Referral Upgrade

Referral Upgrade

As I see it, my job is to help people achieve their dreams. It’s that simple. I connect the right people to the right people or ideas. The more clients I help in this way and the bigger the numbers, the better the results. Your business likely works in a similar way.

But what about referrals? Are you being referred randomly to just anyone, or are you being referred steadily to your very best clients?

Asking for referrals in the usual way can feel like flying standby. When you’re flying standby, you have no idea if you’ll make your flight or where you will be sitting. Ever used a phrase like, “Whom do you know that I might be able to help in the same way I’ve helped you?” How well does that work?

Referrals are regarded as the gold standard for business development for good reason. They are the gold standard. Referrals are currency in business. And money is the byproduct of the service you provide for others.

The trouble is that asking for referrals is literally like asking your clients to give you a gift that can harm them and annoy their friends. But asking them to refer you on the premise of helping their friends can sound to them like, “Give me a gift, so I can sell your friends too.” That’s often the way other people hear it, and it puts them in an awkward position. They’re afraid you may hurt their relationships and disrupt their income in the process.

Ever hear this reply to your request? “I can’t think of anyone right now, but I’ll keep it in mind.” How many of those people call later with a referral? If you could read their thoughts, you might hear the following questions:

• Can I trust you enough to refer you to my best contacts whom I have spent years developing?
• Will you hurt my relationship with them?
• Will you refer me?

When this happens, you’re right back to flying standby on a plane bound for nowhere. Furthermore, since they don’t have any idea who your Big Three—your ideal client, ideal referrer, and ideal opportunities—are, how can they refer you to them?

• What if there was a way to meet people who actually want to refer you to your Big Three and even volunteer to do so?
• What if you had a method to significantly increase their confidence in you and reduce their risk of referring you?
• What if they thought it was more valuable to refer you, rather than your competitor, to their best clients and other contacts?

It can be done! And it’s all in the pages of Referral Upgrade and my blog at HankFrazee.com. If you would like to see some real-live examples click over to the Case Studies page and read my upcoming post, The Big Three Interview, to see how you can meet the clients of your dreams.

After all, wouldn’t you rather spend all your time in front of your very best clients?