06/08/2009 -
Getting Referrals? ……. Check your “ASK”
By Victoria Trafton
Any book on referrals will state the number one reason people don’t get referrals is they don’t ask! Sounds simple enough and it is true in many cases. The danger is if you just “develop the habit” of asking for referrals, as recommended by those books, you may get a lot of bad referrals or hear a lot of no’s. Either way, this approach may not motivate you to turn “asking” into a habit.
My experience tells me there are three main reasons people don’t get all the high quality referrals they want and need to build a healthy business:
1) They don’t ask.
2) They ask at the wrong time.
3) They ask the wrong people.
Check your “Ask”. If you are not getting good referrals when you ask for them, the problem may be in the way you ask. Specifically:
- Are you asking at the right point in the relationship; are they motivated to refer to you?
- Are you asking someone who has easy access to your ideal prospects?
Asking at the right time means you have established credibility with the referral source. They must trust you to provide high value to the people they refer to you. Are they motivated to refer to you because you have helped them achieve their goals?
Before you ask, take time to deepen the relationship with the source. Spend one-on-one time with that person. Find out how you can help them. It may take time in the beginning of the relationship development process, but the payoff is there for the life of the relationship as they continue to give you high quality referrals. A word of warning here: don’t spend time developing relationships with the wrong people and expect to get referrals!
If you want high quality referrals to your ideal prospects, make sure your source has easy access to the right kind of prospects for you. Do you share the same client profile? If you do, you can refer clients to each other. You can also refer prospects to each other. You can both spend less time prospecting if you are able to share those prospects through referrals.
The next time you find yourself thinking I am not getting enough referrals from my sources, make sure you are asking people who know the kind of prospects to refer AND they are motivated to refer their best relationships to you.
Top Referral Source for May
Thank you to Greg Zehring for bringing Darren Patoni and Paul Hauber to Referral Success. This month’s best referral source story is a classic example of how I build my business and benefit the Referrals For Life® community members.
Greg was introduced to Darren Patoni by Michael Regan as a potential referral source. Michael and Darren have been best friends for 25 years! Greg invited Darren to attend Referral Success 101 to “educate him on how to work with referral relationships”. Darren liked what he heard and returned to Referral Success 202 with his wife Kathy Patoni. As partners in business, they realized Referrals for Life® is a great way to take their IT business to the next level by leveraging referral relationships. They both joined the Referrals for Life® program.
Darren introduced Greg to Paul Hauber as a potential referral relationship. Darren and Paul have enjoyed a referral relationship and friendship for 10 years. Greg had no difficulty getting Paul to attend Referral Success 202 with him. Paul realized the Referrals for Life® program would help him build the kind of referral team that would grow his print solutions business.
Because Greg used the Referrals for Life® program to “educate his network” he has two strategic referral partners committed to learning how to generate business by referral for each other. Thanks to a deep trust relationship between Michael, the Patonis, and Paul, we have three great new members in the Referrals for Life® program.
Congratulations and thank you to Greg for these three great referrals! The time it took for all three people to join Referrals for Life® from the time they were introduced to the learning? ONE MONTH.
We all want to find and develop those perfect referral partnerships. Are you educating your network to turn your relationships into great referral sources, maybe even referral partnerships?
