Referrals are your single best source of self-generated or creative prospects. One reason they are so powerful is because statistically, over half of the buying decisions made by people are based on recommendations from friends, family, colleagues, or other customers. These are people who are credible and have actually experienced the benefits of what you are selling.
Additionally, customers that provide referrals tend to become more loyal to you and your company. Once people recommend you, psychologically they become your ally and therefore are less likely to leave you for another service provider or vendor.
Since this topic is so critical to your long term success, I’ll devote the next two posts to sharing ideas to help improve your referral results.
1. Referrals seem to be one of those things salespeople always intend to secure, but more times than not they get pushed back and overlooked during the heat of the sales battle. Consequently, after all is said and done, referrals are brought up by you as an afterthought, and the customer often says that they just “can’t think of anybody right now.” This is followed by the new customer stating that they have your card and “will call you if they think of anybody who might be interested.”
To overcome this, as a part of every initial sales conversation, try mentioning the importance of referrals and position them as the centerpiece to your business. Get a commitment from the prospect that when they become a customer and are satisfied and happy with you and the product/service they purchased, that they will introduce you to several friends, relatives, or colleagues. Although this may sound chronologically incorrect to you, it prioritizes referrals for your prospect and provides a toe-hold that you will expand to a foot-hold after you’ve earned their business.
2. Once you have completed/delivered/installed whatever it is that you sold, and fulfilled everything you committed you would do (evidenced by a smiling customer); shift the focus to securing the referrals that your customer agreed to conditionally supply during your initial conversation.
My favorite way to do this is to schedule a follow up visit, where I can look the customer in the eye and confirm that I met and exceeded my commitments and their expectations. I won’t begin a referral conversation until I hear those words come out of their mouth. Once that is accomplished, I will remind them of their agreement to help me get in front of a few of their friends, colleagues, or neighbors, and make sure they understand how critical this is to my family’s economy.
Next time I’ll explain a technique for improving your referral securing results. Would you comment below in the Speak Your Mind area about one of your referral experiences?
If I were to tell you the book I wrote would help you make more money selling, you probably wouldn’t think much about it, since I’m the author. But if you will look here, and scroll down to the bottom of the page, you can watch a 45 second video selfie from a sales manager who bought 15 copies!
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