Five Reasons Not to Ask for Referrals
By Deborah Frederick
If you’re familiar at all with what we here at CFS usually do, you are probably staring at the screen right now in complete bafflement. Who is this crazy person telling me not to go after referrals? Don’t these people normally beg me to start a referral program, find referral partners, do anything – anything – to find my way into the sales goldmine that is a properly established referral procedure?
Okay, confession time – yes, that person normally hounding any and everybody to go after referrals is me. And no, I didn’t just give up on the system. I don’t know if you caught it, but you were just bamboozled. I never wanted to convince you to give up on referrals. Instead, I just wanted to get you to think: why should I be asking my business partners for referrals? Just for fun, here’s my list of the top five reasons not to ask for referrals – how does it match up with yours?
- You love cold calling. Wouldn’t you miss the joy of dialing random strangers only to have them almost instantly hang up on you?
- You hate taking the easy way out! Waiting on hold for ten minutes only to find the decision maker is on vacation really makes your day. It’s even better to call back ten days later and find out they’re not even in the right department!
- You don’t want to know what your customers really think about you. Hey, asking for a referral is the perfect opportunity to ask just how satisfied your clients are with you. It’s better not to know.
- You can’t wait to find out after three sales calls and a meeting that your prospect wants something you just can’t deliver. It’s not like all that time could be put to better use!
- And finally, sales success just really isn’t for you. You prefer to stick to the middle of the road. Nothing exceptional, nothing that sticks out, just plain old techniques that deliver average, everyday, ordinary results.
Ready to start asking for referrals now? If you’re still having trouble or just want to learn more, check out our next sales improvement workshop, Referrals: The Holy Grail of Sales next Wednesday, February 24 at 8:30 a.m.
You could also add for a #6. You like to spend 5 to 6 times the money and effort it takes to chase down a complete stranger for a sale than it does to get a nice polite introduction.
Quick one, true story, I introduced a friend at an advisory company to a CEO of an airline and he ended up doing millions of dollars of work with them within a couple of months.
Always go for the referral.
Chris Hamilton
Salestipaday.com
We ran some statistics based on our conversion and close rates and realized that for us a referral is equivalent to about 12.5 leads from any other source. I'd much rather seek out 2 referrals than 25 other leads!