Hi there, and welcome to this week’s coaching tip. Today we’re going to talk about one of the most important lead sources inside of your business, which is actually winning business by referral.
When we think about building referral, we think about how do we get that to happen on a regular and consistent basis. A referral doesn’t occur because someone actually gives you a $500 gift voucher or a bottle of Moet. The reason why a referral occurs is because you’re really good at what you do. Now what I know is that every single time that someone refers me a piece of business, I’ll then send that on to another agent. And when I send it on to the other agent, I say to them, “Just remember that although I’m not your in-client, I’m one of your key referrers. So treat me like a second vendor.”
Recently one of my clients in Adelaide had his brother Dan who wanted to sell his property in Brisbane. And we referred it to one of our clients, Mark in Brisbane. I said to Mark “You’re now going to work with Dan, you’re going to list the property, but can you let me know what happens so when I’m speaking with Dan I know exactly what’s going on in terms of his sale process.” Mark was incredibly good around what he did. He called me prior to the listing presentation, after the listing presentation, when the property went on the market and sent me a link to the property on realestate.com and domain.com.au. In addition to that, he then also called me after the first open for inspection, after the second open for inspection, when there was an offer received on the property and when the offer was accepted. He also then called me when the property actually exchanged unconditionally, and then called me again when the property settled. He treated me as the referrer as a second vendor.
Most people think that referral just happens. Well the only reason that it occurs is that you actually deliver incredible levels of service to those people that have, (a), referred you, and (b), been referred to you. And what’s important is that you need to think about is your service remarkable.
What I know is that in building a business by referral, it’s absolutely critical that you know who your key referrers are. So what I do is I have a little booklet just actually containing all of the people that refer me business on a regular and consistent basis. There are some people in that booklet that have spent no money with our training company yet they’ve referred us into over $100,000 worth of work every year because their key influencers are inside of the industry. Just remember that in order to work a referral, you’ve got to build a relationship and one that’s genuine. And often it’s not about calling up and asking for a referral; it’s simply about calling up, speaking to them about them and their business, and in addition to that about what’s going on in their world.
The more genuine that you are, the more likely that you can build a better relationship with people. Remember, the key to building word of mouth marketing is to make sure that you’re actually doing the work on a regular and consistent basis. You need to be calling out for business and speaking with those referrers on a regular basis and letting them know of your success.
Don’t forget to add all of your referrers to your database so that should you be sending out your weekly videos or your monthly videos around what’s happening inside of your marketplace, they can see you, connect with you and connect with you as being the area specialist.