[E22] Referral Week: Generating Referrals

There is a formula for anything in life that you want to do successfully. From being healthy, to making money, to building a new habit, to chemistry experiments, to baking.

When you are working in sales there is a formula for being successful in a selling career.

And there is a formula for generating referrals.

Like most things in the life, the winning formula is simple but not always easy.

Want to be an Olympic level athlete? The formula is simple. But not easy.

Want to create a referral-based sales business? Simple. Not easy. And not quick.

In this episode I cover the three parts of the referral formula.

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Episode 22 – Transcript

Welcome to the second episode of Referral Week!. My name is Jason Cutter and my windy path in life has led me to this point where my goal is to share my experiences and knowledge when it comes to selling, especially inside sales, with anyone who is in sales or thinking about a career in sales. My vision is to change the landscape of sales so that prospects see you as a professional instead of being afraid of getting manipulated. And at the same time help you actually close more sales and achieve your goals while doing the right thing for your prospects.

If you are new to the show, I am glad you are here. You are jumping in at a fun point where I am talking about referrals. If you are a regular listener, thank you for being on this journey with me as well.

In the previous episode I spoke about how when a salesperson is generating most of their business by referral it is truly the ultimate indicator that they are doing things in the right way for the customers they are helping. But the question I always get is “How do I generate referrals?”

To me it is a simple formula. If you ever took a chemistry class in school then you know about what happens when you have a formula you use and mix the right chemicals in the right order and you get what you are supposed to. And we have all had that lab partner, or maybe you were the one, who didn’t want to follow the formula and just dumped different stuff into the test tube and things turned out badly.

This is same way with referrals. Honestly, it’s the same for a successful sales career and for your life. There is a success formula for everything, and the key is to follow that blueprint.

For referrals it is simple.

The first part is to follow the fundamental principals I covered during the two Fundamental weeks. To recap, you want to build rapport, show empathy, create trust, provide hope, and have urgency. And the order is important, otherwise who knows what you will get.

When you do those five areas of the sales process in the right way for your product or service then you start the client off on the right foot.

The second part of the formula is that the expectation you set has to be in alignment with the marketing message and then what the company actually does with the client. If you are selling a car, does the car actually do or perform the way you said it would? If you help people with their debt, does your company’s processing department actually do what is being promised? If you sell insurance, when someone has a problem will they actually be covered and taken care of? That fulfillment part is critical. Tell someone your knives can cut through aluminum cans and then tomatoes, it better actually do it. Or they wont tell anyone about it because they will be embarrassed by falling for your claims.

The third part of the referral generating formula is to ask. You wont get what you don’t ask for. And it is true, there are customers who will send you referrals no matter what, even if you never ask. There are people who love to share with other people. They want other people to have the great experience that they had. We all have those friends who go to a movie and without even asking them they tell us to go see it. Or they are always telling you a new restaurant to go check out. They enjoy being that connector and get pleasure from being the one who can point other people towards the same happy things or experiences they enjoyed.

But you cannot rely on those customers to grow your pipeline of referrals. You cannot predict how many of those you will have as customers and usually as quickly as they will tell everyone when they are happy with you, if they get unhappy for any reason it will stop even quicker.

So the best way to get referrals is to ask. That is the rule in your life in general anyway. Unless you have the amazing pleasure of having everything in your life come to you, you will need to ask for what you want from time to time. With referrals you want to ask and make sure they know that you accept and appreciate referrals.

That might seem like a weird concept because you might assume that everyone would know you want referrals. But don’t assume. Then you are relying on those promoters to do the work for you. Instead, let each person who you connected with know that you would love their referrals. Later on this week I will cover who, when, and how to ask for referrals.

For now, know that the only way to a successful referral pipeline is to follow this formula. First follow the fundamentals. Second, make sure your product or service will do what you have set in the new customer’s mind. Third, ask for referrals.

An additional part of the referral formula that isn’t an official part, but critical is that satisfied clients aren’t enough. Why would I say that? Don’t you want satisfied clients? At a bare minimum – yes. You want to tell people your product or service will help them in its special way, or improve their life, or achieve a goal they have, or satisfy a want or need. And then it must do what you said it would. Then they will be satisfied. But they won’t be impressed enough to shout from the mountain tops about their experience.

If I go to a new restaurant and have a hamburger like I can get anywhere else, and its done exactly right but nothing special – then I probably won’t be excited enough to tell people. But if I go in expecting a hamburger, and I find something special on the menu…for me it would be a hamburger with bacon, a fried egg, and crumbled blue cheese – now that is something I can get excited about.

Prospects are coming to you for X. If you sell them X, they will be happy and walk away. But if you sell them X, and they actually get X-Plus, then they will be excited.

Satisfied is not enough. I mentioned the book Raving Fans yesterday, by Ken Blanchard. That is a big thing he mentions over and over again. Satisfied customers is not enough to produce raving fans. And you want to create raving fans because they will drive the referrals to you.

That’s it for this episode. If you want to get the podcast each day, make sure to subscribe where you downloaded this from, and if you are getting X-Plus, mondo bacon burger goodness from this podcast, I would love for you to go on iTunes and give the show a five star rating and a great, glowing yummy review. If you don’t feel like you can give it five stars, email me or send me a message through the website and let me know why. I would appreciate the feedback, especially if there are things that could bring extra value.

But until next time, always remember that everything in life is sales and people will remember the experience you gave them.