Hi everybody, Mickey Griffith here with the Referral Institute in the North San Francisco Bay Area. What I would like to chat with you about today is a little phrase that you can add to your referral marketing process, or that your referral sources can add to their referral process, that will increase the chances that you’re going to close the referral. When we talk about the five steps in the process, we talk about the big step in the middle, which is, “The Need“.
Once we have qualified that there is a need, we’ve asked enough questions, we’ve gotten curious, asked enough questions that let the possible referral person know that they have a need. Then we have to talk about our referral source in a way that’s gonna present them as a great solution. This is a little transition phrase, that might help that goal little bit easier when you’re trying to refer somebody this in your network. And it’s really pretty simple and it goes something like this, “I don’t know if this is for you or not.” Okay, so not exactly rocket science right? That what’s we talk about at the Referral Institute a lot. It’s not exactly rocket science. Its simple, but it’s not easy. And one of the things that’s missed when people pass a referral to or try to be given a referral for somebody, is they don’t give the person they are talking too an out. As soon as they hear that there’s a problem, they say, “Oh you really gotta go see so-and-so.”
Well, they might need too and might even understand that they have the need, but you wanna give them some wiggle room. Again, as I talked about it in another blog entry, you wanna talk about having patience in your referral process. You want to train your referral sources to not jump the gun and to give them a little room. So, I don’t know if this is for you or not, but you might wanna ask your referral sources to give a little bit of room, exercise some patience, and use that phrase when they are about to talk about you as the solution. I don’t know if this is for you or not, but I hope you find this tip helpful in your referral marketing efforts.