I had an interesting thing happen to me not too long ago. I had a networking friend of mine email me with the name of a friend of hers and she said “I asked her to call you”. Now I certainly appreciate her mentioning my name and I hope friend calls, but truthfully I don’t expect to get a call. Why? Because what she gave was a suggestion and not a referral. “Call my friend Sharon, you’ll like her, she knows about this stuff, she likes dogs, she’s friendly, give her a call.” All nice but not a referral.
Now like many business owners and entrepreneurs, I get a lot of my business, if not most, from referrals and I am know that to get good referrals you have to give good referrals. I believe in Golden Rule Marketing so that means the referral process starts not with others, but with me. Become a great referrer to receive great referrals. So what does a great referral look like?
I like to equate a referral to an introduction. If I am introducing one friend to another, I like to tell each of them what to expect. The same is true of a good referral, so I never refer anyone’s business or service to my friends and clients unless I can intelligently talk about the individual and what they do. Therefore, I have a business rule that says I never refer people unless I have personally interviewed them to find out about them and their business.
Once I have gathered that information, I pass it on to those who are looking for that service or product. In doing so I explain that I have personally met with the person I am referring, and mention the qualities that most impressed me during our meeting. I also talk about what this person has to offer that would uniquely suit the situation. After that I ask one key question to open the door as wide a possible for the referral and that is “May I have my friend contact you?” I often also ask “How do you like to be contacted, by email or phone?” If the individual does not really want to be contacted, I give them the contact information they need to complete the deal and follow-up to see if they actually made the call.
Now that the referral has been given, I will let the person I referred know that someone should be calling and give a limited description of the need and ask them to make contact immediately. I will generally follow-up to see that the connection has been made and that my client is happy with the service or product. Another business rule I also follow is that if the referral ball was dropped by the service provider, they will never get another chance to impress me.
That all sounds like a lot of work, but I assure you it just takes a few minutes to give a great, qualified referral and you will see the ROI in the quality of referrals you receive.What
