Women are also terrific at creating a complete picture of someone. We are just as interested—if not more so—in an individual’s personal story as in her professional story. How did she get to where she is now? Where does she live? Does she have a family? Where do they like to vacation? Put a woman and a man in the same conversation, and they will come up with an entirely different set of facts.
Even though referrals are common sense, they are not typically common practice. Most businesses do not have an intentional strategy to build their business through referrals. They don’t have a plan, goals, and a way to track and measure results. On one hand, referral business is unsurpassed; and on the other, most people are passive about developing their referrals. I eventually discovered that there are four reasons why companies aren’t using the most powerful sales strategy they could ever have:
1. It feels uncomfortable. When we ask for a referral, it feels as if we’re asking someone to help us, and it’s not easy asking for help. If we have to ask, maybe it means our business isn’t doing very well. It feels as if we’re intruding on a relationship, and we’re asking a busy person to do more. The biggest fear of all? Rejection, she might say,“No.”
2. It’s a skill. People don’t know how to ask in a way that will get them demonstrable results. They’ve never learned a reliable process. Typically, a salesperson’s idea of asking for a referral is to say, “By the way, if you know anyone who could benefit from my services, please pass my name along.” That’s too passive an approach, and it gets us nowhere.
3. There haven’t been metrics. Referral selling has always appeared as something nice to do, but historically, there haven’t been any hard numbers on its success rate. There are metrics for cold calling, direct mail, and advertising, but few widely known metrics for referrals. The metrics for referrals should be 1) the number of people asked, 2) the number of referral meetings held, 3) the number of new customers, 4) the amount of increased business with existing customers, and 5) the overall increases in revenue and profitability.
