Getting even more sales referrals
27 Jan 2008
If you’ve heard me speak or read any of my sales books, you’ll know that I advocate developing the skill of getting referrals as being the very best and easiest source of new business. You’ll also know that (in brief) my key rules on this subject are:
1 – Make giving you referrals a condition of your customers doing business with you
2 – Ask for referrals before you have met the potential customer
3 – Ask for referrals during the meeting with a potential customer
4 – Ask for referrals after meeting with the customer
5 – Encourage ongoing referrals from the customer
There is one word, other than the word ‘referrals’, that is common to each of those points which is ‘customer’.
But what about ‘SUPPLIERS’. Suppliers can be an equally good source of referrals for sales and suppliers have a vested interest in keeping you happy. Let’s face it – you are spending money with them!
When I first mention this subject in sales workshops there are some people who seem to have a resistance to it. But these are inevitably the people who have a resistance to asking for referrals in the first place. The other point that is often raised is that their suppliers deal in the business to consumer market whilst they deal in the business to businesses market, or vice versa. But all suppliers have many contacts in both those markets.
Last week I received a telephone call from a salesperson who had attended a workshop I ran several weeks before. Following my advice and during the following week, she had asked every supplier she spent money with for referrals. She asked the owner of her local corner store where she bought her morning newspaper. She asked the manager of her local supermarket where she did her weekly shop. She asked the person on the till at her local garage when she filled up with petrol. She asked the manager in the local DIY shop when she went in to purchase some screws she needed to put up a shelf. She asked her hairdresser when she went to have her hair styled and she asked the local dry cleaner when she went to pick up her clothes. In fact she asked every single person she came into contact with when she was buying from them.
Her approach was very straightforward. She would say “I’d really appreciate your help please. I don’t know if I have told you this before but I sell security systems for offices and factories. Who do you know within about a twenty mile radius from here who runs a business that works from those type of premises?”
She also asked her manager for a list of suppliers the company used and has started to contact them. Within three weeks she told me that she had received over seventy-five new referrals and had stopped asking for the moment because she was simply too busy to follow them all up.
So here are some additional sales referral rules for you:
1 – Make giving you referrals a condition of your suppliers doing business with you. If they won’t – change suppliers.
2 – Wherever possible, ask for referrals before you have met the potential supplier
3 – Ask for referrals during the meeting with a supplier
4 – Ask for referrals after meeting with a supplier
5 – Encourage ongoing referrals from a supplier