Sales Referrals Made Easy

There’s no doubt that the best way to get new sales is through referrals. You have a better chance of actually making a sale when your prospect comes to you through the recommendation of a current satisfied customer or a trusted friend or associate.

But most of us fail to effectively generate referrals and introductions from present clients and other professionals. Many of us feel uncomfortable even asking for referrals. We don’t want to alienate customers or make it look as if our business isn’t as strong as it should be.

Even when we do make a referral request, we often end up bungling it, saying something like, “If you have some prospective clients, can you send them my way?” Or perhaps we take a client to lunch and at the very end mutter, “And by the way, if you would send some people our way, we’d appreciate it.” Then, when nothing happens, you don’t know what to do or you figure you tried.

That’s a mistake. There are effective ways to generate referrals without harming relationships with current clients or business associates.

Set The Stage

The most important thing we can do is set up the referral conversation. It takes work, but expectations are set and clients or customers know what to expect. Try a dialogue like this:

Salesperson: “If you’re like a lot of my clients, you are probably looking for ways to expand your business. As you can imagine, we are looking to expand our business as well, and one of the reasons that I thought it might make sense for us to get together
and have lunch besides just checking in is to talk about ways that we might be able to help each other.”

Client: “OK, good.”

Once you meet with your contact, it’s useful to, in effect, ask permission from the customer or contact to have a conversation about generating referrals. If a customer agrees, they have “bought in” to the concept and are likely to be more cooperative.

Salesperson: “Can I take another minute and talk about the conversation I want to have about referrals? My experience has been that one of two things is going to happen. Either we will decide that we can help each other or we can’t. If we decide that we can’t, that’s OK. Any time during lunch, you can stop and say, “I don’t think this will work. Why don’t we just enjoy lunch and talk business.” It’s OK to do that. In order for us to work together, it has to be a win-win situation. So it might make sense for me to tell you about the types of people I’m looking for and what you might be able to do for me. Then, you can tell me a little about the types of people you do business with and what I might be able to do for you. Then we can decide whether or not we can help each other. Does that work?”

Client: “All right.”

Salesperson: “If we agree there is a fit and we decide to make some introductions, then we will discuss the ground rules on how we are going to go about it and how the mechanics might work. Is that OK?”

Timing Is Everything It’s been my experience that most people will help you if they can, but you need to get comfortable approaching your clients and giving them a reason to help you. One way to do that is to remind your clients of your value to them. In fact, one of the best times to ask for a referral is when value has been given and recognized. For instance, accountants should ask for referrals when it’s tax time, or other professionals should ask immediately after the customer has been pleased with your services or products. Again, here’s how a discussion might proceed:

Salesperson: One of the reasons I called was to find out how we’re doing.

Client: Everything is great.

Salesperson: OK. Is there anything else that we can be doing for you?

Client: No, thanks, I’m very happy.

Salesperson: You know, one of the things that we really would like to do is spend as much of our time as possible servicing our clients, good clients like you, and the problem is in order for us to be in today’s market, we still need to grow. You know, I didn’t become an accountant [or lawyer, or information technology consultant] to be in sales, so given the choice, I prefer to spend 90% of my time talking to people like you and making sure I’m taking care of your needs and only 10% doing that other thing called selling.

Unfortunately, I have partners and we have all agreed to a business plan to grow to a certain size, and in order to continue servicing my clients and make sure that they get the service they are accustomed to. I could use a little bit of help. Can I ask you a question? If you can help, and I don’t know if you can or can’t, but if you were to think of an associate or someone else who might need what we do, whose name comes to mind?

Getting Results

Many times the client will naturally say “no.” This a crucial moment.