Referral Business: 3 Steps to Generating Unlimited Referrals
Of course, every sales person knows referral business is vitally
important. But how do you generate enough referrals to triple
your sales and commissions? That's easy, keep reading and I will
share three sure fire steps to creating massive referrals for
your business:
Step#1: Wow your clients
The first step to generating referral business is to go out of
your way to demonstrate a high level of service to EVERYONE who
comes in contact with your business - not just clients.
Everyone who comes in contact with your business is a potential
customer or referral source. As a mortgage lender, I've had
service people come into my office, see how we do business, and
ask about refinancing. But how do you "wow" your clients and
others to generate referral business?
Basically, you will need to be honest, knowledgeable, friendly,
professional, and deliver on your promises.
Exceed their expectations. Set yourself up to succeed. If
you think a task will be completed on Wednesday, tell your
client it will completed on Friday. Then, when you call them on
Wednesday to report that the task has been completed you'll look
like a superstar because you exceeded their expectation. In
short, deliver ahead of schedule.
Communicate proactively. Find out why your clients call
and stop them from calling by answering all questions ahead of
time. In the mortgage business, I found that clients and
everyone else involved in the transaction would call for status
updates. So I put a system in place to communicate updates to
everyone automatically. Now, my phone doesn't ring because
clients get regular scheduled updates.
Give unexpected bonuses. Give your clients some kind of
surprise bonus. Give them more than what they expected. Your
bonus could relate to your product or it could be in the form of
a gift. Here are a few gift giving ideas to help generate
referral business:
Before the sale
Try to give your clients something right up front. Try giving
clients a $5 gift card before they even agree to do business
with you.
During the sales process
Send cookies to both spouses' work with a thank you note and
plenty of your business cards so they can give them to
co-workers. This is a excellent technique for creating referral
business.
After the transaction is complete
Send flowers to your clients' home.
Step #2: Collect testimonials
Now that you have wowed your clients, get a testimonial from
them.
In fact, it would be a great idea to survey your clients at the
beginning, middle and end of the sales process immediately after
they have received one of your gifts.
Collect your surveys in writing by using short, quick answer
questionnaires - 10 questions or less. Here are sample questions
for your questionnaire:
1) Why did you choose to do business with us?
2) Was your transaction closed on time? YES / NO
3) How would you rate our courtesy? EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR /
POOR
4) How would you rate our efficiency and speed? EXCELLENT / GOOD
/ FAIR / POOR
5) How would you evaluate the competitiveness of the price you
received on your product? EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
6) Overall, how would you rate the service you received during
this transaction? EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
7) Have you ever purchased a similar product from a company
other than Your Company Name? YES / NO
8) If you answered YES to question #7, would you say we were:
BETTER / SAME / WORSE
9) Would you recommend us to a friend or relative? YES / NO
These questionnaires will serve as testimonials for the next
step in the creation of your referral business.
Step #3: Generate more referral business
Use your client's testimonial to target everyone in their center
of influence. Send your testimonial to prospective clients and
referral business partners along with an approach letter.
More on the approach letter in a moment; first, here is a list
of potential referral business partners that can be targeted
after a mortgage transaction just to give you some ideas:
* HR manager at their work
* Listing real estate agent and that agents entire office
* Selling real estate agents and that agents entire office
* CPA
* Financial planner
* Insurance agent
* The seller of the home on a purchase transaction
* Title Company
* Real estate appraiser
* Neighbors
Now, do you need some ideas for writing your cover letter? To
download three approach letter samples visit:
www.Mortgage-Leads-Generator.com/a/approachletter.htm
In summary, incorporate these ideas into the way you conduct
business and you will automatically deliver such a high level of
service that your clients will jump at the chance to tell their
family, friends, and co-workers about your service.
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