Ep. 206 Winning System for Ongoing, Quality Referrals

Expand your brand and your influence. Joe shows you how to leverage your current client base for high quality leads.

Podcast transcript:
Voice over:

Get ready for an unfair advantage over your competition. This is The Sales Edge podcast. Where globally recognized sales expert and trainer Joe Pici helps you sharpen your skills for booking more appointments and closing more deals. And now here’s your host Joe Pici.

Joe Pici (JP):

Welcome to The Sales Edge podcast number 206. Have you ever wondered what the benefits are of a great referral program? People referring business to you and what that is? What the benefits are? Well today on the sales edge podcast, We are going to be talking about the three key factors of ongoing referrals. And so I’m Joe Pici, I’m your host. Once again The Sales Edge podcast number 206. We want to thank you so much. You’re such a great audience and team helping us to grow globally. It’s been exciting and our sponsors are Pici and Pici which is a speaking, coaching, training, consulting company specializing in helping our clients recapture lost Revenue, momentum, lock in client loyalty, and also sell more virtually.com, a membership platform. We invite you to take take a look at that because every Thursday night I’m live doing coaching or training also downloads, interviews, e-courses, more e-courses coming. So today I also want to thank you, Global gurus has posted the top 30 and for the third consecutive years. I’m at the top. I’m Number Two this year. I was out 2021 20. I was number one and now I’m number two, but you’ve kept me up on top and thank you. The sales training program was ranked number one last year. We’re going to see where we are this year. The votes are still coming in. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you, so we’re going to move on. You know, I know many companies rely on referrals for the bulk of their business. Many companies specialize in you know, quality referrals and that’s their marketing plan. Here at Pici and Pici, We have 22 ways of generating quality leads. Yes, referrals are one of those ways. But in really studying referrals, really studying the whole dynamic of generating referrals.

I noticed a few things that I’d like To work with you on today and I know this will be an asset to you. Let’s talk about first, the benefits of generating referrals. The benefits of people giving you a referral. Number one. It’s going to reduce your cost. You know, when it comes to client acquisition. I work with my client my coaching clients on let’s look at cost of client acquisition. Okay. And so what does it cost to generate a client? With referrals it costs nothing. And so you really will reduce your cost of client acquisition. The second thing it will do is, it increases your closing ratios. You know, there’s no question that you’re going to get a higher closing ratio with a referral than a cold call, or a lead that you have to generate yourself. So it really helps you with respect to being able to close clients.

Because they’re referred into because, number three, is a pre trust recommendation. So many times when I’m doing outbound cold calls, when I’m doing calls off a LinkedIn, which are all great. In fact LinkedIn’s our number one way of generating business. Number two is outbound cold calls. So but one of the questions people will want to ask you is, do you have any references? Is there someone I could call? They want to see testimonials. When you’re given a referral you have a pre-vetted testimonial. They’ve already spoken about you or they’ve already made the introduction. So this alleviates that in one way shape or form. Because if they trust the person that’s referring you it automatically drives you up on the trust scale. That’s a good point right there. The next one is it’s going to expand your influence. Because you have influence with the person referring you, it’s now expanding the influence into this new potential client. So, you know influence is everything in business and the key to that whole thing is, can you get an influence position at the table? And by being referred it really moves you there quickly.

The next one is it’s going to save you time on the outbound client leads. You I know for me the amount of time I spend generating leads on say, LinkedIn generating a call list on cold called, being on someone else’s podcast and the list goes on and on and on but this the amount of time that is saved. When you get that call and so and so highly recommended you, or somebody calls you and said I just spoke to someone and I told him I was going to have them call you. All of a sudden the amount of time that saved and I can tell you that that is I’m very time effective. And again I go back to what I said previously, I work with a lot of my clients. I work with us on what does he cost in a way of time and money to acquire a client? And when you start looking at the time and money that it takes to acquire client, there’s lost Revenue there.

There’s lost time. So anytime you can get a quality referral and you save time you will do the next one with you’ll save money. And so now let’s look at this. The next one is you were at a higher point of entry with a new business client. You’re not starting here. I mean when I pick up the phone and I make a cold call, I don’t care how good I am on the phone. I don’t care what my script is. I’m starting here. But when you’re given a referral your point of entry is up here. So let’s let’s recap my list of some of the benefits and you’re going to write down other benefits that you’ve received along the way. You know, reducing costs, increasing closing ratios, pre trust recommendation, expanding your influence, saving time, saving money, and the higher point of entry.

Look at that. I’ll take a few minutes and look at the amount of referrals that you’re given by people. Why are you getting them? Why are you not getting them? Okay, and gettingrefferals, a coaching Point here is, how many of your know, like, trust, relationships, people you’re doing business with people who say they know you and they like you. How many of them really understand what you do and how you do it? You know in all of our sales training whether it’s virtual, whether it’s live, we build out what we call a core story. Which is your sales meeting, which is your discovery. So many times people think the only time you use that is with a prospective client. Yet, part of getting referrals is to educate your sphere of influence. To educate your clients, to educate people you know, like, and trust. And know, like, and trust you so they can better refer you. We have to arm them.

That’s the first silo. The second Silo is what I call responsibility. Okay. What is your responsibility when getting a referral? The first responsibility is instant response contact. I get a referral, I don’t wait a week, I don’t wait a day. As soon as referral comes in I pick up the phone, I make the contact. Here’s what the channel there’s nothing worse than receiving a referral and not responding in a timely fashion. Because they already know there’s a need. And in the 21st century I really do believe what’s happened is, first person to respond a lot of times gets the business. Because when a person is in need and a person really has pain, concern, they have challenges, the person who Gets to them quicker Has a better chance of moving forward.

The second one is we need to over deliver. The responsibility of getting referrals that I over-deliver. I make sure I exceed expectations. Now that worked for two reasons. It works for the person I’m working with, the new client. But it also works for the person who passed the referral because flat-out I just make them look good. Which I’m helping them to grow their brand. So I’m always always always going to over deliver. The third one is I thank the referral partner. I immediately thank them for referral and that’s important. You know, let’s never get to the point where we don’t become grateful for a referral that’s passed to us. Okay, I thank them the minute whether it goes to business or not. I thank them for thinking of me. I thank him for trusting me. I thank him for the referral and this sounds commonplace.

But I’m telling you I when I get into the danger zone you’re going to find that a lot of people do not observe these principles and practices. The next one, I keep the referrer, the person who passed on the Referral. I keep them informed as to the status. In another words, Did this become a client? The other night, Okay, you know Kathleen up in Nashville. Been a longtime client over 10 years. She passed me a referral. I picked up the phone. We move forward, we went to contract, and I made sure I thanked her and I made sure I kept her aware of exactly what happened, what she purchased, how we’re going to be working with her, and where we are in the process.

You know to go quiet, to assume that the person who passed through referral, doesn’t need to know. Because if you want to get continuous referrals from your referral sources, keep them informed, keep them in the loop, make them part of the process. The next one is return a referral if they qualify. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Because you give me a referral I would like to pass through referral but only if I do believe you will Deliver the way I’m talking about it. You were you will be quick to respond. You will over deliver, you will keep me informed. So I will give back referrals. But only if I believe you are going to treat that Prospect with the same way I treat prospects.

So we’ll get to this in what a dangerous but I don’t believe in entitlement. I believe you earn every referral. I don’t believe you owe me a referral. The next one is Always educate the people who are referring you as to your core story and new things you’re doing. New Innovations, new offerings, new strategies. Keep them on the front line, being aware of, Oh Pici and Pici have opened up a second business. They now opened up sell more virtually.com that didn’t exist a year and a half ago. So we’re letting Referral Partners know, this is what we’re doing. And then the last one is reward reward reward. Sometimes you work out a strategic alliance with people that there’s actually a commission. Sometimes you work things out where you send a gift. You know the other night I got a referral from somebody and it went out and what I did was I took 10% of what that contract work and I offered it to one of my coaching clients who gave me the referral, in a way of would you like more coaching hours? And that’s what they wanted.

What rewards say is you’re not taking them for granted. That you seriously appreciate what they’re doing and helping you grow your business. Now the next silo, and I call this the danger Silo. Kind of like alert alert. Here’s some of the challenges I’ve seen and here’s some of the things I think if you alleviate you’re going to get more referrals. The first one is let’s get rid of the entitlement Attitude. What does that mean? So many times when people belong to a networking group, a chamber, an association, or even inside a company, they believe that because they’re part of that they deserve referrals from other people. And folks, I don’t believe that. I believe every referral needs to be earned, every referral Just wondering if you go through the responsibility Silo. That’s how you get on-going Referrals.

So I think entitlement needs to be thrown out. The second one is be careful of giving referrals to the wrong person. Do you have a vetting process? One of my vetting processes is this, I will call you up. If you do not return my phone call, I will take you off my potential Referral List. Because think about this, if you don’t return my phone call, you might not return the phone call or be expedient about dealing with that Prospect. Therefore, I can’t trust that you’re going to do. If this happened to me recently. I violated my own process.

I really didn’t know these people very well. I you know, we sat down we had coffee, I would I was going through my core Story. One of my clients and friends called me up and said hey, I need a person construction to do this. Do you know anyone? Well, I was sitting down with these people, they were in a hurry and before I had time to put them through my vetting process. I gave them the referral.

To which they never called the referral, they never called me and told me where it was. And two weeks later, I called the owner of that company and I said, can you tell me where you are in the process? Where you able to contact that person about their home? And the owner said I don’t know. I don’t even know, I’m and they were he was sitting in the room. And he was unaware of it, they did nothing with it. And I immediately took them all of my potential. I literally violated my own principle. If you don’t trust someone, if you don’t trust them that they will over-deliver. They will be great with response. They’re going to bring all their projects in on time, on scope, on budget. I would be really careful because of the next one.

Giving a referral to the wrong person can destroy your brand reputation. It can literally destroy your brand reputation. We here at Pici and Pici work so hard at building our brand. I mean again not in the braggadocious way, but we are so proud of being able to be recognized at that top tier in business by global Guru. It is taken years of Blood, Sweat, tears, tremendous amount of money and time, and one bad referral can cost you that. And so when you give a referral and you don’t think it through, you don’t vet it through, What you’re saying is I really don’t care if you destroy my brand. And I’m not trying to be overly direct with you, but I am saying this giving referrals is a serious part of your business. Because when you give a referral you are saying I trust this person, they’re going to take care of you, They are an extension of who I am. Which brings me to the next one. Giving referrals to the wrong people’s going to destroy and lose you clients, lose business. Because remember they don’t remember the person who didn’t call them or didn’t do the job.

They remember you because you were the one that made that Recommendation. So when we look at these silos take this to Heart. This is a road map. Now. Is there more to it? Absolutely. Can I give you more, but if you just took these three silos and you said this is going to be our methodology for how we generate referrals, how we deal with referrals, our responsibility with referrals, and the danger zone referrals. I promise you you can begin to build a referral based program as part of your lead generation.

So thanks so much and if you’ll Take out your phone and put the word sales edged in, one word, and texted to five five six seven eight. That’s going to take you to a Pici and Pici link, that will take you to a splash page. On that splash page, There’s a 5 video E-course for free. Recapture lost Revenue through virtual selling. There’s also a link to our sell more virtually.com membership platform that you can run all over that website really investigate it. There are downloads, there’s an e-book on LinkedIn, an e-book on sale. And they are linked to our podcast sales edge. If this is an asset to you. Can you like it? Can you share? Can you write a positive comment? Give us 5 Stars? We certainly appreciate it. This has been Joe Pici. We’re looking forward to our next podcast

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Thanks for listening. New episodes will air each Tuesday and Thursday. So make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and give us a five star review. The Sales Edge is sponsored by Pici and Pici Incorporated. A firm which provides training, consulting, and keynote presentations. Empowering corporations and individuals to attract and retain quality clients, for higher revenues and growth. Make more money in sales, speak with Joe in person by calling 407 947 2590 or visit www.piciandpici.com