Referrals are vital to building a quality pipeline for most businesses. However, many sales people don’t give this critical channel for business development the attention it deserves. I was pleased to read the interview with Barry Garber of Alex. Brown’s Garber Wealth Management where he attributed his firm’s success to fostering client relationships and the referrals that generates. Why do so many businesses struggle to generate a similar referral pipeline to the one that Garber Wealth Management has? There are two main reasons why people typically do not do a great job on referrals and introductions.
The first reason is that we simply don’t ask. Despite frequent client interactions and meetings, we are often inconsistent or negligent in probing for potential introductions due to fear, time constraints, or forgetfulness.
The second reason is that we ask poorly. We ak poorly by making a simple request rather than having a conversation. We start with very weak words such as: “Oh, by the way, do you know anybody who might be interested in talking with us?”
Don’t make these mistakes.
The rules behind referrals and introductions are 20-60-20. Twenty percent of your client/customer base is going to refer to you whether you ask or not. The other twenty percent never refers, not because they don’t like you, but because they are uncomfortable making introductions for some reason. In this case, let them off the hook, we don’t want to sour the relationship by badgering them for referrals.
What we’re looking for is that middle sixty percent, the movable middle. The folks that like you, would be happy to refer and introduce, but don’t think about you consistently – that is unless we proactively have a conversation.
Make it a point to have a conversation with your clients about referrals. It’s likely that many of your clients would like to provide a referral, they simply need some guidance from you in the type of person you’re looking for. You’re a blessing in your client’s lives and more people deserve to hear about your business.
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How you interact with your prospects the first time you meet them—before you ever make a presentation—can have a greater impact on your likelihood of closing a sale than the actual aspects of the product or service you have to offer. |
