowledge their success and superior reputation.  Just call them, introduce yourself, and then tell them that you know them via their reputation and the quality of their work and that you’d like to take them to lunch as you have found that it is always good practice to know top people in the business.  Most will accept—people like to be recognized for their work.  Seldom have I been turned down with this approach.  And best of all, it’s true.  I do want to know the best people in the business and they are among the best in the business in their area.

4.  Make Your Proposal: During your meeting, present your proposal.  Your proposal must focus on what the partnership will do for your potential partner, not what it will do for you.  Salespeople are people, meaning their natural interest is ‘what’s in it for me.’  If you approach the conversation from a self-centered point of view, your proposal is dead before you even begin.

If you’ve done your homework well, you should be able to relate exactly why your potential partner would be interested in working with you, what type of working relationship it would be, and what the potential results for them will be.

Since there is a very good chance your potential partner doesn’t know who you are—and possibly they know little or nothing about your company—you’ll have to be able to quickly create a relationship with them and to provide credibility for yourself and your company.  Hopefully you have mutual clients or testimonials from individuals or companies your potential partner will recognize and respect.

Don’t expect a commitment during your initial meeting.  Most often if the person is interested, they’ll need time to do some due diligence, as well as additional discussions to develop the model for the partnership.

5.  The Monkey is on Your Back: The partnership was your idea, not theirs.  That means you’ll have to do the work to get the partnership going.  Even if you gain agreement from your potential partner, they won’t be committed until they see results.  You’ll have to take the lead in getting the partnership moving—and most importantly, you’ll have to provide them with real leads, referrals, and potential business before you can expect them to begin feeding you leads and referrals.

If you’re just looking for free, easy business, don’t bother with a partnership because it won’t do you any good.  However, if you’re willing to invest the time and effort, focusing on creating partnerships with the top salespeople and companies in your area that work with your prime prospects can bring in business you would have had a very difficult if not impossible time reaching.

Partnerships are great door openers and business builders.  But they aren’t magical.  They take work.  They take time and effort.  And most of all, they require you to do what you say you’re going to do—be a source of new business for your partner, just as they are expected to be a source of new business for you.

July 9, 2008

Dave Stein’s Review of Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals

Filed under: Book Reviews, Referral Selling, lead generation, marketing, prospecting, sales, sales training, selling — Paul McCord @ 6:48 am
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Referral Selling: An Old Silver Bullet, Revitalized

By Dave Stein

If you visit the best sales blog sites, you’ll no doubt stumble upon Paul McCord. Paul has a lot to say about an old silver bullet-referral selling.

I call referral selling “old” only because the practice of leveraging existing customer relationships has been around for decades. In fact, not enough sales people build this potentially powerful lead generation strategy into their overall territory management approach. (There are reasons for that. Among them are unhappy, unreferenceable customers, fear and simply not knowing how to referral sell.)

I’ve been pretty tough on sales tips books and articles. With that in mind, referral selling skills (like presentation skills and typing skills) can be independent of any sales methodology.

Paul’s book, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income - Sales Success Through Client Referrals provides a comprehensive view of the subject. His intent is to guide the reader into deploying a referral-based business model. Although Paul’s background is in financial services, where referral selling is more widely used, his strategies and tactics can be applied across pretty much any industry.

Paul’s PWWR (pronounced “power”) system is the key. Plant the seeds, Water them throughout the sale, Weed out any issues, and Reap the referrals. This is Paul’s recommended process and it makes a lot of sense. Although I have not employed Paul’s PWWR process, I can envision it working very well in diverse situations. He’s done a terrific job.

Here is my recommendation for sales leaders. (A full-fledged plan will contain considerably more detail-this is just a starting point….)

  1. If your sales team hasn’t been effectively leveraging existing customers for referrals, determine why.
  2. Benchmark the level at which referrals business is being converted to sales.
  3. If the reason is that (you and) your salespeople don’t know how, invest in this book.
  4. Take the time to study Paul’s referral process and his recommendations.
  5. Set an objective. For example, referrals will be the source of 10% of our business next year.
  6. Devise a plan for adopting his process across your team.
  7. Build appropriate coursework, tools, coaching mechanisms. (This is a difficult proposition for a busy sales manager. You probably don’t have either the time or the skills. I’m sure Paul would be delighted to engage with you on this…)
  8. Train your team or get them trained.
  9. Deploy the process, measure results against your benchmark and objective and refine.

Dave Stein is an internationally recognized thought leader in the area of sales performance, sales effectiveness and especially sales training. He writes the Smart Sales column for Sales and Marketing Management magazine, is the author of How Winners Sell, and is Founder and CEO of ES Research Group, an independent firm offering independent, authoritative intelligence about sales training and the companies that provide it.

Read reviews of Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income by ChangingMinds.org, AllBooks Reviews, Selling Power Magazine, Dave Lakhani, and Frank Rubauskas here.

July 6, 2008

Change Your 2008 On July 24

Filed under: Referral Selling, cold calling, lead generation, marketing, prospecting, sales, sales training, selling — Paul McCord @ 10:30 am
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Three Incredible One-hour Tele-Seminars on One Day
That Will Change Your 2008

Attend 1, 2, or All 3 Tele-seminars and Pump Up Your Pipeline for the Second Half of the Year

Afraid of the economic slowdown?

New to Sales?

Getting burnt out on the endless, fruitless cold calling?

Can’t find a way to get your career in gear?

Not making the money you want to make?

Just want to make more money?

Whether you’re engaged in B2B or B2C sales, these seminars will show you how to radically increase the number of appointments you set with qualified prospects.

What You Know About Your Prospect:

  • You know your prospect doesn’t want your cold call.
  • You know your prospect thinks your call is nothing but a waste of their time
  • You know your prospect resents the interruption
  • You know your prospect has gatekeepers in place to keep you away

What You Know About Yourself:

  • You know you don’t have a way to grab your prospect’s attention and interest
  • You know you can’t differentiate yourself from your competition on a cold call
  • You know you can’t leave a voice message because it won’t be returned
  • You know you’re wasting a huge amount of time and effort cold calling
  • You know you’ll never become a top producer cold calling

So, what’s the answer?

    1. Discover a way to quit cold calling and still use the phone to make connections with qualified prospects
    2. Discover how to grab your prospect’s interest within 10 seconds of them answering the call
    3. Learn how to turn your business from cold calling based to referral-based which is the way top producers generate their business

1PM Central
Never A Cold Call, Always an Introduction

Discover how to turn cold calls into a referred call where your prospect welcomes your call and WANTS to hear what you have to say.

You’ll Learn:

  • To turn cold calls into real conversations about how you can address real prospect problems and issues
  • Immediately capture your prospect’s attention and interest
  • Get your voice messages returned
  • Get past the gatekeeper without lying or manipulation
  • Differentiate yourself from all the other calls your prospect receives by demonstrating your professionalism, your knowledge about your prospect, and by making a call that is worth your prospect’s time

3PM Central
The First 10 Seconds-How to Instantly Engage Your Cold Call Prospect’s Interest

Still want to cold call instead of getting a referral to the prospect? Then you must learn how to grab your prospect’s interest. The first 10 seconds of your cold call determines whether or not you’ll capture your prospect’s interest-or get blown off. Learn how to get your prospect to not only listen, but to pay attention.

You’ll Learn:

  • To formulate an introduction that grabs your prospect’s interest
  • Determine what you should be talking about BEFORE you call your prospect
  • Create rapport with the prospect, not hostility from the prospect

5PM Central
The PWWR Referral Generation System-
Don’t Dream About Referral Business,
Learn How the Mega-Producers Get Tons of Referrals

Learn to turn your business from low return, high time investment prospecting methods such as cold calling and networking into a high return business through generating a large number of high quality referrals from your clients and prospects. Mega-producers don’t cold call, fax worthless fliers all over the place, or run from ‘networking’ event to networking event. Instead, they’ve learned how to get 5, 6, 7, even 10 high quality referrals from every one of their clients and even their prospects.

Just asking for referrals will get you nowhere. Instead you have to learn HOW to make referrals work.

You’ll Learn:

  • Why your client won’t give referrals if you just ask
  • What you must do to get your client comfortable and willing to give quality referrals
  • Get your client to AGREE to give you 5 or more quality referrals
  • What you must do to EARN the referrals
  • How to make it easy for your client to give 8, 10 or even 15 referrals
  • How to guarantee you get an appointment with the referred prospect

Can’t Make it One of More of the Seminars? No Problem!

Since each session will be recorded, register for the seminar and if you can’t make it you’ll still be able to ‘attend’ at your convenience after the 24th.

Register for any individual seminar $67.00

Register for any two for only $114.00 save $20.00

Register for all three for only $151.00 save $50.00

REGISTER HERE

Next Page »

Blog at WordPress.com.