Your customers will tell you why. Just ask.
Referrals are built on trusted relationships. Who better to refer you to a qualified prospect than your current clients who have received a measurable ROI from your offering?
My take: Your current clients are your #1 untapped source of referrals. No other business-development strategy delivers the high double-digit results that referrals provide.
Mark Hunter, the Sales Hunter, shares his perspective on giving your customers a reason to refer you. Read on, comment, and succeed through referrals:
“Do your customers have a reason to refer you? I’m not talking about bribing them with some sort of a special offer if they refer new customers to you. Instead, what I mean is, “What is it about you that is so compelling and important that your customers won’t be able to stop themselves from telling others about you?”
The vast majority of you are going to think that scenario simply is not going to happen with what you sell. Fine, I’ll agree that very few people sell something so compelling or amazing that customers simply talk at will about you with other people.
Even so, your challenge is to make it easy for them to talk about you.
Ask for Feedback
The best way to get your customers talking about you is to get them talking about you in front of you. Now, you’re really confused, right? Let me explain.
Pick up the telephone and call your customers and ask them what they like about what you sold them. Let them tell you.
You’ll be amazed and pleased. Yes, you may hear some items along the way you will want to improve upon, but that’s all the better of a reason to make the call – you’re getting customer feedback!
Share the Value
As the customer shares with you what they like about you and your products or services, it’s naturally going to make you feel good. This is nice, but the real value comes when you then ask the customer who if they have some names of other people who would benefit too. Even better is if they are willing to introduce you to these people.
Stay in Touch
This process of calling customers and asking them what they like about you and what you sell does not have to be difficult. You should do it every year with every one of your customers. Sadly, some salespeople only ask for referrals right after the customer has made their purchase. If you call your customers every year, though, you are able to use them as an on-going referral machine.
Some people wonder if this process really works. I assure you it does. Each time I’ve used it and each time I’ve shared it with other salespeople, it has worked.
Now if you want to really take it to the next level and you’re in a B2B environment, offer to them names of other people they might benefit from meeting. It’s at this point you will have taken a call that began as a request for customer feedback and turned it into an opportunity to build each other’s businesses.”
Mark Hunter
Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” is author of “High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price”. He is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability. To receive a free weekly sales tip and read his Sales Motivation Blog, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com.
You can also follow him on Twitter http://www.Twitter.com/TheSalesHunter; on Facebook www.facebook.com/TheSalesHunter; and on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/MarkHunter.
Reprinting of this article is welcomed as long as the following is included:
Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” www.TheSalesHunter.com, © 2012
Trackbacks/Pingbacks