Everybody loves referrals. What’s not to like about it? Low acquisition cost, no-pressure sales process, easy to close, quicker conversions and it boasts of your great service. Yes, everybody is proud to share that their best source for new business is your customer referrals. And that’s your problem. It means that you are better at servicing than you are at selling. Don’t get me wrong; congratulations on your great service. You earned it along with the referrals it brings, but you know as well as I do that those referrals don’t fall from the sky every day and what do you do when you hit a dry spell? Sell on hope, I suppose. ‘I hope I get a referral today.’ What would your business be like if new business from a defined sales process was a constant source of revenue and the referrals were a celebrated bonus point? Most of you have this backward. Let’s face it, your referral business does not have you on a path for growth, does it? There is a good chance that you have been using the referral gig as an excuse to not get busy filling your pipeline with new opportunities. So, let me elaborate on this problem.
- You’re Lazy – Sorry, I just don’t know a nicer way to say this. I do understand that there are a chosen few who really are referral machines, but that isn’t you. Let’s face it, you don’t get nearly as many referrals that you need, but if you get just one referral, suddenly you tell yourself that you don’t have to hunt for new business this month. Referrals just aren’t that hard, so if this is your reasoning, it appears to be lazy.
- You Have No Sales Process – You have been hiding behind the referral excuse long enough to avoid having a sales process. Don’t believe me? I challenge you to write out your sales process on 1 sheet of paper in less than 15 minutes and complete it with the dollar amount of sales that it brought in. Didn’t think so.
- You’re Afraid To Prospect – Don’t feel too bad about this one because almost everyone is. But if you don’t prospect then you don’t have a pipeline which means you don’t have much in the way of new business. Do the math and you see that you definitely need to get in front of new customers instead of waiting for referrals if you’re going to achieve your goals.
- You Have No Sales Pipeline – I know that I just mentioned this, but it needs repeating. You don’t know where your next sale is coming from; if it is coming at all. You have few to no opportunities to look forward to because you didn’t create any while you were waiting for those precious referrals that you count on.
- You Don’t Even Know How To Ask For Referrals – You know this is true. 85% of salespeople don’t bother to ask for referrals, you don’t have a process of asking for referrals and you don’t even know the proper method of doing so. If referrals are so important to you and you focus on it more than prospecting, you would think that you would have this worked out better.
Okay, so you got beat up a little bit on this read, but no one else is telling you this and you desperately need to hear it because now you can see that there is a problem you have been ignoring. But that is where Scorecard can help you with your sales process and it starts with a Power Score Assessment. And if you need help with a powerful referral program, we got you covered there as well. Contact us at ajacobs@scorecardsales.com or www.scorecardsales.com to get started.
