Why referrals frequently don't work - Many people don't like referring people because they think that we'll immediately try to sell something to the person referred .. and that feels a bit yukky!
And, even when willing to help you, if you ask someone to list all the people they know, that you could contact with details of your product or service, they will usually say they'll do it tomorrow .. and when tomorrow comes they forget.
Or if you press them to do it today, then they'll either have a mental blank and not think of anyone, or they will give you a list of people they vaguely know. The reason; well they don't want to be seen giving away their friends contact details because they think you'll try to hard sell to them.
So trying to get a list of people to sell to today is a poorly thought through tactic.
Clearly there has to be a better way.
Forget hard selling
So what about a strategy where we don't try to sell? One where we give rather than sell? I know this sounds strange but let me explain.
If everyone knew the reason we ask for referrals was to help people, they'd feel safer referring people to us.
You can think about this for a while but you need to know I do this all the time and it works.
So we need to make a few changes to the way we ask for referrals.
Firstly we have to ensure we don't go into sales mode as soon as someone is referred (unless they contact us and say sell to me now, please!). If you've always been told to grab every sale you could find this quite hard.
Then we have to ensure the people we are asking to refer people to us know about out value in advance strategy. That we aren't going all out to make sales but want to help people. They need to know we will not embarrass them by immediately trying to sell something to anyone they refer to us.
They have to know that our wish is to add value in advance and to be there when someone wants to buy ... that we are not hard selling from the outset.
How & why a value in advance strategy works
Of course you also need to understand why this works and why this is a much better route to sales than hard selling.
Do this and people will be far more willing to refer others to us.
We need to think a bit about how we can help people rather than sell to them. This is easier than you might think. List the five questions you get asked most about your product or service. You now have five questions you could answer with a short written answer, a podcast, a video or via any other method you want to use.
Now you have something valuable to give away. You have a means to give value in advance.
Large companies do this. For example I'm looking to buy a new kitchen and have a lot of questions. John Lewis has foreseen my questions (because lots of other people have asked them the same questions) and have written answers on their website.
So if you sold kitchens you'd now be asking not for a list of people interested in buying a kitchen but in a list of people who are interested in kitchens, cooking, home life etc, because you have a short document on kitchen design for people who love kitchens and cooking. The difference is subtle in some respects but huge when looked at in terms of numbers and approach.
And because this isn't sales literature it is easier for people to refer you to people they know. They no longer doubt you and know that you aren't going to hard sell.
Over the next few articles I'll talk a lot more about some of the other techniques I use.
