You likely came to this web site
because you are interested in and curious about powerful and
cost effective means to grow your business. If so, then you came
to the right place! Sales professionals and others who rely on referrals to
generate new customers/clients can benefit from spending the few minutes
required to evaluate what I have to share with you. After you
review this material, I am absolutely confident you will fully
understand why and how you should cultivate your referral
network to deliver you new customers/clients. To be perfectly clear,
when I mention a
personal referral network, I am talking
about a network of customers/clients, friends, family members,
neighbors, and others within the individuals "sphere of
influence".
What I have found through my
research and experience is that, the vast majority of sales
professionals and other professions who rely on referrals for their livelihood do not
understand how to effectively harness the power of their
referral network. Yes, they may generate many of their new
customers/clients via referrals, but they are not taking any specific cost effective action to maximize referrals.
If you are not absolutely certain
as to the power of the referral network, I would like you to
consider the following. If you were in need of an important
"service", let's say a roofing contractor, insurance
agent, or real estate agent, would you consider a
recommendation which comes from a trusted friend, family member,
or close acquaintance over some form of advertising? If you are
like most people, your answer would be yes. I know this
concept is fairly obvious, but it is interesting to note that
the vast majority of individuals who should be relying
on new business generation from their referral network do not
take advantage of this valued resource. I have found from my
extensive research that some people more or less
understand the value of their referral network, but do not know
how to harness its power. To
better understand how a referral network operates please read the
following "Key Point".
KEY POINT -->
An associate of mine in the "referral business", Bill Cates,
has extensively studied the mindset of the referral network and
has discovered the following. For those who are not aware of
Bill Cates, he is a renowned expert in the area of referral
business and the president of "Referral Coach International".
First, let's start off with the "not so good" news from Bill...
Did you know that 20% of your referral network will likely never
recommend your services regardless of your effort to obtain
their support? The unfortunate reality with this group is they
are not "risk takers" and are too concerned about being
negatively perceived in the event you might not meet the
expectations of the prospective new customer/client. Now for the really
good news, another 20% of your referral network is going to
recommend your services to prospective leads regardless of what
effort you make in requesting or encouraging referrals. This 20%
group, of course is only going to provide a referral if they
believe you deliver high quality services/product. If you are
the one of many sales professionals and others who do not have a program to
motivate your referral network to deliver leads, this is the
component of your network which is likely delivering you your
limited amount of new business.
This leaves the remaining 60% of your referral network
where the true opportunity lies. These are the people who
require specific attention if you hope to include them in
your "personal sales work force". This is where the untapped
resource lies for virtually all sales professionals and
businesses who use (or should be
using) a referral network to generate new business. Of course
the challenge becomes finding a powerful and cost effective
means to motivate this 60% group to deliver you solid leads.
What I have also found from my
study and research are the "secrets of success" of the elite
sales professionals who seem to generate a consistent flow of
new customers/clients via their personal referral network. They know
how to tap into the 60% component of their referral network
discussed above. These elite have found that the secret is
actually to simply "stay in touch" with their valued network
along with continuously growing this network (e.g. strength in
numbers). You may inherently understand this concept, but
likely struggle with finding the method, time, and/or funds to
achieve your objective. I can certainly understand this dilemma
because frankly the marketing tools and programs are very
limited to assist you in motivating your personal
referral network in delivering you new business. If you could
develop or find a method which allowed you to effectively keep
in touch with your referral network which required minimal
effort at minimal cost, then you could virtually eliminate your
future concerns with generating new business and focus your
effort on delivering excellent service to your current customers/clients! My focus a couple of years ago
was specifically on this challenge, and what I have created is a
system/program which achieves all of the previously stated
objectives. This program incorporates a powerful concept which I
coin the "Law
of Strategic Persistence".
So what exactly does this powerful concept mean and why does is
work?
The "Law of Strategic Persistence" states that those who keep in
continuous contact (persistence) with their targeted "audience" with
effectively (strategically) designed communications will dramatically improve
their chance of success. In the case of the sales professional
and others (who rely on - or should rely on - their referral network for
new business), this specifically means if you utilize a system
which offers appropriate and consistent
contact/communication to your valued referral members, you will
significantly improve your sales results. This concept works
because it embraces the old adage "out of sight, out of mind".
For our situation, this old adage can be slightly modified to
"out of contact, out of mind". Simply stated, you can not and
should not expect your referral members to remember to recommend
your services unless you stay in timely and continuous contact
with strategically designed communications.