Mon, 24 June 2019
Sellers are programmed to take advantage of outreach to generate opportunities, but it’s important that we don’t forget to ask for the referral.
We understand the importance of cold calling and cold outreach, but that’s doing things the hard way. We do it over and over again without ever considering whether it’s the best way.
This is a reboot of an earlier episode of The Sales Evangelist, but it's an evergreen topic. Asking for referrals always makes sense for motivated sales professionals.
Cold calling
I would never suggest you shouldn’t use cold outreach or cold calling to connect with your prospects. I do it myself and I’ve generated great opportunities that way. But it isn’t the only way to generate them.
Sometimes we forget to ask for referrals. So as a sales pro, how can you remember? What else can you do to remind yourself to take the easy route to generating business?
Put it on your calendar. Just as you block off time on your calendar for prospecting and cold outreach, set reminders to ask for referrals.
Create a habit
Create a weekly goal to generate three referrals per week. If your goal is to get three referrals per week, even closing one of those referrals will change your results. Once you institute the habit of generating referrals, you’ll establish a pattern of one deal per week that closes. And that’s if you’re not particularly good at it. If you’ve taken our TSE Certified Sales Training, you could possibly do even better.
You can build on that habit and that improvement. That will amount to more money for you and your organization.
If each of those deals amounts to $10,000, you’ll generate $40,000 a month. If you’re responsible for $80,000 a month, then half of your business will come from referrals. If you’re currently not generating any, that’s a pretty great increase.
Accountability
Salespeople don’t necessarily like accountability. Do it anyway. Tell a coworker or sales leader your goal. Join our Facebook group and tell someone your goal.
Accountability is important. When I worked as a sales rep, I shared my current projects with my sales manager. She saw that I was motivated and proactive and I eventually got better opportunities than other people on the team.
If you share your goal with your leader, he or she will certainly follow up to help you stay accountable. If you’re an entrepreneur working internally at an organization, you can benefit from the same kind of accountability.
Set calendar invites
Establish specific times in your schedule when you’ll pursue referrals. Just as you set time to prospect and pursue inbound leads, set time for referral prospecting. Set 30 minutes each day to reach out to your clients for referrals.
It’s such an easy task that most of us won’t do it. We’re programmed to do things the hard way; to pick up the phone and dial. These simple projects can gain us business, but referrals don’t always happen naturally.
You must ask for the referral.
“Don’t Forget to Ask” episode resources
Connect with me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com.
Try the first module of the TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance.
TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump. If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us.
Tools for sellers
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Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out.
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Tue, 5 February 2019
When you bring value to customers and care for your clients, you’ve taken an important first step toward generating business referrals… without asking. Stacey Brown Randall considers herself a contrarian in the sales world, because she believes that if you’re asking for referrals, you’re doing it wrong. She helps small business owners and solopreneurs generate referrals and she dispels myths about referrals. She didn’t set out to focus on referrals, but after her first business failed, she discovered that business owners have to figure out how to touch business development every day. You also have to figure out the ways in which you’re willing to do it. TONS OF OPTIONSSellers have countless options for bringing in clients and prospects to their pipelines, but they have to be options that the sellers are willing to do day-in, day-out. When her own business failed, she asked herself what went wrong. Although there was more than one mistake along the way, she realized that she never figured out how to fill her pipeline consistently. She never found an activity she was willing to do on a regular basis. She researched and found that referrals offer an amazing way to bring in clients, and they’re often quicker to close. They also trust you before they ever meet you, and they are less price sensitive. Everything about referrals is just better. REFERRAL PIECEStacey was determined to figure out the referral piece when she launched her second business, but all the information she could find said you had to ask for referrals. To her, asking for a referral felt like a second-cousin to a cold call. She didn’t want to do it. In order to help her second business be successful, she decided to figure out how to generate referrals without asking. Once she did that, she moved into teaching other people how to succeed in the same way. REFERRAL MISTAKESReferrals are not about you. If you ask for them, or make them part of your marketing plan and develop promotions around them, you’re making the referrals about you. Stacey discovered that the sales process has three buckets: prospecting activities, marketing activities, and referral activities. What we do to generate referrals looks different than what we do compared to prospecting and marketing. When I’m in prospecting mode, I’m looking for someone who will say yes within 30 days. With marketing, it’s a little more long-term but there is always an ultimate mindset. Referrals, however, require different activities and a different mindset. The biggest mistake people make is treating their referral process like part of the prospecting effort. Or, they think about it like marketing and make it promotional and gimmicky. GREAT WORKIf you’re going to hand off the client at some point, you have to make sure it’s a great process and great client experience. Nobody refers to crappy work and no one refers a choppy customer experience. That’s a foundational piece, and none of these suggestions will work if you aren’t referrable. You must do the things that make people want to refer you. The most important person in a referral process isn’t you and it isn’t your prospect; it’s your referral source. You must understand who is referring you. ACTION STEPSBegin by pulling out your list of clients, at least from the last two years, and figure out how those clients learned about you. (Pull data from as many years as you’re willing to do the work for.) You may have this information in your CRM, or you may have to do some digging. Determine who those people are that already referred you in the past, and begin there. You’ll likely realize that you don’t have that many, and you’ll probably discover that you haven’t been intentional about building relationships with those people. Figure out what you’re doing to take care of your referral sources. Because sellers often get paid on commission, it’s tempting to move quickly from one client to the next. Sometimes sellers don’t recognize that it’s a lot of work to constantly seek the next big win. Instead, sellers can spend their time doing activities they enjoy doing for people who know that they truly care. Then, the sellers can watch clients drop in their laps. It saves a tremendous amount of time and money. YOUR JOBNo one wakes up in the morning thinking about ways to make your job easier. They aren’t thinking about how they can refer you. Your job is to make sure that you’re doing outreach to referral sources and that you’re being memorable and meaningful. You want to use the right referral seed planting language so that you move into their subconscious. When you take care of people, they naturally want to take care of you back. We want to be the person who is constantly giving to them so they think about us in a different way. When an opportunity arises, we want them thinking about us. It’s all about how we take care of people. TOP OF MINDWhen you know who your referral sources are and you focus on them, you start to notice and develop patterns about those sources. When Stacey was a business and productivity coach, she noticed that her niche happened to be working parents. Their world was her world. Her previous business failure gave her a unique perspective she could share. She initiated a touchpoint that included “off-guard holidays.” In order to be meaningful, she sent Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts to her top referral sources. She sent a Wonder Woman water bottle to the moms reminding them that they are heroes. It didn’t include Stacey’s logo and it wasn’t about her. It was about her client. Those clients have never forgotten who sent that bottle. They were seen and recognized. That effort can’t be a one-and-done. The touch points must accumulate over time. Clients will always think about you in return when you’ve thought about them first. Anything you do must be all about them. PLANTING SEEDSBegin by using the word referral when you’re talking to your clients. When someone sends you someone, send them a hand-written thank you note that thanks the referrer by name. It’s noticeable because it’s a thank you note that you took time to write. Then, when people ask how your business is going, use the opportunity to plant a referral seed. Consider this: “You know, I on-boarded three new clients last week who were referred to me. I love receiving referrals because it tells me I’m doing something right with my business.” Be honest, but plant the idea of referral. The seed may not always fall on fertile soil, but eventually, it will. Aim for the 30 percent who will actually refer you. Like the other steps, it must be a consistent effort that builds on itself. We’re seeking to create a habit for how our clients will behave. “GENERATING BUSINESS REFERRALS…WITHOUT ASKING” EPISODE RESOURCESYou can connect with Stacey at staceybrownrandall.com where you can figure out your skill level at generating referrals by taking her Referral Ninja Quiz. The quiz identifies three different levels, and it will help you determine whether you should learn more about referrals. Her website includes all kinds of free content to help you figure out how to move to the next level. This episode is brought to you in part by our TSE Certified Sales Training Program, which teaches you to improve your sales skills, find more customers, build stronger value, and close more deals. The next semester begins in March. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It’s super easy, it’s helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You’ll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss a single episode, and share with your friends! |
Fri, 9 February 2018
Are you open to getting referrals from clients? Do you ask for referrals? “Who do you know will benefit from what we offer?” This is actually the most common question people ask when asking for referrals. But there’s a better, more effective way of doing this. I have come to recognize that many salespeople do […] The post TSE 765: TSE Hustler’s League-“How Do I Ask?” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist. |
Tue, 24 January 2017
What if you could reduce the time it takes for you to close deals into half? And what if there was a way for you to better understand a particular organization so you could increase your chances of closing deals? Our guest today is David Hammer. He shares with us great insights into what you […] The post TSE 493: The New Secret Weapon For Sales Teams Helping Them Close Deals In 50% Less Time appeared first on The Sales Evangelist. |
Mon, 9 January 2017
Why can’t referrals work in your industry? Wrong! Referrals can actually work in every single industry. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling. Today’s snippet taken from one of our training sessions over at the TSE Hustler’s League is about the main reasons people are not getting referrals and what you can do to improve your […] The post TSE 485: TSE Hustler’s League-“Referrals” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist. |
Wed, 10 February 2016
One of the best ways to grow your business is by getting referrals from your clients. Jeff Tockman is a consultant who helps his clients grow their business through referrals. Jeff is a power networker and very good at building relationships with others. In April of 2009, Jeff started Professional Social Networking Group (PSNG.org). He has […] The post TSE 265: Sales From The Street-“This Is How You Get A Referral” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist. |
Sat, 20 June 2015
We all know that one of the greatest ways to grow our business is through referrals. The problem is, many of us as sellers never ask for them for one reason or another. In this episode, I interview Preston Killian who shares some of the struggles he faced early on growing his business. Preston has a business […] The post TSE 156: Sales From The Street-“How I Grew My Business Through Referrals” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist. |