An excerpt from my NEW book Knockout Networking for Financial Advisors and Other Sales Producers about how to generate referrals!
I have many ideas, approaches, and practices about how to generate more and better referral business. I’ll share one way to generate referrals here every week (for a total of 12 rounds!) or you can simply pick up a copy of the book and get them all!
Pick up a copy HERE!
If you missed the previous articles in this series, please take a look:
Round 9!
Think About WE Referrals
Generating referrals is one of the biggest challenges sales professionals (in all industries) face. The fact is we make generating referrals a lot more difficult than it really needs to be. Sales producers are so conditioned to thinking of generating referrals as a “me” thing (as in you) rather than a “we” thing (as in you and your client, prospect, referral source).
Instead, asking clients or referral sources, “How can you refer me more business?” say, “How can we refer one another more business?” Your context becomes collaborative and a true networking conversation. Now there’s no reason to be afraid to ask for a referral!
Making your request a we thing removes all of the obstacles.
The reason sales producers often don’t ask for referrals is because it can feel self-centered, self-serving, and all the other reasons I’ve mentioned in earlier posts.
Remember, nobody cares about your business as much as you do. And others care about their own business more than yours. But if you can make your request collaborative using we language, it makes the request feel less transactional and more relational.
I was at a conference, chatting with another keynote speaker. I am friendly with him because we serve many of the same markets. I was telling him that a lot of my own speaking and consulting is in financial services (like his). “We should talk!”
He replied, “That’s a great idea. You could refer me business.”
I don’t know if he was being tongue-in-cheek with me or if that’s really the way he looked at it. He had a great opportunity for me to refer him business. But he missed it. Sure, I can refer him business – no question. But he can refer me business, too.
How many referral opportunities have you lost focusing on you rather than we?
Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay
