How to get referrals
For many professionals, our fundamental business strategy is “do good work, get referrals”.
Notwithstanding that I believe you should be at least slightly more proactive in cultivating opportunity for yourself, if you’re going to adhere to that basic model, you should do everything you can to make your referrals as effective as possible.
There are three things your referral strategy needs to incorporate to be successful:
Make it really easy. It should be as simple as an email.
Put yourself in control. If they refer you behind closed doors, you just have to hope and pray that the referred person reaches out to you. If the referral happens in your view (and gives you the contact details of the person), you can take control of the relationship.
Be incredibly generous. The person who is referred should experience your introduction into their world as either a figurative or literal gift. Whether or not it results in a sale, both the person making the referral and the person who was referred should both end up feeling glad it happened.
Teach them how to do it. You have to train your peeps on how to refer you. Show them how to do it, and they’ll do it the way you asked. Otherwise, they’re likely to just mention your name to someone else, and you’ll have no control over the relationship (or worse, they won’t refer you at all).
Incorporate these four tips into your referral strategy and I think you’ll see a rapid jump in your revenue.