Maverick and Company

REFERRAL Myth’s, Oddities, & Contradictions

Referrals are a widely misunderstood phenomenon.

• We think that trust is key to getting referrals, yet sometimes we refer people we barely know.
• We believe that if we do a good job we will earn referrals from our customers but often our best work produces no referrals.
• We tell ourselves we could get more business if we just did a better job of keeping in touch.  So we send out a flood of postcards and Christmas cards and newsletters and yet the referrals only trickle in.
• We see some people get LOTS of referrals, despite providing the same level of service, or perhaps even a lower level and we wonder why OUR phone doesn’t ring more.

Beyond the myths and mysteries are some simple strategies that can ACTUALLY help you consistently get more referrals.

What Works Better

I can’t cover all the secrets of being more referable here but I can give you one of the biggest…and I can reduce it to one simple word:

RECOGNITION

Selling to the Choir & The Sea of Faces

Your clients need to be able to look out into the sea of faces that make up their friends, family, neighbors and associates and RECOGNIZE the people that should be your clients, your CHOIR.  (Your CHOIR is a way to describe your BEST clients…the ones who naturally “get” you and adore you.  They tend to be easier and more pleasant to work for AND more profitable.  It’s o.k. to do business with members of the “Congregation” who kind-of get you, but your CHOIR members are the people you should really focus on finding.)

That means you can’t just tell them its “people who need insurance.”   The more specific you are, the more likely you are to get the referral.

• Not So Great = “people who need insurance.”
• O.k. = “people  who just bought a new house, got a new spouse or had a new baby.”
• Best Yet = “I work with a lot of men who are driver, A-type personalities who probably work too hard and play too hard and do at least one sport that could potentially get them killed.”

I know most of you don’t just work with one type of person.  I’m not saying you should.  But most people, in an effort to get more business, end up with less business or none at all because they’re being too general and too vague.

Look Around the Room

If I tell you to identify EVERYTHING in the room you’re in, you might actually start naming a few objects close to you but you’ll likely quickly blank out.  If I say Name the RED things in the room, your brain AUTOMATICALLY starts looking for red things and making a list.

Referrals work the same way.  You’ve got to help them RECOGNIZE your clients from among the sea of 125 faces.  Being able to recognize your clients doesn’t guarantee they’ll refer them to you, but it goes a LONG way toward that goal.

(Item # 725) WANT MORE GOOD STUFF ON REFERRALS?

This month we’re doing an AWESOME class called Referrals 101.  It will be held live in Denver on April 15^th and again via a webinar on April 21^st.  This class covers some of our BEST information on referrals and how to get more of them.  And, it’s only $47.  Visit our Classes & Books page for details and to get registered.

Get Registered.

Get Results.

(or in this case, get registered & get referrals.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 6:17 pm and is filed under MAVERICK More Great Stuff Blog, MAVERICK University for Sales & Marketing. 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.