Teach your clients how to give strong referrals

Has this ever happened to you: You or your salespeople got a referral to call someone, and when you called, that person did not know you were going to call and really had no interest? Many salespeople are confused as to what really is a referral. A referral is not a recommendation to call someone “and you can use my name” or a list of names and telephone numbers from your networking buddy. What is a real referral? It’s when someone has referred you to someone else, and that person knows and wants you to call them. The prospect is EXPECTING your call! Anything less is just one step above a call cold.

There are essentially three levels of referrals. Level one, and the least desirable, is when your client says “Anna, you should call my friend Frank, he would be a good prospect for you.” We call this a “cold referral” because it is essentially a cold call and your likelihood of having a meaningful conversation with that prospect is very low.

The next level referral is a “warm referral.” The referral warms up when your prospect says: “Anna, my friend Frank owns a widget company. I saw him at an event last week, and I told him about the great work you and your company were doing for us and asked if he would be interested in speaking with you. He said that he would, so I’ll put the two of you together in an email. Let me know if I can help in any other way.” Notice that your client has helped to qualify interest on the part of the referral prospect and has offered to make an email introduction to confirm that the prospect will be expecting your call.

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The third and highest level of referral is the “hot referral.” In this instance, the prospect will actually get together with you AND her/his referral prospect and be part of the introduction visit. Often times, this might be over lunch or even at your client’s business. You can see how powerful this kind of referral meeting could be when your client is extolling the virtues of working with you and your company with her/his friend AND you sitting across the table. With a hot referral, you’ll typically see an abnormally high closing ratio and be glad you took the extra time to coach your client on how to make the referral introduction.

Our clients train not only their salespeople, but all of their staff to teach their clients how to set up the referral properly, so you’re not met with confusion or rejection when you call.

At the end of the day, if you’re doing a great job for your customers and clients they will actually WANT to refer business to you — it makes them feel good. Unfortunately, most clients don’t have any training on how to do this in the most productive and powerful way, so it’s up to us to teach them.

Bob Bolak is president of Sandler Training. Contact him at bbolak@sandler.com.