The Perfect Way To Motivate Your Referral Sources
Copyright 2006 John Jantsch
You know you have much to offer your referral partners but, they
don't seem very motivated to refer you to their network.
You've taken the lawyer, accountant, financial planner and
insurance broker to lunch, explained your greatness but, still,
they don't ever send any referrals your way. Maybe it's time to
shift the entire dynamic in this little referral process and
spark their motivation by getting them to chase you instead.
Today I plan to outline two very powerful tactics that will get
your prime referral target partners to return your calls,
introduce you to their network and actively market your business.
Before I do though I want to explain the universal principle
these tactics are built upon.
When you make a sales call on one of your prime referral
prospects, the focus is one what "they" can do for "you." In
that scenario, you are indeed selling. What if your reversed the
focus and presented a referral partnership that instead focused
on what "you" were going to do for "them?"
The tactics I am about to outline will give you the creative
framework but, this shift in focus is the driver and a principle
so strategic in nature that it's worth looking for other ways to
apply.
So, to shift the focus to your referral source I offer two
powerful strategies.
1) The Perfect Introduction In Reverse - Make up a list of 25
prime referral sources - Those folks that you know serve your
same market and could easily influence some percentage of that
market to consider your services. Write to these source and tell
them that you admire what they do and think that you have
clients that you could refer to them. Include a form in this
mailing that allows them to explain in their own words exactly
how to introduce them to your clients. Ask them to fill this
form out using your Perfect Introduction as an example and
return it to you.
Simple as this sounds it will forever alter how they view your
business. And, you will certainly receive some information that
will allow you to refer a portion of these sources to your
clients. But, you will also be amazed by the amount of positive
feedback you receive from the simple twist in the selling
dynamic. All of a sudden you become the client instead of the
salesperson.
2) Interview Syndrome - No matter what the topic, everyone likes
to be interviewed. I publish a podcast here - and I'm amazed at
the caliber of guest that will return my phone call or email
when I ask to interview them for my podcast. Granted, my podcast
has a few more listeners than the average small time AM radio
talk show these days but, there is something fetching about the
lure of the media interview.
Here is how you apply this to your referral network. Make up a
list of professionals or service providers that you think would
have something worthwhile to say to your target audience. Then,
once a month, invite one of these experts to participate in a
recorded interview. Record, broadcast or otherwise syndicate
this content on your web site or even as a series of CDs. Or,
you can host these events as live teleseminars and invite your
guest speakers to promote the call to their clients and
prospects.
So now when you approach a potential referral source you are no
longer asking them to do something for you, you are asking them
if they want to be famous, or something close to it. Can you how
one of the above tactics might change how you approach your
referral sources? Try either of these for a while and just might
find referral sources begging to be on your team.