If I asked you, “How do you get the majority of your new clients?”, I imagine that I would hear, “Word of mouth and referrals”. However, I’d also guess that you would tell me that you wish you had more of them.
That’s the problem with referrals. We don’t have a lot of control over when they arrive. It seems that sometimes we are inundated with referrals, yet the next thing we know, weeks have passed without a single one. That’s frustrating and unfortunately there’s not a lot that we can do.
However what we can do is make sure that everyone who could refer us business actually is prepared to do so. Which brings me to the main reason why you are not getting as many referrals as you would ideally like.
The most common reason is that people just do not remember you. It’s not that what you do isn’t valuable. It has nothing to do with the feedback you get from clients. The problem is that you have not explained what you do and the great benefits that clients receive in a way that’s memorable.
So let us look deeper into this issue of why you are stuck in the crowd and remain the best kept secret in your marketplace. Please allow me to share a brief story with you. I think you’ll find it valuable.
When I transitioned from Corporate America to consulting, I thought the transition would be far easier than it was. I had done well during my corporate career and felt that I had a wealth of knowledge that would be valuable to my clients. The only problem was, I didn’t have many of those.
When I asked other consultants how they got new business they invariably told me that it came to them mostly through referrals. Yet, as much as I wished people would refer me business, they didn’t. To say this was frustrating would be an understatement.
The greatest indignity occurred 4 months into my consulting career when a friend of mine (in front of me) referred a project that I would have been perfect for, to someone else. I mustered up my nerve and as politely as I could, asked my friend why he had not referred that project to me.
To my great surprise he apologized and said that he would have been more than happy to refer to me but that he was not entirely clear about exactly what I did. I was flabbergasted. What was wrong with this guy? I know I had sat down with him for at least 30 minutes and explained what I did.
But as I cooled off I realized that the fault was not with my friend, it was with me. Although I thought I had done a good job of explaining what I did, obviously I did it in a way that wasn’t memorable. I vowed to find out how I could make myself memorable and thought that the networking group I belonged to would be a good place to start.
My networking group consisted of two types of people. Those that got referred a lot of business and those that hardly ever got referrals. Perhaps the answer could be found by observing the difference between the two groups.
Now to be fair, there are a few businesses that always seem to get referrals. Handymen and computer fix-it-when-the-computer-crashes types being two prime examples. However, when I watched financial planners, accountants, consultants and other small business owners, it was clear that some got lots of referrals and others next to none. That’s when I noticed what the difference was.
Those that got referrals told stories. They told stories about themselves, their clients and the types of problems that they solved. So why was this such a crucial difference? The answer was so simple that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out before.
People don’t remember facts. People remember stories. The key to getting referrals is being remembered. The stories you tell are the way to make sure that happens.
Now I won’t suggest that this one fact changed my business overnight. It took me a while to learn how to tell a story that was both interesting and memorable. But I stuck with it and the results have been impressive. From zero referrals a month, I quickly went to an average of a dozen. For a marketing consultant such as myself, that’s a huge increase.
So the lesson is simple. Want more referrals? Learn to tell stories.
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