Referrals – It’s A Diva Thing!

A fellow diva and new friend, Deborah Rudman, who is VP of Marketing at Paine Bluett Paine, met with me yesterday to visit over an afternoon glass of iced tea.  We immediately clicked, like divas are want to do, and enjoyed a delightful conversation about our families, business, life’s journey and our dreams for the future.

Soon, our discussion let to the challenges of networking and connecting with the right audience, other professionals, business opportunities ultimately leading to new clients.  We both agreed that the very best business is that which comes by way of referrals.  At Succes in the city we embrace a “zero” tolerance solicitation policy. However, we do encourage blabbing, blurbing, gabbing, raving, endorsing and heartily referring business through and among those we know that provide quality products and services with integrity with a bit of style and panache thrown in the mix.

After all, it’s our reputation that can be on the line when making a referral. 

Deborah shared this article below by Jerry Hocott with me about the subject of referrals, so please enjoy and make sure that you are making and asking for referrals!

Get More Referrals

Pssst! Don’t Keep Me a Secret
by Jerry Hocutt

Got a nice letter and money making idea from one of my students in New York City, Marvin Brown, president of Contact Strategies.  I called him the next day and had a great visit.  We haven’t seen each other since 2003, so I was excited that he still remembered me and thought enough to send me his good news.Marvin has just started his own speaking and sales training business focused on financial services and included several of his students’ glowing reviews of his recent Las Vegas programs.  One student’s comments caught my eye.  He said he liked Marvin’s technique of “Never use or think of the word referral”, but instead use “Don’t keep me a secret.”  I asked Marvin if he could expand on the “secret”.“Look,” Marvin said, “if I give you a referral for a nice restaurant here in the city, I’m not doing the restaurant a favor.  I’m doing you a favor.  If I give you a referral for a movie, I’m not doing Steven Spielberg a favor, I’m doing you a favor.  I don’t want to keep good things a secret from my friends.”

Marvin said one of his best techniques for getting referrals (he sells intangibles) is to comment to his new customer, “Please don’t keep me a secret from your friends.  Do them a favor.  Most of my clients think everyone has a financial advisor.  Sadly, the majority of people don’t.  When you’re talking with your friends about financial matters, please feel free to mention my name and give them a chance to meet me.  Maybe I can help them as much as I’ve helped you.”

Age-old problem

Asking for referrals has been an age-old problem for all walks of sales.  Marvin’s got the right idea.  Don’t think of the customer as doing you a favor by giving up the names of her friends and contacts.  Help her to realize she’s doing her friends a favor by getting the two of you together.  For example, I like to refer good books to others, not so the author can make more money, but because readers will benefit from the author’s ideas and experiences.  I tell others about a good website because I know prior conversations indicated the site has information they’ve been searching for.The words we use to ask for referrals are also important.  “Don’t keep me a secret” is more personal than “Got a referral?”  The secret phrase brings a smile to the lips.  And by stating “give them a chance to meet me” instead of asking “will you give me their number so I can call” gets them to slide their contact information to you without feeling conflicted.I’ve often mentioned Joe Girard’s (Guinness Book of Records’ #1 salesman in the world) bird dog kit for referrals and how it helped me lead the nation in referrals for four years while at a Fortune 1000 company.  (You can learn more about his referral program, how I modified it to be used with today’s technology, and how I still get tons of referrals  from it by downloading my free e-book Creating Sales Opportunities – 5 Proven Ways.)  Now I’m going to incorporate Marvin’s ideas with my referral techniques.  They must work.  I’m referring him to thousands of our Snippets readers.