Why Professional Referrals Are Overrated!
Now before I begin, I’m not knocking all referrals because they’re a great source of business. In fact personal referrals are great! I’ve gotten plenty of good contacts, help, or info from them. I’m more so referring to referrals given by professionals, people in the industry, to people or other professionals. I’m not knocking that entirely either. I’m just giving an objective word of caution for those new in the business that might walk into a colleague’s referral thinking its a slam dunk to close the deal.
I’m writing this based on my experience in dealing with colleague referrals. Some have gone great or even better than expected ending in a closed transaction. Others went down south before I even met the referee. When I first got into the business about two years ago all I kept hearing was 100% referral business was where it was at. I thought sure it made sense! If my business was sitting around my office or better yet my home just answering my phone, which would be ringing off the hook with people who were referred to me that would be the life! So I went about making friends with every loan officer, insurance agent, title, and escrow rep that I could. If I knew then what I know now I could have saved the deal before it was lost. But since I didn’t, I’ll pass on what I’ve learned to you the reader.
Referrals by professionals and colleagues can be the least guaranteed. For a further explanation please read on…
You may not be the best person to help the referee. The colleague or professional may just have you on the top of their head at the time. Depending on how long you’ve known the professional or colleague they may not fully understand what services you provide and give a referral to you based on not knowing you can’t provide the service a referee is looking for.
You may be inheriting someone’s problem client. If a particular client is hard to deal with, a colleague or professional might be looking to pass them off to an unsuspecting you while trying to keep a piece of the action just in case there’s still money to be made.
The client may not be expecting “you”. This happens all the time and not entirely due to the fault of the person giving the referral to you. People have a lot of hang ups when choosing who to do business with. This could be racial issues, cultural issues, way of doing business issues, wrong gender etc… If you’re not what a person expects to see or hear when you meet, it could kill your deal before it even starts.
The telephone effect. Remember the telephone game where one person starts by whispering a message to another and that person tries to remember it and whisper the exact same message to the next person and so on? By the time the last person gets the message and has to say it out loud everyone would laugh at how distorted the original message had gotten. Well this happens a lot when you get referrals from people “in the business”. They’re often too busy to really explain what you do and how you do it. Going back to the first reason, they may have your business or area of expertise all mixed up when telling someone why to use your services.
Client is still shopping around. Normally if someone asks a professional for a referral they are either shopping the competition or unfamiliar with the filed and will quickly jump to someone with whom they feel safe. Beware of just being a stop on someones information gathering hunt. This could still be valuable. If you were to give them the right piece of information this could convince them to sign up with you.
The silver lining in the cloud here is to be prepared for any referrals you get. If you approach every business opportunity as not being a “slam dunk” but as a new challenge you’ll have the upper hand. Until the person with whom you met has signed, given you the check, or whatever is needed to start using your service you haven’t closed. Even with referrals you’ll still need your objection handling scripts, skills, and professional presentation to convince them you are for real.
I recommend giving colleagues and professionals specific written instructions on how to refer clients to you as well as written suggestions as to who would make good candidates for your services. This can be done with special referral business cards or fliers. If you don’t already use the back of your business cards, save money by placing the instructions there. Referral gifts and contests may not only get better qualified referrals it should increase the amount of referrals.
Last but not least never forget to ask for referrals from your immediate friends and family. They have a loyalty and familiarity to you. They can personally vouch for your character as well. I don’t know about you but anytime a family member or buddy of mine tells me about a good restaurant I eventually end up trying it out and liking it because we have similar tastes. On the the other hand, if our likes are different, they’ll warn against it. In referral business someone that knows you and the referee personally may be able to predict whether or not the two of you will be a good business match.
I prefer a good mix of new and referral business to keep things going. You’ll need to know how to get new business if your “referral well” goes through a dry spell. Besides you can always turn new business into referral business. Like a gift that keeps on giving.
I always keep myself open to giving and receiving good quality referrals. If anyone professional or general public would like to exchange referrals or network I can be reached at (877) 628-3540 toll free.
I generally service anywhere between Los Angeles and Riverside, CA in buying and selling homes. I am currently offering a service for those interested in purchasing discount homes and fixer-uppers.
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