How To Get More Referrals Now
Written by Dave Lorenzo on July 31, 2016 / Referrals
If you received one referral each day and you closed business with one of those people each week you’d have 50 new clients each year.
(That’s only a 20% closing ratio, you should do better than that.)
This exercise might be the most valuable thing you discover this month.
If you do a great job and you deliver value to your clients, the reason you are not receiving referrals is because people are simply not thinking about you.
Don’t you want to fix this problem?
Here is a three-step system that will help you fix this problem forever. You will need to practice it a few times. It will not seem natural at first. But once you get the hang of it, you will be amazed at how well it works.
Our brains function like computers. We store information in organized files. In order to remember something, we need to know which file to look into in order to retrieve it.
To get someone to remember a person who could be a potential client for you, you have to get him or her to open up the mental file where that information is stored. The exercise below will help you do that when you are in a one-on-one setting.
Step One: Start up a referral conversation
Usually I start a referral conversation by asking how the other person finds his clients.
He usually reciprocates and asks me how I find clients for my business.
When he asks, I tell him most of my clients come to me through referrals. The other person usually says he likes receiving referrals too. At that point I ask him to describe his ideal client. That leads step two.
Step Two: Get the other person into a referral mindset
Now you have to shift the other person from thinking about his clients to thinking about people he knows who might be good clients for you. To make this shift I usually say something like:
“Getting referrals can be tough because people do not always recall everyone they meet.”
Then I ask him if he has ever met a famous person. This can be a celebrity, it can be a politician, it can be anyone famous. You just want him to recall the meeting and the person.
I ask him to describe the event where he met the famous person and I ask him to describe the qualities of the famous person.
“Where were you?”
“Was he nice?”
“What did he say?”
Getting him to recall details is important because it helps him open the mental file completely.
Step Three: Use a memory jogger
The next step is to get him to think of the kind of person you want to meet. You can transition into asking for specifics by saying something like:
“It is amazing how many people we meet on a regular basis. Did you know most people in business meet, on average, over 300 new people each year? By any chance do you know someone who…”
This is where you fill in the person you want to meet.
A trust and estates attorney, for example, would ask about a CPA.
A banker might ask to meet the CFO of a grocery company.
A plumber might ask to meet a general contractor or a developer.
After you ask for your referral, make sure you are clear on who is a good referral for them (so you can send them someone for their business).
Step Four: Follow up
After you get back to your office immediately do an email introduction of the person you were just speaking with to someone who could be valuable to his business.
Always give before you expect to receive. This is extremely important.
About half the time, you will receive a referral in return.
Find a way to work this referral process into your weekly activity. Once you master it, it will pay you dividends for a long time.
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