Referrals - How and When to Get Them
Referrals are an amazing and effective way to grow your business and add to your income. The trouble is that most of the tips and articles give you bad advice on how to get referrals. Here, I’m revealing to you my tested way of when and how to secure more referral business.
Most experts state that the best time to get referrals is after you have proven yourself to a customer. While this sort of works, it doesn’t even come close to being an effective way. If you’ve tried it, you know what I’m saying.
The problem with waiting until you have proven yourself with a customer lies in the human brain. Through evolution, the brain adapted to pay attention to what’s immediate, and to ignore things that are finished.
Your brain is programmed to pay attention to what’s immediately of consequence. What just happened is already starting to fade. When you are in the middle of doing a task you can hold all the details in mind to a very exacting degree. A couple days after you have finished, many of those details have faded, because you are on to the next important things.
For example, a mother sleeping in a 14th floor apartment above a noisy street can sleep, oblivious to the noise below. Yet when her baby stirs two rooms over, she’s up like a flash and at her child’s side. The reticular activated system is the brain’s system to selectively and automatically focus what you pay attention to.
Have you ever noticed how, once you like a certain car, you start to see them everywhere? Did they just suddenly appear or were they there all along? Your RAS responds to your interest by making the cars noticeable. They were there all along, before you liked them but they were not important so the RAS ignored them.
The RAS is a survival tool. Your ancestors had to notice the sabre tooth tigers hiding in the forest, so the RAS evolved to pay attention to the important and ignore what isn’t. How do you use that to your advantage with customers?
Referral System Example
Here is an example of a possible discussion that you might have with a potential client / customer, on the first visit.
When you’re talking to your customer for the first time… you can say something like, “Mrs. Jones, I only will take you on as a client if I am absolutely convinced that I can over-deliver exactly what you need.
One of the big reasons I do that is because I get more of my business by referral.
So, if we do business together, there will be a time when you are thrilled with who we are and what we do. We actively set it up that way.
I make sure, up front, that the fit is good and I can hit it out of the park.
Once that takes place, I’m betting that you will want to tell you friends and associates about my service. Which is great! I’m going to make sure that you are so excited and pleased with your results that you can’t wait to tell other people about me.
If you refer us to a colleague, it will be because of a benefit you see for that colleague by working with us.
Just like you, we won’t do business with them unless we see a clear win for them. However, we will promise you: We will treat anyone you send our way with just as much courtesy, professionalism and respect as we treat you with and of course you would never send anyone to us unless you were satisfied with the levels of courtesy, professionalism and respect we provide, would you? Of course not!
I only have one request: If we work together, may I periodically check with you to see if you are thrilled yet?”
By planting seeds in this manner (or in your own style), you will increase your effectiveness in gaining referrals. Your customer’s RAS will automatically and most importantly, without their having to remember, respond by bringing to their attention the colleagues that will benefit from working with you.
If you ask in this way, you will notice your referrals increasing. Without their having to work at it, your customer’s RAS will be compelled to find friends that will benefit from working with you.
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