Referrals - Endless Supply, for Your Prospecting
Episode Transcript
This episode is the third in our new mini series, Generating leads – the highest quality for your business”.
Welcome to another episode of “The Rabbi Who Got Rich on Sunday” about living the dream through work life balance. I’m Rabbi Dave and today we’re going to talk about Referrals – endless supply, for your prospecting
Good referral program – Story
When I was a teenager I was already an avid entrepreneur. I had started my own store buying and selling sports memorabilia and cards. I had created my own ad specialty company FLAG enterprises (which is still in business today) and built my first screen printing apparatus. I invested in the stock market. I managed a restaurant. However, my first actual training in sales came through a summer “job” selling Cutco knives for Vector marketing.
At first I was lousy; but, I quickly learned the tricks to making a great presentation (who knew you had to polish the knives between each presentation) and more importantly the secret to success: Referrals – An endless supply of leads.
At the end of every presentation, whether or not I made a sale, I offered an entry in a raffle for a huge shopping spree for every five referrals a prospect gave me with name and phone number.
I became so good at this that by the end of the summer I had over 1,000 warm referrals and my success in making a sale with referrals was even higher than with my original list of friends, family and acquaintances!
As I’ve built many businesses since then I’ve seen that no matter how good I become at marketing and sales, my biggest successes still come from referrals.
Referral sources
After my Cutco experience, I analyzed why the referral system I used was so successful. It boiled down to properly treating my referral sources.
- They enjoyed my presentation. Because they had just enjoyed my presentation they felt comfortable that their friends would enjoy it as well.
- They wanted to help me. I was a young adult trying to earn enough money to help with my education expenses. It was a story they felt good being a part of.
- No pressure. I let them know up front that I was being paid whether or not I made a sale which took the pressure off.
- Make it easy. Have an easy to use referral form ready for them to use.
- The offer. Make it worth their while to give your referrals and make it even more valuable to give you more!
- Let them know. Follow up to let your referral sources know how the referrals went and thank them and ask for more!
Referral network
Later in my career, I actually received training from one of the masters of creating a referral network Bob Burg. He is the author of several books around the topic of referrals. I first met him as he was a supporter of one of the non profits I worked closely with and heard him speak, so when he was brought to a conference I was attending, boy, did I take good notes!
- Posture – your posture is a result of internally recognizing that any action is not up to you but up to the prospect and externally based on a continuous and large flow of prospects to talk to.
I call this lead poverty consciousness. If you are afraid of what the prospect might say, you will feel desperate and lose any posture you might have. If you’d like them to say yes but it really doesn’t bother you if they don’t – you are on the way to posture. Just tell yourself SW, SW, SW, SW, next. Some will, some won’t so what, someone’s waiting, who is next!
- Build like and trust. People will give you referrals if they like and trust you. The key to creating that kind of relationship is asking feel good questions and listening to their answers. Use FORM, family, occupation, recreation, money questions such as, how did you get started with… or what do you enjoy most about… Always end with “How can I know if someone I’m talking to would be a good prospect/connection for you?” Now introduce those you meet to others and position yourself as a center of influence to your referral network.
My previous articles on relationshipping will help with this alot!
- Teach others how to network for you.
- Create a Benefit statement. I help people…
- How to know statement. The type of person I’m looking for is either a…
- Bridge phrase. “Gary, I’m in the process of expanding my referral business. I find it helpful to partner with my friends such as you. Can we take a few quick minutes to run past some names of people I might be able to help?”
- Write down names without contact information to keep the flow and ask for information after the flow stops.
- Referrals are already trained to give you referrals because that is how they met you!
- If they are reluctant
- Show testimonials
- Assure them that your goal is to make them look like a hero
- Share the language you will use. “Mary Smith is a customer of mine and she suggested I call you and I promised I would. You do know Mary, right?” “Great, I’m delighted to work with… We provide… Mary and her husband Joe are customers of mine and they’re enjoying the benefits tremendously. Mary was kind enough to suggest I call you. Of course, she didn’t assume you’d definitely be interested and, personally, neither do I. That of course, would be up to you. But, she does feel strongly enough to believe you’d really enjoy checking it out and seeing for yourself.”
- Ask for a specific few. Golf foursome, rotary club, sitting next to you in temple, occupation alphabet such as A for accountant, B for Banker, etc. Once they give you a few names, move onto the next small group as long as they keep letting you to build your referral network.
Referrals – Final tips
As with anything, practice makes perfect. With referrals, generally if you are comfortable asking they will be comfortable giving. Just make referrals part of your daily activities and you won’t ever run out of prospects again!
Next week we will talk about running virtual events in order to generate prospects.
For more guidance and tips on living the dream life, go to my website, https://therabbiwhogotrichonsunday.com to access content-rich articles and more.
You can also access a link to that web page through the show notes, if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast platforms.
Resources:
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