 | Alan Rogers is a current member of Business Builders of SEK, a highly motivated business referral group. As a Real Estate agent for Century 21 Cobb Realty and sales partner in the SE Kansas Q&A Times, Alan is excited about the referrals it has produced and the great relationships he has established, that will help produce future referrals. |
Business
2012-04-20 11:23:14
The key to making referrals work for you
A: Conceptually, most people understand the idea of referrals. But as you stated, getting and giving a referral isn’t so simple. Referrals in business aren’t meant to be “leads”, referrals are exactly what they say they are, “referring” someone directly to a business. A lead is fine and there is a very nice place for business leads. But referrals should be someone directly introducing a prospecting customer directly to you, the business owner that can fulfill their needs. It takes the guessing game out of the equation and that referred prospect is actually looking forward to hear directly from you as a result. Makes things much easier huh?
Think and play out this scenario in your head:
Pretend you are in a room of 20 people, and you ask everyone to take out their keys. You look around and find one who has the most keys on their key ring. You then take that key ring, say to the roomful of people: “There are 20 people in this room, would you agree that there are more keys than people?”
After everyone agrees, you pick out one key from the key ring you borrowed and ask, “Can anybody tell me what door this key can open?”
When most everyone shakes their head, you say, “The only person who can give me the right answer is hopefully the person I borrowed the keys from.”
This silly story demonstrates that referrals are really about opening doors for one another. It’s all about trust. Now that you have the key, you must find out if the person who gave it to you will trust you with it. Turn to them and ask, “Can I take the keys with me?”
The person usually refuses. How can they know you are trustworthy?
This is the second stage of the referral: Building Trust. Within a trusting relationship, a person might give up their home key or office key. But without that trust, we clench the key, consequently missing out on an open door. It’s really simple, the key to making and receiving good referrals is to find the right key. But remember, the key to make the key work is trust.
