iFive Alliances

Your Revenue Driver

Grab the Referral Wheel and Double Your Sales

Every salesperson in every industry proclaims that referrals generate new business the fastest and most cost effective way. When you receive a referral introduction you:

  • Arrive pre-sold—the prospect knows who you are and actually wants to meet you
  • Gain trust and credibility—the most difficult thing for salespeople to garner
  • Shorten your sales process—and spend more time working with great clients
  • Ace out the competition—while others are still figuring out who the decision maker is
  • Incur no hard costs—just a small amount of change for coffee or a meal
  • Convert prospect to clients more than 50% of the time—and most likely 70 to 90%

 And yet so few run a 100 percent referral-based business. Why not?

After conducting interviews with salespeople and sales executives, I discovered the four reasons holding companies back:

  1. It feels uncomfortable.

Referral selling is downright personal. We’re asking someone to help us, and it’s not easy asking for help. The biggest fear of all is that our Referral Source might say no. So, we don’t ask.

  1. It’s a skill.

Sales people don’t know how to ask. 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.” The only thing that achieves is we can check “Ask for a referral” off our list. It gets us nowhere.

  1. There haven’t been metrics.

Referral selling sounds like the right thing to do, but historically, there haven’t been any hard numbers on the success rate of referral business. There are metrics for cold calling, direct mail, advertising, but few widely known for referrals. That’s all changed: Now we have metrics! Typical referral metrics include: the number of people asked; the number of referral meetings held; the number of new customers; the amount of increased business with existing customers; and overall increases in revenue and profitability.

  1. It hasn’t been part of our sales process.

We must work referrals every single day. It is a proactive strategy and not something we leave to “word of mouth.” Word of mouth is passive, waiting for the phone to ring; referral selling is active and results-oriented.

The Power of Referrals is endless. Addressing your referral-selling hurdles is easy with the right process. If you want to run a referral-based business, begin by examining your strategy and your process:

  • Do your salespeople know the importance of referrals?
  • Where in your sales process should they ask for referrals?
  • What metrics can you put in place to reinforce referrals?
  • How will you recognize people for their success?

It’s time to move referral selling from common sense to common practice. Determine how the four excuses for not asking for referrals play out in your company. Talk to your salespeople and build a plan to shift the way you work. Drop the excuses and adopt referrals.

Get Started Now

Join Joanne Black’s Complimentary Turn Cold To Gold Webinar on Wednesday, October 12. Learn why Joanne says there’s no such thing as a warm call and that no one (yes, no one) should ever have to make a cold call.

Take a deep dive into referral selling and learn the 5 steps to run your referral business and increase your conversion rate to more than 70 percent…every time. Register now for Turn Cold to Gold.

Joanne S. Black is America’s leading authority on referral selling. A captivating speaker and innovative seminar leader, Joanne works with sales executives, business owners, and their teams to increase revenue while decreasing their cost of sales. Joanne is the author of NO MORE COLD CALLING™: The Breakthrough System That Will Leave Your Competition in the Dust from Warner Business Books. Contact Joanne at joanne@nomorecoldcalling.com or 415-461-8763. Visit www.NoMoreColdCalling.com. Get Joanne’s Back in the Black Newsletter and receive your Referral I.Q. Quiz—your checklist to build a referral business.

 

 

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Joanne's firm has become a client of iFive. Her work is especially relevant today because of two primary reasons:

 

1. The people we want to reach are easier to find than ever - and therefore need to protect themselves more than ever in order to maximize their productivity. It is impossible for them to return every phone call or email. Decision makers are harder to reach.

 

2. It is easier than ever (primarily because of tools like LinkedIn) to find people who can make referrals for you. As a result more people are asking for referrals - but not doing it well - and therefore - not getting the results. Good referral sources are becoming more protective of their contacts.

 

Joanne's work provides the solution be helping executives and sales people cultivate a referral mentality. Please consider attending the live webinar or watching the recorded version and please contact me if you are interested in becoming affiliated with her company.

 

Regards,

 

Paul 404-252-8330

pault@ifivealliances.com

Paul,  This is excellent and timely.  This is something that I don't think I am very good at and the results we get from our programs are life changing.  We need to tap into this gold mine of business resources.  Thanks for the link to this!  

 

Paul,  this is great! Thanks for sharing. 

This is something that I know will be helpful in my business, but hard to learn how to do right or to know where to get training.

Good to know there is this resource available.


Martin

Great stuff Paul and Joanne sorry I missed the webcast...was it recorded?

Best,

Mark

Hi Mark:

 

Yes, we recorded the webinar. Try this link http://www.nomorecoldcalling.com/free-webinar-page/

 

Joanne


Mark Myette said:

Great stuff Paul and Joanne sorry I missed the webcast...was it recorded?

Best,

Mark

Thanks so much Joanne!

 

Best,

 

Mark

I participated in a webinar of hers and thought it was great.  Fantastic information.  Like anything else, it's about setting goals and developing the skills to implement.  Thanks!

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