If you could only use one marketing method to win more business, what would it be?
I have always thought this is a great question. I mean, what would you do? There are so many choices out there – brochures, adverts, PR, cold calling, etc–all with advantages and disadvantages. But if you could choose just one, which would it be?
find a really good way to think about this is to go back to your early courting days ...
Do you remember when you first became interested in finding a partner?
If you're anything like me, this was an exciting time, though nerve – racking. You don't know where to start. Who do you talk to? What do you say? How do you say it? What if they're just not interested?
Can you remember what you did to find a partner? Was it:
One way to strike lucky would be to write a letter extolling your virtues, maybe: 'I'm John Smith, in Form 11G. I'm good at sport, came top in maths and I like doing word puzzles.' Then, copy this letter hundreds of times, and put one in each student's locker, and wait to see what replies you get.
This might work – certainly, everyone in school would know about you–but, to be honest, it's hit and miss. You won't get many of the right kind of replies, if any. And it will have been expensive, and taken a long time to craft, print and post the letters.
I guess the best chance of success would be if:
The person of your dreams ...
... is looking for someone like you ...
... at the exact time they read the standard letter you sent to everyone.
Not very likely
And this problem is made worse by the fact that your letter is bound to contain irrelevant jelly. I mean, how is it possible to write a letter that is relevant and tailored to everyone?
No, we need to try something else. How about ...
Since the letter's not going to work, how about preparing a glossy flyer, and putting it on the school noticeboard where everyone will see it?
You could have a photo of yourself at the top, with you 'looking your best'. Underneath, you could write about why you'd be a good date. You could offer them an incentive to come along with you – maybe, 'I'll buy dinner. I'll even drive, so you can have a drink if you want to.'
You could even include a get-out clause for them: 'If you're not having a great time after the starter, you can go home there and then without any comeback from me'.
Again, this might work. People would see you in your best light. If no one else had a flyer on the noticeboard, or yours was the best flyer there, you would really stand out.
But the trouble once again is that the three things that need to happen simultaneously – the person of your dreams, looking for someone like you, at that exact moment in time–is very unlikely
You could get no replies at all. You could get someone applying who's not:
in the right age group for you;
of the right personality; or
of the right gender.
Obviously, you could improve your likelihood of success by putting the flyer where it gave you the best chance – maybe, the noticeboard in the senior girls' study room. But it's still hardly ideal.
There must be a better way ...
If you know someone who contributes to the school magazine, why not pay them to write a gushing article about you, and what a great date you'd be? They could include flattering photos of you, maybe a couple of nice comments from people you've had previous relationships with: 'John was a great guy – I'd recommend anyone to go for dinner with him.'
This has all sorts of potential pluses – good exposure, people will know about you.
But, again, on a 'convincing scale' of 1–10 (where 10 represents someone being 100% convinced to go on a date with you, and 1 is someone who's not convinced at all), it's certainly not a 10. Even if the article was written superbly, it probably wouldn't convince someone on its own that they should go out with you. A great article might get you to a 6–7 on the scale, but you'd still have to do some convincing work when you met them to turn it into a 10.
No, no matter how impressive the article was, no one will date you just because of it.
So we're going to need something else ...
Maybe you could get hold of all your fellow students' phone numbers and ring each of them up in the evening.
You'd obviously practise the lines you'd say: 'Hi, I'm John Smith of 11G, and I've got a great opportunity for you. You know how you like having a good time? Well I have three evenings left in my diary this month, and I'd like to offer you the chance to ...'
I can almost feel myself cringing at the rejection I'd get. Can you? It would be awful:
'Now's not the right time to call.'
'How dare you disturb me?'
'I'm having my tea.'
'How did you get this number? Never call me again.'
'Oh, I've heard of you, I don't think you and I would get on.'
'I'm not sure where you got this number from – I left that school three years ago.'
And these are just the polite things they might say
So, this option would take hours of your time, and result in lots of aggressive negative responses.
Very badly. None of the ways is ideal. All of them – the letter in the lockers, the flyer on the noticeboard, the magazine article, ringing round the students – have real problems. They either contain irrelevant jelly, are expensive, time-consuming, lots of hassle or unpleasant to do.
And – most importantly – they're just not that likely to work.
I guess the simplest way is to:
Have a look around and find the person of your dreams (let's say, for this example, it's a lady).
Ask any of your friends if they know her.
If they do, ask them to put in a good word for you with her.
Once they've done that and she says 'I'd love to meet him', go and have a chat with her.
This is so much more likely to work:
She's interested in hearing from you – after all, she's invited you over.
She has a good impression of you before even meeting you.
She first heard of you through a personal introduction.
Some of her normal objections have gone–she's looking forward to speaking to you.
She has a good idea that it's worth the two of you talking, so is more likely to be receptive.
There's no jelly. The only words used to market yourself to her were 100% relevant to her.
To put it bluntly, it's more likely to work. And it's not jelly-filled, expensive, time-consuming, a hassle, or riddled with unpleasantness.
In fact, it's the opposite: relevant, cheap, quick, easy and pleasant.
So, if you could use only one method to get a date at school, it would – without doubt – be for your friends to recommend you to the person of your dreams. Every time.
And, now back to the question at the start of this section: 'If you could only use one marketing method to win more business, what would it be?'
The answer is now much easier. Because finding new business is very similar to finding love at school.
For instance, you can market your business by sending out brochures and mailings, just as you could extol your personal virtues with letters in lockers.
In fact, look at the similarities between the two situations (Table 6.1).
Table 6.1. The similarities between marketing your business and finding a date
Marketing your business | Getting a date |
|---|---|
Brochure/mailings | Letters in lockers |
Advertising | Flyers on noticeboards |
PR | Article in school magazine |
Cold calling | Ring round everyone |
Referral/personal recommendation | Your friends recommending you to the girl of your dreams |
So, brochure/mailings are like letters in lockers. They can work. They look fantastic and give your company a real feeling of worth, solidity, value. But – just like the letter – they're expensive, lots of them aren't read by the intended reader, and they often don't really convert sales. They're also, by nature, full of jelly. All the content won't be relevant to all the readers. On the convincing scale of 1–10, the most they will get you to is a 6–7 at best, but almost never a 10.
Compare this with cold calling. It can lead to a close (i.e. a 10 on the convincing scale), but there's also a lot of cases of 1. The take-up is often very low, and you have to deal with a great deal of rejection, abrupt replies and the phone being slammed down on you.
Advertising. Well, just like flyers on noticeboards, adverts can be very powerful (they must be, or the top 25 US advertisers wouldn't spend, on average, $45 billion annually domestically), but they won't guarantee a sale. And it's expensive.
I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted... I just don't know which half.
John Wanamaker 19th-century Philadelphia department store owner
And PR (in our example, an article in the school magazine) – which can be so powerful – rarely gets 10 on the convincing scale on its own, especially if you'reasmall business, where good PR can be prohibitively expensive.
In fact, if we put the negatives of these five methods of winning business on a graph, it might look like Fig. 6.1.
Obviously, this graph is simplistic, and there's a good argument for a different order on the horizontal axis (you might feel the negatives of cold calling outweigh everything). But one thing is definitely true:
Note
Referrals have the least negatives.
Looking at the other side of the coin, Fig. 6.2 looks at the odds on winning business with each of the five methods.
Again, very simplistic, and some of the horizontal axis could be moved around. But, one thing is definitely true:
Note
Referrals are most likely to win you business.
Combining these results (Fig. 6.3) shows:
The net effectiveness (likelihood of sales less negatives involved) of each of the five marketing methods is shown by the distance between the two lines. As you can see, brochures (arrow A) are nowhere near as powerful as referrals (arrow B). In fact, the graph clearly shows that:
Note
Referrals have the least negatives.
Referrals are most likely to increase your business.
And so, finally, the answer to my question at the start of this section is now easy:
Note
Q if you could only use one marketing method to win more business, what would it be?
Referrals. without question.every single time.
The best website I've ever seen is www.draytonbird.com and it belongs to Drayton Bird. It's got 457 pages, answers 276 common marketing questions, has 52 short case histories and over 65 articles. Thousands of marketers all over the world use it. They stay on average for about 23 minutes (this isn't bad, since over half the people who visit a web site are on there for seconds only).
If I were you, I'd look at it. If the average time people spend there is 23 minutes, it must be pretty good. It has so much advice on there, on most forms of marketing, it's got to be worth some of your time. You'll receive marketing advice for free that you'd pay a lot of people a great deal of money to tell you. And you wouldn't know as much as if you'd gone to Drayton's site.
Now, a question for you: based on what I've just said, are you interested in taking a look at his site? I wouldn't be surprised if you are. Personal recommendations (1) passionately given, and (2) where there are clear benefits to you are very persuasive.
So, what is the problem with referrals? They seem so ideal. There can't be any, can there?
Well...
Note
The huge problem with referrals is ... you never get enough of them.
And that's it.
If people recommended you more, there would be no downside to referrals. They're easier to close, quick, there are less objections. It's cheaper than spending money on brochures and adverts. There are no downsides. Except that people don't recommend you enough.
When you think about it, to grow your business by referral, you are going to have to rely on other people recommending you.
And here's the rub: relying on others to refer you means that you are delegating the speed of growth of your business to third parties.
And these third parties will have other things to do that are more important to them than referring you to their contacts. Like, running their own businesses... getting on with their lives...
But, imagine if you knew simple ways to proactively trigger referrals – meaning you were in charge of the growth of your company, not the third party. In other words, imagine getting all the benefits of referral business – lots of cheap, easy sales – without the only problem with them.
you're about to discover how to do just that ...
Just like at school – when (1) you, (2) your friend, and (3) the person of your dreams were all involved in the process of getting you a date – so too does referral business involve three people:
you;
the person who is going to refer you; and
the person you want to speak to.
Or, to use snappier titles:
you;
referrer; and
target.
In other words, you want the referrer to recommend you to your target (Fig. 6.4).
The only other thing to define here is my understanding of what a referral is. To my mind, it has four elements:
a personal recommendation (i.e. by the referrer) ...
... to someone you don't yet know, but want to (your target) ...
... such that your target is expecting your call for business purposes.
... and is looking forward to it.
If any of these is missing, it's not a referral. This means the referrer has to warm the target up before you call them. If they don't, and you ring saying, 'Hi Jill, I'm John. Bob Jones has suggested I call you', this has less chance of success since Jill has not heard of you yet, meaning you still have her initial objections to overcome.
So, now we know the four definitions we need to know – you, referrer, target, referral – let's look at the golden rules of referrals.
Rule 1: To get referrals, you are going to have to do more than nothing.
The first rule is simple, yet often overlooked.
Remember what you've just read about you dictating the speed of growth of your company, and not a third party? This first rule reminds you that getting referrals is an active process, rather than you simply waiting for them to happen.
There's a feeling prevalent in business that 'we do a good job; so customers are bound to recommend us', but they usually don't. Sure, some do; but it's much rarer than you would expect.
There are all sorts of reasons for this. For example your customers aren't in the habit of referring you, so don't think about it; they're busy doing other things rather than helping a supplier (i.e. you) get more business, and so on.
But the biggest problem is that customers demand exceptional service these days. Any less and they'll tell people how bad you were. But do a great job, and it's what they were expecting anyway, so why tell anyone?
Rule 2: For the referral to work, there must be an obvious benefit to all three parties.
There are three parties involved in the referral – you, the referrer, and the target.
If one of the three doesn't benefit, it's not a successful, sustainable business process, meaning you are unlikely to get any future referrals involving these two parties again. And, given how we've decided referrals are the best way of marketing, doing something that prevents future referrals is little short of a disaster.
A few years ago, one of my good friends Tom wanted to help his friend, a landscape gardener, get more business. So Tom recommended him to one of his neighbours.
The gardener visited the neighbour, priced up the work, but then submitted an extortionate quote. The neighbour wasn't happy and spoke to Tom, saying that the price was too high and that he wanted to go back and ask for a reduction.
Immediately, this placed Tom in a terrible position. He couldn't see any way out of this which would leave all three parties unscathed.
If Tom said to his neighbour, 'Sure, go for a reduction in price,' the gardener might come back to Tom saying that Tom had recommended him to somebody who wouldn't pay his worth. However, if Tom said 'No, I'm sure the price is fair,' he would damage his relationship with his neighbour. What would you do in this position? It certainly made Tom wish he hadn't tried to help.
In the end, the neighbour respectfully declined the offer from the gardener and gave the job to someone else. Fortunately, all parties stayed on good terms.
But it could have gone disastrously wrong. This is typical of the problems with referrals. They are such a delicate balancing act to make sure that all parties are happy. So, you must make sure both the referrer and the target are happy with the work you do, and the way you do it.
Rule 3: It is your responsibility – nobody else's – to make it crystal clear to the referrer how both the referrer and the target will benefit from the referral.
The final rule is a combination of rule 1 – you must do something – and rule 2 – all three parties must benefit.
The referrer must be in no doubt at all that both they and the target will benefit (remember, the person who is a target for you is a good contact of the referrer).
Table 6.2 shows various ways that people traditionally ask for referrals and whether each of the three parties benefit or not.
Table 6.2. Various ways that people traditionally ask for referrals and whether each of the three parties benefit of not
Lines people say | Benefit to you? | Benefit to the referrer? | Benefit to the target? |
|---|---|---|---|
'Do you know anyone I can do business with?' | Yes | ||
'I help architects. Do you know any?' | Yes | Yes | |
'You know I've done a good job for you. Do you know anyone else who I could work with?' | Yes | Implied | |
'I gave you a referral last week. Have you anyone you can refer me to?' | Yes | ||
'I pay finders fees for introductions.' | Yes | Yes |
None of these phrases clearly benefits all three parties, so none is likely to work most of the time. I mean, would you recommend your supplier to someone just because they asked you to, without there being any benefit to you, or to your contact you will be referring them to?
The bottom sentence (about finders fees) is an interesting one, because people often offer finders fees in return for referrals. But this seldom works well on its own. The fact that there's no benefit to the target is part of the reason for this, as is the fact that a small amount of money is not the main motivator for a referrer, as we will see later.
Rule 2 says that all three parties must benefit from a referral, and rule 3 says it's your responsibility to ensure the referrer knows this will happen.
This sounds a big task. How can you persuade a referrer that all three parties are going to benefit from recommending you such that you get more business? Fortunately, this is much easier than you think:
These are obvious. More business, easy sales, low cost, less time, no jelly, no hassle, no unpleasantness.
Put yourself in the target's position. How would you rather choose your suppliers:
from the Yellow Pages;
scanning the Internet; or
someone you trust recommending someone they trust.
Everyone chooses the last one. Very often, a company's best suppliers started as recommendations from others. They are best, partly because they were good enough to be recommended in the first place, but partly because they don't want to let their referrer down.
You'll have benefited from this yourself. For instance, when you last moved into a new area and wanted a good decorator, cleaner, and the best local restaurant, how did you go about it? No doubt by asking somebody you knew to recommend them.
It's the same in business. If your business needs a new stationery supplier, it's so much easier, better, cheaper and guaranteed to work to ask your business contacts to recommend a good one.
So, yes, targets like referrals. They seek referrals. And that brings us on to:
As a child, I used to love it when my relatives gave me money at Christmas. Some of them did it sometimes; some of them – I'm devastated to say – didn't do it very much at all. However, my Auntie Ethel – God rest her soul – always used to bring me money every Christmas without fail. And – though I know this makes me come across as a very shallow child – I therefore used to like Auntie Ethel best.
And similarly, since – as we've just seen – targets love referrals, they're going to like best the regular bringers of referrals, i.e. referrers. And, that's just the start of the benefits to referrers. You see, they are the only party with two established relationships here (Fig. 6.5).
So, a brilliant referral will mean they're positively contributing to two people, not one.
And this means twice the benefits to them:
they'll look good to the target – helpful, life-saver, well connected, good person to know, etc.; and
you will be grateful, which means you'll be thanking them in some way (see page 176).
These two effects are made even more pronounced by the fact that there is a lot of research around showing that, for the most part, people are generally reciprocator,s i.e. they want to repay kind acts: you help me; I'll help you.
So, a referrer giving to two people has a very good chance of their help being reciprocated in some way
So far in this section, you have seen countless advantages of growing your business using referrals. In fact, there is only one problem with referrals: people don't give you enough of them.
It's now time to find out what you need to do and say to proactively trigger as many referrals as possible. There are five steps (Table 6.3):
Table 6.3. Five steps to getting more referrals
Step | Title | Details |
|---|---|---|
1 | It will take effort for the referrals to start rolling in so always remember how valuable they are – it helps keep you motivated. | |
2 | The pre-prep you must do | The two things you must know in advance of asking for referrals. |
3 | Who to ask for referrals | Certain groups of people are more likely to refer you than others. This step shows who to target first. |
4 | Jelly-free scripts to use to get referrals | You must ask for referrals in the right way. T his section contains scripts you can use. |
5 | How to ensure you keep getting them | Some simple tips to make sure referrals become a long-term, source of business for you. |
How many people would you say you know well enough to pick up the phone to have a chat with?
Your answer will be surprisingly high. If you were to include family members, friends, customers, staff/colleagues, school friends, business contacts, suppliers, your neighbours, friends from your church, cricket club, etc. ... When you think of all these different sources, it's probably going to be at least a hundred people.
But, to be prudent (as we accountants like to say), let's assume you have fifty people that you can pick up the phone to.
Now, the same question from their point of view. How many good friends/contacts do your contacts have? Again, let's go with an average of fifty each.
So, from a potential referral point of view, you could – in theory – ring each of your fifty friends and ask them to recommend you to their fifty friends.
Fifty people making fifty calls each is 2500 calls. This means that you are only two phone calls away from 2500 people (Fig 6.6) – and both of these phone calls would have been made between two sets of good friends (you and the referrer, and the referrer and the target).
There is a very good chance that some of these 2500 people would need your services. This means that, with the right scripts, you could be speaking to lots of warmed up referrals about ten minutes from now.
So, the power of referrals is enormous. Remember that at all times in your business ... it will help you focus on getting more of them.
There are only two things to prepare in advance to get lots of referrals. The first is best displayed by the following exercise:
I want to buy a DVD for someone I love very much. I would like you to think of any DVD I could give them. Write the first one that pops into your head here:
I am now going to give you a bit more information about the person I love. If – after hearing this information – you want to amend your choice of DVD, simply write a new title in the box below.
The person is female...
Does your suggested DVD change if I tell you that this person is my daughter Megan, who is nine years old...
There are many types of films that Megan likes, but she's always loved films with animals in. What DVD would you suggest now?
One thing I've also noticed is that she prefers live-action films to cartoons. So, she wouldn't want a DVD of an animated film. So, what DVD now?
Finally, one thing I should have told you before is that her favourite film of all time is 'Lassie', and she hasn't got it on DVD. What DVD do you advise I buy her?
Lassie, right?
This exercise highlights a paradox with referrals. From my point of view, I thought I was helping you when I asked you to recommend any DVD, because it gave you lots of options. But, actually, I didn't give you enough direction. So, you initially recommended a DVD she wouldn't like. It was only when I became more precise that it became easy for you to recommend something useful to me.
And that is exactly the same with asking for referrals. If you say to the referrer that you want to speak to 'anybody who needs my services', it is very hard for them to know who to target for you. It's too vague.
Remember, golden rule 2 of referrals is all three parties must benefit. The referrer doesn't benefit much if they have to spend ages working out who to refer you to.
You already know the answer to 'Who do you want to speak to?': the big fish you identified in the Networking section (page 27 onwards). You want referrals into these industries.
The only other information you need is what each of your big fish are left with AFTER you have worked with them (re-read page 9 for a reminder of the AFTERs).
Let's say you are a photographer, and a big fish for you is a graphic designer who can use your photographs in the brochures they design.
The AFTERs for them – the graphic designer – might include:
Their brochures will look better because of the quality of photographs you produce.
They will therefore impress their clients more.
They will have an improved portfolio to show to potential new customers.
They will have greater pride in the work they do.
Because of your unique style, they will be able to offer their customers something that other graphic designers can't.
Your reliability means that they will always meet their deadlines.
To get maximum use out of the rest of this section, it's worth preparing this information now, before reading on. Insert your big fish in the left hand column of Table 6.4, and the AFTERs you leave them with on the right...
Now you have this information, the only things you need to know are:
who to ask for referrals;
jelly-free scripts; and
how to ensure you keep getting referrals in the long term.
Looking at each in turn:
In Ivan Misner's book Business by Referral (1997, Bard Press) he lists various types of potential referrers. These include:
Customers can always refer you by telling others of the work you've done for them.
After all, if you've done good work for customer A, you are surely in a good bargaining position for them to introduce you to customer B and customer C.
So customers can be a great source of referrals. But there are others...
There is a very prominent local radio presenter, in my home city of Liverpool. When I first started in business I wanted to meet him.
So I asked Jane, a woman who was doing my PR for me, to get me a meeting with this man. Jane used her connections well; it took a while but she somehow managed to arrange it.
I was delighted, and spoke to my parents about how much I was looking forward to meeting him, and how pleased I was with all the hard work that Jane had put in...
To which Mum replied, 'Oh, I know him. We work on a committee together with a local charity. I've got his number in my mobile phone.'
Unbelievable! Jane had spent weeks making this appointment, and my mother could have done it for me straight away
But then it got worse ... my father chipped in with, 'Actually Andy, I know him very well too.'
So, both my parents knew him extremely well. But, when I asked – in a rather exasperated tone – 'Why didn't you introduce him to me?', they replied ...
'Because you didn't ask.'
This is typical. Your friends and family know so many people. They are bound to know someone you want to speak to.
I know many people like to separate their business and personal lives. And, if you are like this, it's probably best you don't ask friends and family for referrals. However, although it can feel strange to discuss referrals with them, there is probably no-one more motivated to help you.
Suppliers are a hugely under-utilized source of referrals. When you think about it, you have no power whatsoever over your customers (after all, 'the customer is always right') ... yet people still ask them for referrals.
But, when speaking to your suppliers, you are the customer. So, you are always right. Why not ask them for referrals? If anything, they will be keener to help you than anybody, to preserve the good trading relations between you.
When I tell my clients about asking suppliers, very often they reply, 'That doesn't feel right'. But, when I ask, 'Why not?', the only thing they come back with is, 'Because we've never tried it before.'
I said elsewhere that, as customers, we want our suppliers to be problem solvers not technicians. So, a supplier who can get you referred business becomes a great problem solver – they solve you the problem of finding customers yourself!
It's great fun watching tennis, especially if you are sitting level with the net and see the ball being bashed from side to side.
By 'tennis team referrals', I mean referral partners, whereby you and they regularly pass work to each other, just like tennis players hitting the ball to each other.
For instance, one of the things I do is teach companies to sell more. Therefore, if I work closely with a marketing company, we can regularly pass work to each other. I can say to my clients:
'I can help you close more sales when you're in front of people. But, wouldn't it be great if you were actually in front of more people? Well, I know this great marketing company who are experts at helping you do this.'
Similarly, the marketing company could say to all their clients:
'All the work we've done will get you in front of your target market more than ever. However, unless you say the right things when you're there, you are not going to get the sales you want, so you're not going to get the maximum return on your investment with us. We know this guy called Andy Bounds who will show you how to turn these new meetings into sales.'
So, which professions could you play referral tennis with?
Earlier, you saw how everyone has at least fifty people they could pick the phone up to at any time.
Your staff are the same. In fact, knowing the way these things work, I would expect that many organizations are missing lots of excellent referrals just because they've not asked their staff.
Instead, they will be using all the traditional marketing tools – direct mail, advertising, PR, networking, cold calling, blanket mail-drops. everything. Except, of course, asking Sally in the post room – whose father happens to be the CEO of their number 1 target company
I mentioned earlier how most people are reciprocators.
So, if you have given a referral to someone in the past, there is a very good chance they'll reciprocate by finding you a referral.
It's always nerve-racking referring someone for the first time. How good a job will they do? Will your contact like them?
After the first referral's proved successful, it's relatively easy to give more. So, people who've referred you in the past are excellent sources of new referrals.
Before looking at what to say to get referrals, it's worth a quick reminder of the three golden rules in Table 6.5 to see if we are obeying them so far:
Table 6.5. A quick reminder of the three golden rules and how we're doing so far
Rule | How are we doing so far? |
|---|---|
1 You must do more than nothing. | Yes, because we are doing something to get more referrals right now! |
2 For referrals to work, there must be an obvious benefit to all three parties. | Your target will benefit, by receiving the AFTERs you highlighted in the table on page 161. Your referrers will benefit because they:
|
3 It is your responsibility to make it crystal clear to the referrer how both the referrer and the target will benefit from the referral. | To do this, you need to say the right thing when asking for a referral. This section will give you scripts to use to make the benefits to everybody crystal clear. |
Whatever scripts you use to get referrals must give clear guidance so the referrer knows exactly who you want to speak to. It is no use saying, 'Do you know anybody?' (That's like saying 'recommend any DVD'.) Your table on page 161 is going to be critical to achieving this.
Since all the parties must benefit, simply saying, 'Can you recommend me to anyone?' isn't sufficient. You look like you are lining your pocket with little or no thought for the referrer or target. These three scripts work much better:
This script works. Firstly, it is clear to the referrer that both they and the target are going to benefit from the referral. Your first sentence reinforces how helpful you have been to the referrer, and they can easily deduce how helpful you will be to their contacts (your target).
Your second sentence gets rid of the 'DVD problem' because you have been specific in who you want to speak to, and how they will benefit from speaking to you.
Assuming they know someone they could refer you to, the third sentence is a great way to show them that you are going to proactively help make it happen.
Here's a second script that works very well:
The inference here is that the reason your customer has just benefited from your outstanding work is because previous customers – i.e. people like them – have helped you get more business, thus freeing up your time for their benefit.
Cusstomers hearing this often want to join in and introduce you to people they know, because that keeps your time free to focus on your customers, like themselves.
Again, the third golden rule is adhered to here, since it's clear to the referrer how everyone will benefit by passing your name on.
A third script you can use is what I call the 'Ask you later' method. There are two phases to this script. You say the first as the customer is signing up, i. e. before you have done any work.
Taken out of context, this script can appear over the top.
But it only takes 10–20 seconds, and happens at the end of a very productive meeting. (The meeting obviously went well or they would not just have bought from you.) So, it is easy for them to reply, 'Sure, no problem', and then forget all about it.
Then, of course comes your work with them and you have to pull out all the stops, and do a great job.
Once you have finished – and impressed and delighted them – you then do the second part of the script:
When the customer originally said they'd help you if you did a great job, the two of you made a very informal verbal contract. You have done your bit – you did a great job – now you are asking them to do theirs.
Hopefully, they'll know a big fish, and you've got yourself another referral.
If however it turns out they don't know anyone they can refer you to, or they decide they don't want to, that's no problem. It's a shame, but no relations have been soured between you, because they had previously agreed that you could ask them.
Again, note the last sentence in the box – 'How can I best help you make this happen?' It comes up time and again in the scripts in this chapter. Once your contact has agreed to help you get a referral, proactively help them do it.
You will know your relationship with your friends and family better than I ever could, so I wouldn't presume to give you the scripts to use with them.
Instead, all I would ask you to remember is the reason my parents gave for not introducing me to that radio presenter:
'You never asked'.
The simplest thing to do is to show your friends/family your big fish/ AFTERs table and say to them, 'Do you know any of these?' (pointing to the left hand column), 'because I can help them do that' (pointing to the right).
If they say 'yes', simply ask – as you always must – ' How can I best help you make this happen?'
From your suppliers' point of view – you are the customer. Therefore, feel free simply to ask them for referrals.
That's it. Very easy. Simply ask the question, and you'll get a surprisingly high success rate.
If you don't ask, they probably won't think of doing it, since they don't see their role as helping your sales go up.
And, it's not just with existing suppliers that this works. Try this with potential new suppliers...
Again, very simple, and very effective. After all, if it was you who was tendering for work, and your potential customer asked you if you could refer them into your contacts, you'd try and help. After all, it might help you get the sale.
Referral tennis teams are when professions work closely with each other, passing regular work each way. For example, estate agents and mortgage advisors; accountants and solicitors; graphic designers and printers, etc.
The script to use here is one that makes it clear from the outset that you are looking for a long-term referral relationship. Something like:
Your initial sentence showed that both parties would benefit, and made clear to your tennis partner that you weren't looking just to line your own pocket.
You then showed them that you wanted to help their business first. It's very easy when talking to a potential referrer to go straight for the kill for your business. However, since people reciprocate, you might as well offer to help them first.
The two sentences at the bottom ensure that you will be specific with each other's big fish/AFTERs, rather than leaving it with, 'Do you know anybody you can introduce me to?'
There are two problems with asking staff for referrals:
they don't see it as their job; and
often they don't want to discuss your company with their personal friends.
Whatever script you use must be mindful of these two points, and must never make them feel awkward or compromised.
There are various ways you can ask them, but the simplest and least invasive is to simply put your big fish/AFTERs table on a wall in the office, and let everyone know that:
these are good contacts for your company;
it is a huge contribution to the company for any staff member to recommend you to any big fish they know; and
they will be rewarded in some way if they do.
This is the least risky way of doing it. You won't get as many referrals as if you went to each member of staff individually and said, 'Do you know any of these companies?', but nor will you place any of your staff in an awkward situation, whereby they feel they have to do something outside work that they don't want to do.
Of course, if a member of staff does provide a referral for you, then it is important to give them the appropriate recognition, since recognition is one of the greatest motivators there is. Imagine how many referrals your staff would get if you always publicly recognized them in a way that made them feel special.
People who have previously received referrals from you will be motivated to help you in return, making the script fairly simple:
That's all you need to do. It is important you first remind them that you've already helped them – since it puts their 'debt' to you in the forefront of their mind – before you ask for help.
There are alternatives to all these scripts, of course. For instance, one of my clients – a bank manager – uses a tennis analogy when asking for referrals from someone to whom he has referred work in the past. He simply says, 'That's 15 – love to me. Your serve.'
His approach works for him. My approach works for me. What's the best approach for you? As ever, the answer to that question is: 'Whichever works'.
Once they have said that you did a good job (in effect, you made them look good in the target's eyes), then is the time to ask for another referral. Again, you will note that you are using the same lines as usual – big fish/AFTERs/ 'How can I best help you make this happen?'
You have now done four of the five steps. To remind yourself of them, look at Table 6.6:
Table 6.6. The first four of the five steps needed to get referrals in the long term
Step | Title |
|---|---|
1 | Never underestimate their power |
2 | Pre-prep you must do |
3 | Who to ask for referrals |
4 | Jelly-free scripts to use to get them |
These four steps – though good – will only give you referrals in the short term.
And, since we have decided that referrals are the best way to market your business, you want referrals to be a sustainable, long-term source of sales.
Since giving you referrals can be nerve-racking the first time, it is easier to get two referralsfrom one person, than one referral each from two different people.
So, you must do everything in your power to make people give you as many referrals as possible. Here are some simple techniques to help you do that:
If you give me a referral into one of your valued contacts, you will want to know how things are going throughout my dealings with her.
So I need to let you know the outcome of every interaction I have, including:
the first call;
our meeting(s) together;
the date any work is going to start;
how the work is progressing; and
what she said at the end of the work.
This is the minimum I must do. Any less and you might think that you have become unimportant to me, compared with my growing relationship with the target (your contact).
Imagine you received three things today: a gift-wrapped present, a new piece of work from an existing customer and a referral. Who would you give most thanks to – the present-giver, the existing customer or the referrer?
Most people, if answering truthfully, would say their most gushing thanks would be reserved for the present-giver. You might give them a hug, buy them something in return, etc.
But, for some reason, on receiving a referral, referrers often don't get the thanks they deserve. Certainly, not as gushing as if they had simply bought you a present ... which may be of negligible value compared with a referred piece of work.
To thank them you could simply say 'thank you', or you might like to buy them something – a gift, a handwritten card, offer your business services to them for free, take them out for a meal, publicize their business to your contacts ... anything.
However, the one thing you must avoid is ... doing nothing.
Ivan Misner, BNI's founder, says the best mechanism for rewarding people who give you referrals is a mechanism you won't ever forget doing. He says that if you dislike writing, there is no point thinking you will send handwritten cards all the time, because it's not in your nature to do so.
So, decide on how you want to thank/reward your referrers, and stick to it.
There are two ways you can get referrals from your referrers. Either, get referrals off them first, and then give them some back. Or, you give to them first, such that they want to help you in return.
Which is the better option? I have mentioned BNI and Ivan Misner a great deal in this chapter because this chapter is about referrals and BNI is the largest referral organisation in the world. Their motto is 'Givers gain' – the more you give to others, the more you gain because they give back to you. And if it is the ethos by which the largest referral organization in the world lives its life, it's a pretty good motto for us all to take on board if we want to get more referrals from our business contacts.