Maverick and Company

Remember, even though people may be spending more carefully, plenty of them are still SPENDING.  One of the best ways to make sure the people who SHOULD become your clients actually BECOME your clients is to get smarter about referrals. Most people think that if they do a good job and know enough people, they’ll get referrals.  But you know lots of great people that you may have NEVER given a referral to.  While I can’t teach you every secret about getting more referrals right here, I can let you in on one of the simplest, MOST EFFECTIVE secrets for REFERRAL RESULTS.

STORIES For a very long time human beings communicated and remembered information primarily through stories.  And even now with our books and directories and our Google, the number one way people transmit and REMEMBER information is through STORIES. This is important because if you want referrals, people will have to remember you and what you do.  STORIES can quickly and easily make you memorable, likable, and trustworthy.  Perhaps even more importantly, a good story can make it SUPER EASY to refer you.

A Quick Case Study: THE MORTGAGE GUY A mortgage guy I know once asked me to take a quick peak at his marketing materials.  I started by asking him to tell me what 3 things he’d want people to know and remember him for in the referral process.  He, like many of you, was trying to let customers know he had integrity.  Unfortunately, that word, by itself, doesn’t work very well.  When pushed, he gave me the perfect example of how he has integrity.  He told me the following story: “This couple came to me for a second mortgage.  I spent a couple of hours with them, looking at their entire financial picture.  In the end, it didn’t really make sense for them to take out a second mortgage and I told them so.” This STORY is brilliant.  He can tell his referral sources to talk about his integrity but in one simple, fast story he can make sure they know it.  More importantly, it’s an easy story for them to tell to potential referrals.  When you make it EASY for people to refer to you, you DRAMATICALLY increase the odds of them doing so.

BONUS ROUND: For those of you who want to go past being a rock star and become a referral ninja, look at some simple edits I taught him. “A few months ago one of my clients referred her sister to me. They were a really nice couple who wanted to take out a second mortgage.  I sat down with them and talked to them about their overall financial picture–that’s important to do because a house is most people’s single biggest financial investment.  I spent a couple of hours with them and ultimately recommended they NOT take out the second mortgage.  I showed them some other options that made more sense for them.  So I actually didn’t make any money working with them but I believe in looking out for people.  That’s the way my dad did it and I think it’s one of the reasons people do refer me.  They know I’ll do the right thing with their people.”

The reality is that both of these examples work just fine.  Remember, your goal here is to train people to refer you AND make it easy for them to do that.  So I added some specific elements.

1. Be specific where you can.  If Mary referred you, talk about Mary.  It humanizes you and adds credibility.  Obviously a mortgage broker has to protect confidentiality but he can talk about a sister.
2. If your story includes a referral, make sure you say so.  It helps train people to think of you as someone people REFER frequently.
3. Add an extra nugget.  The focus of this story is that this particular mortgage guy will give up a deal for himself if it’s the right thing to do for the client.  We added a couple of extra nuggets.  You don’t want to tell a 20 minute story.  Simple is important.  But a couple extra QUICK nuggets put some very important ideas into the story.  Our first one is that he spent time looking at their entire financial picture.  Lots of mortgage guys might not do that.  It’s something that is different about him.  Second, we added the piece about his dad.  It’s TRUE, it humanizes him and helps people know that he’s from the old school, a highly desirable quality, especially in this industry.
4. Reinforce why people refer you.  At the end, we wrap it all up and bottom line it for people.  He’s a good person to refer because he not only says he’ll take care of people, he does it–EVEN WHEN it means he’ll lose a deal. Odds are YOU will remember this story. You might even tell it to someone else.  You might even want to refer someone you know to this broker (Jeff Aronheim)

What stories are you giving your fan club about you?

The MAVERICK GUIDE to GETTING MORE REFERRALS is being pre-sold at a HUGE DISCOUNT right now.  It’ll be out on April 15th.  Order your copy today and start working  A LOT smarter.  Your network likes you and knows people who should work with you.  Do you know how to connect the dots so their REFERRALS become YOUR CLIENTS?  For more information and to pre-order visit www.maverickandcompany.com and go to the CLASSES & BOOKS tab–get ‘em while they’re hot.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 9:21 am and is filed under MAVERICK More Great Stuff Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.