Increase your prospecting efforts with red hot referrals.

If you’re a salesperson and you hate making cold calls. . . read on. The most successful salespeople are those who make contact with new potential customers and clients daily. No matter how you look at it, selling is a numbers game. Some have even calculated how much they make every time they punch in a new phone number. One man calculated how many calls he made in a year compared to how much he sold, to figure out the value of each marketing phone call. So, how do salespeople keep an ample supply of people to call? Each time they make a sale, or the prospect becomes a customer, they add another person to their prospect list. Some salespeople do make 20-50 calls a day from telephone lists, prospect services or the phone book, and eventually, they will find customers and clients. One of the most valuable ways to find new prospects is to ask for referrals from people who are your customers, or people who know and trust you as competent and reliable. Solid, redhot referrals are a key to your sales success. Redhot referrals:
· Give you a connection to someone you don’t know,
· Establish your credibility, so you have a better opportunity for success, and
· Target people who need or want your product or service.

Some hate to ask for referrals for fear that it might offend a friend, colleague or existing client. Others don’t ask for referrals because the likelihood of the friend or colleague knowing a potential customer is slim. Yet, the referral is the best way to make a new contact with someone you don’t know. Rather than getting in line as the next telemarketer on the phone, or clamoring to find a stranger who will take an appointment with you, why not talk to someone who you have a connection with? If someone calls you and says, “Jerry Stone (who is your best friend), suggested that I call you,” wouldn’t you be more likely to talk to the person than if the caller mispronounces your name? Calling referred prospects will ensure that you waste less time, build your confidence and ultimately serve the needs of more people with your products and services.

To make sure that referrals are credible, ask the person who gives you the referral how they know the person. If you find that one of the referrals is someone that the customer just met at the gas station, you can ask if there might be a replacement that the customer knows a little better. Always ask permission to use the referral-supplier’s name. If they don’t give you permission, then ask if they know of someone else. This process of qualifying the referrals will keep you from making too many dead-end calls. Once a customer or client is satisfied with your service, simply ask, “Since this service has helped you so much, can you think of two and not more than three people who might also benefit from it?” Usually people can think of a few. Once you have the names, then find out how the customer knows the person. That way you can qualify whether the referral is solid or not.

Targeting the right sources for referrals will ultimately save you lots of time and effort. Once you have a target market for your product or service defined, figure out who can put you in touch with that market. For example, one of my target markets for sales presentations is the banking industry. To build the business, I asked my banker clients for referrals to banking organizations that hire speakers. Rather than getting the response of “don’t call us, we’ll call you,” people actually called me back, since I was referred by a trusted source. Another thing to consider in order to receive targeted referrals, is who you know who has contacts in the right industries, with the people in the organization that you wish to speak with. If you do Executive Coaching, the janitor at a fast food restaurant is probably not a good person to ask for a referral. Granted, my example is extreme, but it makes the point. Many times it’s a matter of just thinking before acting, rather than just asking for referrals from anyone.

If you feel uncomfortable asking for referrals, write a script and practice it. If you role play the script with a colleague, you can get comfortable with the process and the words that work best for you. Make contacting new people less stressful by using those redhot referrals.

And….Happy Sales to you…..’til we meet again!