CHAPTER 1
THE FEARLESS REFERRAL FUNDAMENTALS
—Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
5–15–50–80
How exactly do I define a referral?
Referral. A referral is when your referral source (Person A) recommends you to Person B because Person A is really pleased with the work you have done.
In other words, you are being recommended for all the right reasons because you have done a good job. There is nothing cheesy or borderline manipulative going on.
NOT ALL REFERRALS ARE CREATED EQUAL
One fact we have to acknowledge right away is that the quality of referrals can vary a lot! How enthusiastically people communicate about you and how strong the relationships are between you and Person A, and between Person A and Person B, make a huge difference.
The lowest-quality referral is when you are given the name and number of Person B and he or she is not expecting your call. Because these referrals are so poor in quality in this day and age, this book is not going to spend time on clever techniques to generate a list of names. That is not an effective word-of-mouth endorsement.
Person B should want to talk to you—or at least be open to hearing from you!
You want to get your referral prospects warmed up so that they actually want to hear from you! That’s how to run a business that works, is fun, and is based on developing quality relationships.
Why is it so important to have a prospect expecting your call? What’s wrong with just calling someone and name-dropping with this unsuspecting person (apart from the fact that you don’t like it when it’s done to you!)?
The Sandler Sales Institute studied this several years ago, and my experience over the years has found the institute’s numbers to be remarkably accurate. Here’s how often the following turned into business (not just an appointment):
5 percent. At best the amount of business you’ll get from cold calls.
15 percent. The amount of business you’ll get when you use someone’s name and say, “Sarah Megson gave me your name”—but your call is not expected. And that person may be a little puzzled why Sarah had never mentioned anything. To the person receiving the call, it feels like a cold call. Many people get suspicious.
50 percent. The amount of business you’ll get when you have permission to call; your call is expected; you say, “Sarah Megson suggested I call”; and the recipient replies, “Oh, yes, that’s right. Yes, she did tell me.”
80 percent. The amount of business you’ll get when you are personally introduced.
Clearly, there are variations on the quality of a personal introduction. Being introduced briefly by chance in the hallway of an office is obviously not as powerful as the three of you scheduling to meet for lunch.
LESSONS TO LEARN
You don’t just want a long list of names, none of whom are expecting your call. Unless you’re a cold-calling maestro, you’re virtually wasting your time.
Certainly some names that you mention to a referral will carry more weight than others. If these two people have known each other for 25 years, that will help a lot. If the CEO is recommending you to one of her vice presidents, that will make a difference (although still a loaded one). But rarely does just having a name work as much as we’d like to think. I am uncomfortable being given just a name and a number because it so seldom leads to business. It never ceases to amaze me how most people think just mentioning their name will make all the difference and how they are usually mistaken!
What you always want to aim for is to ask your referral source (Person A) to warm up his or her referral (Person B) by talking to Person B briefly or finding out via e-mail whether Person B would be interested in a quick conversation.
You want someone else to go to bat for you.
Another advantage of this is that you will avoid one of those meetings where someone has agreed to meet you who has no idea what you do and why he or she is meeting you.
The best kind of referral to get is, without question, the personal introduction—lunch, coffee, or a beer after hours works best. When someone personally introduces you to a prospect, 80 percent of the time the business will happen. Why? Because it gives people a chance to get comfortable with you. Their actions speak volumes for your credibility. Clearly, we save these requests for bigger fish. Revisit your prospect list and decide whom you would like to meet in person.
BELIEVE 100 PERCENT IN THE BENEFITS OF ASKING FOR REFERRALS
The stronger you believe in building a referral business, the more committed you will be to getting outstanding results and to asking for referrals.
Why are referrals so great? Why are they such a wonderful way to build, sustain, and grow your business?
Here’s a list of reasons:
1. Asking for and getting more referrals will help you become more assertive. Assertiveness is a wonderful quality. As you start getting results in one area, it will encourage you then to ask for other things: you will ask for more business from the same person (more of the person’s assets?), you will ask prospects to get off the fence, and you will expect centers of influence to reciprocate. Assertive is good!
2. Asking for and getting more referrals will help you be more opportunistic. This is a priceless skill to keep honing. We can always get sharper and become more aware of all the ways we can help those in our network. Strive to continue improving in this area.
3. Sometimes you just have to show up sober. A quality referral is the absolute strongest marketing tool you can find. People listen to someone when they trust that person’s opinion. When someone has given you a really good referral, many of your prospects come presold, and all you need to explain is how and when the work can get started. I love these meetings!
4. Referrals give you more independence and more control over your business. Why? Because you need people who know, like, and trust you to get referrals. This requires building and maintaining strong relationships. Once you are making a habit of this and you are keeping in touch with your client base, you can always tap in to your resource-rich business because you have been making the “emotional bank account deposits” (see Chapter 2). This provides the foundation for a stable business, which is a much more enjoyable business lifestyle for you.
5. Working with referrals is about helping others—a client-centered approach—when done right. The right approach is when your “referral conversation” is focused on your referral sources’ helping people they care about—not some “me, me, me” act of desperation. If your referral sources can see that you are sincerely concerned about the welfare of people they care about, they will take the spirit of your request seriously. Difficult though this is when you need business yesterday, you must focus on helping others first. Take that leap of faith and your rewards will come.
The good news is that recent research supports the client-centered approach. In Andy Sernovitz’s Word of Mouth Marketing, he found that the two main reasons why others recommend you are because they like to help people they care about and because it makes them feel good! Neither of these reasons has anything to do with you. Your clients are not motivated to see you drive a nicer car, take more time off, or have plastic surgery!
6. Referrals are great for people who dislike selling and aren’t very skilled at it. Now someone else is “selling” you beforehand. It allows you to focus on building quality relationships. The business and referrals will come, provided you ask for what you want (see Chapter 4).
7. Referrals increase your integrity and enhance your reputation. Why? New business comes from real people, not clever advertising or marketing gimmicks. Additionally, you won’t have to depend on these things to get new business. If you aren’t doing a good job, nobody will recommend you. The fact that you get your business from referrals speaks volumes about the quality of your work and what others think of you. Others are putting their integrity on the line to endorse you. That’s the kind of business people trust and the kind of endorsement others listen to. It’s a wonderful way to be—personally and professionally.
8. You get to clone your best clients. Often you get referred to people who have similar personalities to that of your referral source. Most people will not refer you unless they like you. This is especially wonderful if you like your clients, because the chances are that they’ll refer you to people similar to themselves.
Not long ago I was introduced to the friend of a client. Originally he had told me that if his buddy didn’t call me back right away, I was to “tell him Brian will come over and kick his a**!” (I didn’t use that line, although I was tempted.) I had a hard time keeping a straight face when we met. This friend was remarkably similar in personality to the client: friendly, energetic, talkative, enthusiastic, and he had a good sense of humor. The meeting went great. (See reason 1.) Sometimes this feels like the biggest win there is to your referral business.
9. It’s easier to recommend someone else than to “sell yourself.” People listen to third-party endorsements more than you trying to persuade them that you’re the best there is. Almost all people have others in their lives whose opinions they respect and whom they look up to and often follow.
10. It’s easier to leverage a good relationship to get business than to advertise, cold-call, or buy leads. Consumers are getting increasingly cynical. They expect you to have an agenda that does not sincerely put them first—unless a trusted person is recommending you.
11. You can make more money by saving on other marketing expenses. When you can master having more people open more and bigger doors for you, far more of your marketing is on building relationships. That’s wonderful news when your budget has limits. That’s also wonderful news if you don’t want to tweet or spend time on Facebook because you don’t even enjoy it.
12. It frees up time since you meet with warmer prospects that are much more likely to do business with you. It is more productive than spending time with people who are not ready, indecisive, simply kicking tires, or price shopping.
13. You get measurable results every time. You know exactly where the business is coming from and where it’s not coming from. This awareness allows you to focus on the relationships and organizations that are helping your business the most.
14. You can feel more peace of mind being more recession-proof. You have a business based on great relationships and people who recommend you to others.
GOT DESIRE?
Your desire and attitude determine your success level. How you feel determines your actions. Your actions—what you do—determine your results.
The exciting part is that you are totally responsible for your results. How much you want more referrals is going to be the key. You wouldn’t be reading this book if you weren’t motivated at all. But how well you can motivate yourself to take a lot of action—that’s truly up to you.
It’s easy to talk a good game. While who you are as a person is most important, your truest values are revealed by what you actually do—by how you spend your time, not by what you say or have written down on a business plan.
How do you get more motivated to want more referrals?
TRY SOME PAIN: RULE OF 20 PERCENT–60 PERCENT–20 PERCENT
Based on two studies on the financial services industry in 2005 and published in Horsesmouth, LLC’s Automatic Referrals, the research found that only 11 percent of clients had been asked for referrals. Yet 72 percent and 83 percent, respectively, of those surveyed said they would happily recommend their advisor but had not been asked. How many of your clients do you ask?
Most people get unsolicited referrals from about 20 percent of their clients—2 people in 10. Many salespeople fool themselves into thinking that they have a great referral business because of this 20 percent.
But I believe that there are another 6 in 10 (60 percent) of your clients who would endorse you but need to be asked, and you need to use Steps 3 and 5 from Chapter 6 so it is easy for them. They’re not thinking about you until you ask. How many of your clients do you ask?
If the answer is none, then how much more business do you think you could bring in if you effectively asked those 60 percent? (It’s important to note that you must earn the referral before you ask for it. We’ll cover that in an upcoming chapter, so keep reading!)
It’s also fair to say that there will usually be 1 or 2 in 10 (10 to 20 percent) who just aren’t going to recommend you. Maybe they can be turned around in time, but they may well be unnecessary “projects.”
TRY SOME PLEASURE
First, I suggest that you reread the 14 referral benefits from the previous section. Soak them up. Second, if your referral business is coming from 20 percent of your clients and you’re hardly asking any of them, think about what your business would look like if another 6 in 10 (60 percent) of your clients were recommending you!
Not every referral is created equal. I am not going to claim you’ll see a 300 percent increase in business. Ultimately, there will still likely be an 80–20 law in most cases (where you’re getting 80 percent of your business from 20 percent of the people you know). But until you’ve asked everyone who is happy with your work (or is considered a “go-to” reference person or friend), what could that untapped potential be? And if a lot more people send you business, that 80–20 spread is going to be much higher up the scale from your present situation!
To get closer to where you want to be, set some exciting referral goals. Remember, it’s what it makes of you that matters most, not what it makes for you. Why? Because it is who you become that matters most. You will stretch yourself and think bigger. Your confidence will grow from facing your fears.
These goals need not focus on money. For most people it’s better if they don’t. Focus on helping more people, on achieving results in other parts of your life, and on getting better at what you do in measurable ways. Good goals can simply be about implementing the Six-Step Fearless Referral Conversation (see Chapter 6).
When you set your goals, set the bar as high as you can. Author Tim Ferriss points out in his book The 4-Hour Workweek that you will have more success aiming higher for two reasons:
1. Ninety-nine percent of people are “convinced they are incapable of achieving great things” and so they never try. That means there are very few people going for gold. If everyone else feels insecure, you don’t need to be the one selling yourself short.
2. When you do have an ambitious target, it gets your adrenaline going and you think of more creative solutions. It’s as easy as believing it can be done.
While in England on a recent trip, I picked up David Lester’s highly informative How They Started: How 30 Good Ideas Became Great Businesses.
In his introduction, Lester notes that almost everyone on the planet has an idea or two for a business; it’s just that most people don’t pursue that idea—and fewer still succeed. While those that succeeded all behaved in similar ways—it was how they went about growing their business that made the difference.
For most top entrepreneurs, at first there was little monetary reward. Many months and even years later, very little of the money they made was spent on themselves. Quite a few of the 30 people featured worked part time on their business until they thought they could take the leap.
They all focused on one idea. They all kept it simple. Yes, 18-hour days were pretty common because starting momentum takes a great deal of effort and commitment. “None of the founders started out as workaholics—they all began as normal people just like you.”
But for each of them, the key was they kept trying and believing.
About half of the businesses in the book had weak sales early on and had to wait much longer than they expected for business to pick up. Every business Lester profiled “had to overcome significant issues to keep trading, let alone succeed; along the way, each founder faced doubt, anxiety, stress and pressure levels way beyond what most employees face; their ability to cope with this, almost always deeply rooted in strong self belief, was an important factor in why they succeeded where so many businesses haven’t.”
They had motivation, passion, and commitment. This is what you need to improve your referral business.
None of the business owners interviewed set out to become wealthy. None of them! Their motives ranged from wanting a livelihood after being laid off, to wanting to create a higher-quality product or service not then available, to wanting to see if they could make it in a new market.
Lester concludes that it wasn’t about being from the right stock or wanting more money that drove these businesses to succeed. They had a focused idea for a product or service that some part of the world needed. “And they needed literally extraordinary levels of passion, energy, self-belief and stamina, the ability and desire to focus, and a good measure of judgment.”
My final point here, and arguably the most important, is that your motivation comes most profoundly and lasts longer when tied to your sense of purpose—why you were put on this earth. Connecting to that will take you where you want to go. I sincerely wish you all a healthy dose of these qualities so that you get the referrals and the results you want!
IT’S A SKILL YOU CAN LEARN IF YOU HAVE A GROWTH MINDSET!
Ever catch yourself thinking about someone who gets more referrals than you and saying, “He’s a natural,” or “She’s a lot smarter than I am,” or “That person is so much more experienced than I am”?
Even worse, have you ever said, “I don’t have that in me”?
Most of us have. Be assured: they have learned their skills somewhere along the line, and you can too—but only if you believe that’s within you!
What we tend to do is put the “naturals” on a pedestal based on qualities they have that we think we don’t have. For me, when I was newer to the business world, that person was Lorelle. Back then, I thought she had an innate “gift” for giving and getting referrals. She was very good at both—better than anyone else I knew.
I told myself that:
1. She had a more charming personality than I had.
2. She was more business savvy than I was.
3. She had the gift of gab.
4. She was better looking than I was.
It was the perfect storm of an excuse.
Looking back now, I can reflect differently. Lorelle had been in sales for more than 15 years compared to my 1 year. She was highly motivated (as was I) and had attended many more seminars and read dozens more books than I had. She had had a lot more time to practice what she had learned.
Personality and looks—yes, I thought she had both, but these are subjective qualities. Not everyone would have agreed. And why should the rest of us walk around as though we are inferior because we don’t look like models? Look at the people who get your business— would they all look good parading on a catwalk? It’s true that these things may impact some decisions, but they are not going to stop you from great success.
Getting good at referrals is a learnable business communication and relationship-building skill.
The only people who cannot acquire this skill are those who:
Have weak relationships with others
Are purely transactional
Are never going to muster the courage or self-belief to ask for what they want
Are unable to overcome concerns about asking
Believe that business skill and intelligence are basic fixed things that can’t be changed much
Let me explain that last one. Carol Dweck is a world-renowned psychologist at Stanford University. I saw her speak a few days ago in Chicago about her book Mindset. I learned much more about why some people don’t get good at generating referrals.
Her decades of research have found that there are essentially two mindsets (fixed and growth) that people have about intelligence and other skills and talents (such as business, artistic, and sporting ability). A mindset is a powerful belief.
Which do you believe?
Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much.
or
No matter how much intelligence you have, you can always change it quite a bit.
If I had a fixed mindset or belief about getting referrals, I could not have developed myself because I started out so badly. I’d have taken one look at Lorelle and either abandoned any hope of getting good at generating referrals, blamed my parents or teachers for not giving me the skills because they weren’t in business or sales, or found a way to look superior to Lorelle (“I’m a better speaker and writer than she is—who cares about referrals!,” etc.).
Luckily, a growth mindset or belief meant I was willing to struggle for a while, willing to work hard at getting better, and willing to take risks and fail from time to time.
The key word is belief. Since all our results come from our beliefs, Dweck tells us that we have to change our beliefs first. If you believe that you might reveal your inadequacies by taking risks, experiencing initially weak results, and working hard, you won’t do what is needed to get great results and build a referral-based business. (And if your results are still poor in six months, read this again and read Dweck’s book too!)
Fixed mindset. If I have to work hard, it makes me feel like I’m not smart.
Growth mindset. The harder I work, the better I get.
The fixed mindset is afraid of challenges and sees failure as making a mistake—revealing that you are not perfect and smart all the time. The growth mindset sees failure as growing (learning) and views struggle as part of that process. The good news is you can change your mindset. If you want to get better at generating referrals, you must have a growth mindset or you will not do the work.
I cannot emphasize how significant this is. Without a growth mindset, you will never be successful at bringing in more and better referrals.
DELIBERATE PRACTICE
According to the research reported in Geoff Colvin’s recent Talent Is Overrated, top performers are generally not:
Naturally gifted. Most of the people who became the most accomplished in their field “did not show early evidence of gifts.”
Exclusively hard workers. We all know people who work plenty of hours who achieve average results.
More experienced. We all know people with more experience than we have who get average results.
Higher in IQ. We all know people who are smarter than we are who get average results.
Born with great memories. Do you get the point?
Believing any of these things simply gives people an excuse to be mediocre. The key message in this book is that superior performers pursue deliberate practice in areas that address specific skills that take them around their limitations.
This is what you need to do to get high-quality referrals on a consistent basis.
One great sports example is Jerry Rice, the former San Francisco 49er (since most of us have not been professional athletes, look for the concepts here). The records he holds are not 5 or 10 percent higher than the statistics for the person in second place (which would still be impressive), but 50 percent! He played 20 seasons—until he was 42—in a position where the average player does not make it to age 30. Yet he was not considered fast by professional standards.
Rice’s success came “because he worked harder in practice and in the off-season than anyone else” and because he designed his practice to work on his specific needs. He focused intently on the four things he had to excel in to compensate for his lack of speed: the running of precise patterns (strength training), explosive acceleration (uphill wind sprints), endurance training for stamina late in games, and sudden changes in directions without signaling his intent (trail running).
His off-season training regimen was considered so brutal that his coaches refused to share it with anyone for fear that others might damage themselves!
It’s not just graft that gets you places; it’s the right kind of practice activity that can help you get better results. The same is true for getting more referrals. What are you doing to improve your game?
WHAT WILL MAKE ME BETTER AT WHAT I DO?
In general, do you need to practice in:
Running your first appointments so they lead to more meetings?
Making prospecting calls?
Honing your referral conversation?
Running effective center-of-influence meetings?
Identifying better new referral prospects with your current contacts?
Coaching others to refer you effectively?
Giving more referrals?
Look at the results you get from asking for referrals (which is a specific skill you can practice). Could the people you ask be sending you more referrals? Do you need to:
Increase your networking activities and coffees with potential centers of influence?
Join someone you know who runs meetings well and learn from them?
Change the wording that you use?
Create a meeting agenda so you don’t run out of time?
The only way to be more effective prospecting, getting referrals, or being a networker is to pinpoint your weaknesses and work around them. Learn more about what the most effective producers do.
SUPERIOR PERFORMERS PERCEIVE, KNOW, AND REMEMBER MORE
Superior performers notice things average performers do not. They look ahead for trends. They know more from seeing less. They are more expert in their field because they study more. Their ability to recall and interpret information is also superior. They see themselves as responsible for the things that do not go well; they are always getting better, and they are always overstraining themselves mentally.
Most of these things you can decide to start doing more of today too!
GETTING THERE IS TOUGH BUT IS AVAILABLE TO ALMOST ANYONE
The highest achievers in any field have accumulated many more lifetime hours of practice than everyone else. Colvin calls it the “Ten-Year Rule” (10 years before you can become acclaimed), which is rather similar to what author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell has called the “10,000 Hour Rule.” This is the dominant reason why so-called child prodigies appear to be innately talented. Tiger Woods’s father had a metal golf club in his son’s hands from the age of seven months and had him on a golf course at two years old! Mozart’s father had his son on a program of intensive training in composing and performing at age three.
THE CHIEF CONSTRAINT IS MENTAL
You won’t make any progress if you work hard and then just do things in your comfort zone. You need to step outside your comfort zone regularly and face your fears.
University of Michigan business professor Noel Tichy has identified three areas where we spend our time mentally: the comfort zone (useless), the learning zone (great), and, beyond that, the panic zone (unproductive). To become top of your game, you must get in your learning zone as much as possible “and then force yourself] to stay continuously in it as it changes, which is even harder—these are the first and most important characteristics of deliberate practice.”
The great mental intangible to sustaining this is your motivation. Colvin reports that most researchers believe that this drive must be primarily intrinsic because of the sacrifices necessary to be the best. It is founded in people’s desire to solve a great question or problem in their field (enjoying their focus on the process, not the outcome or goal), to do good in the world, to make progress, to be the best, to be an achiever or desire power.
A great example of this is that most eminent executives and entrepreneurs keep working long after they need to. What do you think was the first thing Bill Cosby did when he sold the rights to The Cosby Show for $250 million? Take a month off and sit on the beach? Party in Paris? No, he took a red-eye flight to Vegas so he could test out some new material in a stand-up routine for his next project.
When is extrinsic motivation effective? At times, recognition and feedback can really help, provided that the feedback is constructive, nonthreatening, and work-focused—rather than person-focused.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Much of this boils down to what you want in life, what you believe you’re capable of doing, and whether you believe your work will pay off. Passion develops over time based on how much action you take (not on waiting for something to happen). The “eureka” moment of a genius idea is mostly a myth and generally comes after years of intensive preparation.
SUPPORT, FEEDBACK, REPETITION, AND ACTIVITY DESIGNED TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE
Especially at critical times in a person’s development, Colvin recommends the importance of an outside eye to see the things you cannot see about yourself.
“It’s apparent why becoming significantly good at almost anything is extremely difficult without the help of a teacher or coach, at least in the early going.” He says there’s a reason why the best golfers still work with coaches. (See Chapter 7 on the team you need to get you to the top.) A supportive environment matters.
Last, Colvin does say that nothing can fully explain achievement because “real life is too complicated for that.” However, clearly there is much that can be done by each of us to move from beyond being average to aiming to make more of a difference and ultimately becoming one of the best in our field. Getting better at bringing in more referrals is a great place to focus.
THE THREE “MUSTS” FOR ME TO HELP YOU
For you to get the most out of this book, here are three things I urge you to do.
DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL
As humans, we innately believe we can and should come up with our own solutions. The challenging reality is that this belief is often false. Unfortunately, we overestimate our abilities and do not realize that we are average at most things. Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert’s research is just one recent example of social science finding that we do a terrible job of evaluating ourselves: we typically overrate our abilities and underestimate our knowledge. We tend to seek out information that already supports what we believe, and we tend to discount information that contradicts it!
The statistics are quite hilarious. For example, one study found that 90 percent of drivers consider themselves to be safer than average. In regard to college professors, 94 percent consider themselves to be above-average educators. However, only 50 percent can actually be above average and the other 50 percent below average.
We rely on our own (flawed) memory and imagination rather than follow those who have been there and done it. We are more likely to make our own mistakes rather than learn from those who have already made them. You do not need to do that with getting referrals. Because we see ourselves as unique, we often think that the experiences of others do not apply to us. Most of the time, this is not true.
What does this all mean? It means you need to work harder—but it’s equally important to follow the suggestions in this book because they work. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. The content of this book has been tried and tested over many years with thousands of people. Don’t resist implementing ideas that work for others. The very fact that others have done it is proof you can do it too—not proof you should buck the trend because that’s how you live your life.
However, do make these ideas your own!
Tweak them to fit your personality and communication style. If you read an example and say to yourself, “I would never say that!” then pause and ask yourself how you might reword it to make the same point.
BE COACHABLE
I’m guessing you wouldn’t have picked up this book if you weren’t open to new ideas. However, you’ll only be able to successfully increase your referral business if you act on new ideas. Your key to gaining referrals is action, persistence, and belief. Avoid just “trying” something once and then convincing yourself that it doesn’t work. It just takes discipline.
Very few people are willing to (1) customize content to make it suit your personality, (2) be open-minded to some new ideas, and (3) persist—because it may not all happen overnight.
Being coachable isn’t as easy as you might hope. Most salespeople and business owners pride themselves on their independence, and this often includes the notion that they can figure pretty much everything out themselves. This is a strong quality, and it will take you to good, even to above average, but it will not take you to great. I did not see this in my life until relatively recently. Then I opened my eyes and realized that all high achievers reach out for support, guidance, and (often) coaching. It is not a coincidence that all top performers— golfers, cyclists, writers, speakers—work with qualified coaches.
I just ask that you be aware that as you read this, you’re not out to prove that parts of this can’t work for you because you’re different or your business is different. Getting referrals is not that complicated, and if you think it is, that may well be your defense mechanism to keep success away from you. (You might want to read that again.)
Finally, if what you’re doing right now works really well for you, then keep doing it if it’s ethical. If you’re a manager and you want to train others to do the same, go ahead provided it works as well for them! That’s a big caveat because often things don’t translate so well.
PERSIST
Numbers rarely lie. A study I found in Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles shares work done by Herbert True at Notre Dame that demonstrates how incredibly important it is simply never to give up.
His research of salespeople found that:
44 percent gave up after one request to do business.
68 percent had given up after two requests or less.
82 percent gave up after three requests or less.
94 percent gave up after four requests or less.
If 94 percent of them gave up after asking four times for the business, then only 6 percent really persisted. Just 6 percent! But here’s the really dramatic part: 60 percent of all sales are made after the fourth call.
Is it any wonder that the top 6 percent of salespeople make so much more money than the rest?
MORE FRIENDS = MORE REFERRALS: MASTER THE LIKEABILITY FACTOR AND THE COMFORT FACTOR
Last summer I was in Canada having lunch with my cousin, the owner of a fairly novel branding and design business called Breakhouse. He, an interior designer, and his business partner, an architect, turn retail stores into a “Starbucks-type experience” and tie that experience into the new company brand. He was telling me that they had recently landed their biggest client to date: Bell Canada, the Canadian equivalent of AT&T or British Telecom. Apparently Bell Canada’s retail sales had dropped from first to third in the country, and so the company was working on a new corporate image.
My favorite question to ask people is to trace how they got the business. He explained that they had worked with a local telecom company in eastern Canada and this work had won an award. The company referred them to Bell Canada. That’s right, Breakhouse doesn’t advertise. All Breakhouse’s business comes from referrals.
Three other companies were vying for the business: Goliaths by comparison—two from New York and one from the Netherlands. Two of these other companies have 500 employees each; the other has an international client list to die for. “So how did you beat these guys out?” I had to know. I don’t want to oversimplify my point. He cited two or three reasons. Their proposal was impressive, and he was pretty sure they had put more effort into it than their competitors. They were Canadian; he wasn’t sure if that had helped or not. “But you know what I think it was? I think they just liked us more. My business partner is a pretty funny guy. He’s good at connecting with people and loosening them up. We just hit it off.”
This reminds me of a coffee I had with a mortgage consultant that I’ve known for about six years. She used to network everywhere and was excellent at both giving and asking for referrals. I know I learned some things from her. Then 10 months before I saw her, she became pregnant. Due to her diabetes, she was unable to drive for eight months. Her face-to-face networking abruptly stopped. Yet she was still getting a lot of referrals coming in. When I asked her what she was doing to maintain relationships, she told me. It was the same kind of stuff every mortgage professional I’ve ever met does: send out rate updates and help prepare flyers for open houses. I was really puzzled. This activity was not setting her apart at all.
Then it clicked. What she has is the Likeability Factor—the L-Factor. She treats people like they are her best friends. She has mastered how to be genuinely pleased to see you. You can see it on her face, and you can hear it in her voice on the phone. It is sincere, and while it sounds like common sense, we know this is rare. Think about it for a moment: who do you know who does this consistently? She knows how people want to be treated, and she does it even when she doesn’t feel like it. This had helped her sustain her success.
It’s not that we don’t already know all this; the question is, why don’t we run our businesses based on the L-Factor all the time? Why do we sometimes prospect people we don’t much care for and who treat us like vermin? Do you focus your prospecting and client retention efforts on your top 20 percent—the ones who will inevitably refer you the most?
WHAT IS THE L-FACTOR?
Former Yahoo! executive Tim Sanders wrote The Likeability Factor in 2005, and it is full of research that supports the feeling we all have that people want to do business with and associate with others they know, like, and trust. These are the people we want to refer. Again, what are you doing about it? (In his book The Little Red Book of Selling, sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer gives this advice: “Win sales based on friendship, not price. Be friendly first.”)
BE REAL
Others call this authenticity. Sanders argues that people need to be able to read your feelings. Failing to connect can make it difficult to get a business relationship off the ground—and you will get fewer referrals as a result. People will go to bat for you more when they really like you.
FOUR OUTSTANDING TIPS ABOUT THE L-FACTOR WORTH SHARING
These tips are from Jeffrey Gitomer’s The Little Red Book of Selling. Read this list more than once and live it!
1. “I put value in the hands of my potential customers before I ever ask them to buy anything.” Anyone who has heard me present or been coached by me hears me emphasize this point over and over. Bring as much value to a client meeting up front regardless of whether it has anything to do with your business. It will set you apart very quickly. Why? Because it shows you care, it takes a little effort, and most people won’t take the time.
2. Make friends before you start, or don’t start. Business gets so much easier when there is water in the well with a relationship. Any time another person can feel a connection with you, you have the advantage over other companies and their marketing techniques.
3. Act professionally; speak friendly. Gitomer has made me realize that sometimes I am too stiff because somehow I think it will raise my credibility and that I do not always focus on the L-Factor. Instead I run the risk of being seen as a cardboard box. Gitomer notes, “I try to act as professionally as I can, but I always err on the side of being too friendly.” This also allows him to ask for a higher price and get it.
Another thought: I like to get down to business because I know people are busy. This practice, though, overlooks the people who want to “connect” first, and I risk losing that business.
I learned an interesting point from Britain’s best-known magician, Paul Daniels. He observed in an interview that real experts are “light” with their subject matter and don’t feel the need to take themselves too seriously. This takes time to develop. He’s not suggesting such people don’t speak with eloquence and earnestness. I think he’s saying that they don’t live in fear that one day they are going to get “found out” as not really being credible. They are comfortable in their own skin.
4. If you make a sale, you earn a commission. If you make a friend, you can earn a fortune. While you always want to be doing business for the right reasons and in the other person’s best interests, many of the relationships you have can grow into friendships. The knock-on effects multiply as you have more fun in your work. This makes you more referable and more of a magnet for new business.
MORE FRIENDS = MORE REFERRALS!
Here are four final thoughts on the relationship between friendship and referrals:
1. The wildly underestimated Comfort Factor. Author Harry Beckwith, a renowned expert on brand positioning and corporate branding strategies, has conducted much research on the Comfort Factor. In his enormously helpful book (coauthored with Christine Clifford-Beckwith), You, Inc., he determined that when it comes to finding the best of the best, people do not really know what the best company is for any industry. No one can be sure that his or her service providers are necessarily the best—it’s very subjective.
Who can say which car or brand of jeans is the best on the market? Can you look others in the eye and tell them your veterinarian or Realtor is without doubt the best in the country?
Why do people continue to do business with personal service firms? According to Beckwith, “Their answer is one word. You hear this word from clients more than all their words combined. The word is comfort.
We work with people who make us feel comfortable.
2. The law of attraction. According to Gallup research, 99 percent of people would rather spend time with positive people who make them feel good. Typically if you don’t like yourself all that much, you are unlikely to attract many others because you will not be instilling confidence in them. Both Jack Canfield and Nathaniel Brandon have terrific resources on this topic, which you’ll find listed in the bibliography.
3. Compassion. Two weeks ago I was having a beer with my friend Gabe. He is a financial advisor in Tennessee. He told me two stories of people for whom he’d made a huge difference by asking them difficult questions that helped them get clear about major life decisions—adoption and career change.
On both occasions he shelved his own meeting agenda and sales goals to listen to their more pressing needs. His compassion ultimately helped both people make significant changes. His compassion created two raving fans, two people who became much bigger clients than he anticipated and two new referral sources.
4. Enthusiasm for what you do. How can you expect referrals if you have little real enthusiasm for what you’re doing? One of my favorite sayings is you have two choices in life if you don’t like something: change what you’re doing, or change how you look at it. To get fired up about what you do, it often revolves around helping others and making a difference. How do you do that, and is it fulfilling enough? You spend so many hours working that it is crucial you enjoy what you do.
MORE FRIENDS = MORE REFERRALS: THE RULE OF LIKING
Arizona State professor Robert Cialdini has been studying the field of social influence for more than 35 years. The Rule of Liking is one of his six universal principles. In his 1984 classic, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he talks about Joe Girard, considered the “greatest car salesman” by the Guinness Book of World Records. He sold five cars or trucks every day he worked. When asked how this happened, Girard simply said that people had found someone they liked to buy from and a fair price.
From a referral standpoint, the question to ask yourself is, “How can I most add value to this person?” This truly is pivotal because the rule states that the more people like us, the more they want to help us.
Cialdini found five areas that often help us be better liked by others.
PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS
He cites studies from the political, legal, human resources, and educational fields that indicate startling findings: we often vote for the candidate we find more attractive, we often hire the people we find more attractive, lighter sentences and more favorable verdicts for damages are awarded to more attractive people, and schoolteachers are more lenient with more attractive students.
I know that you certainly wouldn’t let such a thing influence you! Cialdini argues these things often happen unconsciously and automatically.
OK, you don’t need to have plastic surgery, but at least think hard about your health habits and dress code. When others see that you take care of yourself, it can only be a positive contrast to those who do not. In one of his excellent audio programs, Brian Tracy notes that he was shocked when he realized that many of the triathlon and marathon runners he knew were also the highest achievers in their fields.
SIMILARITY
Since most of us are average looking (not you, of course—you’re in the top 10 percent, right?), there is still hope: We like people who are similar to us. This can vary from opinions, personalities, background, lifestyle, age, religion, politics, and the way we dress to seemingly trivial similarities, such as the rock bands we liked when we were 14.
John H. Johnson, who was born in a tin-roof shack in Arkansas in 1918, was the founder of Ebony magazine and the first black American on the Forbes magazine list of the 400 richest people in the United States. Whenever he was to meet someone for the first time, he would do his research to find a similarity: “I want to know where they came from, what are their interests, what can I talk to them about. You have to establish rapport with people, and you establish rapport by having mutual interests and mutual knowledge of each other.”
It is very difficult to sell anything to someone if you have no common ground.
COMPLIMENTS
So what else did Joe Girard do to make such remarkable sales? He sent greeting cards every month to the 13,000-plus people in his network. Inside the card were three words: “I like you,” and his signature.
Now, this was the 1970s, and if you’re like me, you’re thinking “That’s so corny and transparent.” Cialdini believes otherwise: “Joe understands an important fact about human nature: we are phenomenal suckers for flattery.”
No, not false praise, but it is time to ask yourself how often you say nice things to others and how often you are keeping in touch with your clients in a way that makes them feel good.
CONTACT AND COOPERATION
Frequent contact is essential. We do not realize how much we are influenced by exposure to something on a repeated basis—this is why you will get more business (including referrals) from people if you keep your name in front of them year-round.
Cooperating with others on a common project or for a specific cause can be a powerful reason for liking. This is supported by Thomas J. Stanley’s research discussed in Networking with Millionaires: “People see you at your best when you are doing something for a charitable cause.” You are so much more likely to make deeper connections by meeting people when doing nonprofit work or by participating in the same professional association than by meeting someone at a business after hours because you have more commitment invested in the same project. These deeper bonds are more likely to lead to referral relationships.
I recently saw a high-producing financial advisor from Boston speak, and he said that every month he would identify the 25 people who had the biggest impact on his business. The last time he had done this he had found that 17 of them were people he had met through his volunteer work with the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE ASSOCIATION
Not surprisingly, you’ll want to avoid negative association. You’ve heard the phrase “kill the messenger.” After years of poking fun at meteorologists, I had no idea that it was not unusual for them to receive hate mail—and worse—because of their predictions. People have blamed them for spoiling travel plans, crops, basements, weddings, and almost everything else under the sun.
On the other hand, positive association is a plus. This is why products use celebrities to endorse them—sales increase; it’s why products call themselves the “official” hair spray, or deodorant, or checking account, of the U.S. Olympic Team or any other well-regarded event or organization. Irrationally, the product has more credibility, and so we like it more. It’s why companies use attractive models to enhance what they’re selling.
Two other interesting revelations:
1. Politicians and fund-raisers know that people will approve of you more (and give you more money) after you have fed them a nice meal. Feeding people can boost likeability.
2. Some people are fanatical about their favorite sports teams; sharing a love for the same team can boost your Likeability Factor. Somehow, that team starts to represent you and prove your superiority—when the team wins. It is highly amusing to note that most people say the following after a game:
When your team wins, you say, “We won!”
When your team loses, you say, “They lost.”
This is one reason why it is always wise to speak positively and optimistically about your business or company. Other people want to associate with winners.
As a reminder: for more referrals, the question to ask yourself is, “How can I most add value to this person?” Use the ideas just mentioned, because the more people like you, the more they want to help you.