Referrals are hands down the most profitable leads you can get. But asking for them? That’s another story. Here’s how I got over my own reluctance.
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We often talk about referrals as being the most profitable sales prospecting technique out there, and they’re absolutely right.
I also get that many of you don’t like asking for referrals, and trust me, I’ve been there.
I hated it too when I was young in my sales career.
And I’ll tell you one thing that really helped me, especially in a B to B environment.
This helped me get over my fear of asking for referrals, and that was to start asking for internal referrals, not external referrals.
So rather than me feeling like I’m asking for referrals to their friends and their families and their colleagues outside the business, I would start to position myself as someone who could help their colleagues.
And it became what other departments should be hearing about your success? What suppliers do you have that should be hearing about your success? What partners? What customers? What other divisions? What other parts of the world? What sister companies? And it was so easy for people to refer me internally to their colleagues with that kind of request, that it became easy for me to develop a network or an ecosystem of referrals.
One of my clients calls this working the chain, as in working the supply chain internally and with all of the suppliers and customers and partners, their customers have.
I like to call it building a sales ecosystem.
So if you’re struggling with referrals, start by asking your current customer who else you should be talking to inside the corporation, and frame it up as sharing success.
Because everybody is going to want their colleagues, their bosses, their managers and others inside the company to hear about their success.
Don’t forget to check out: The Key to Social Media Selling!