How to Get Comfortable Asking for Referrals.
Far and away this is the most challenging area for most people.
Do you believe you’re selling something or being pushy? Then you will not ask. So if you want referrals, you MUST have an empowering mindset about asking for them.
Want one? “I’m very good at what I do and I can help people my happy client cares about. So I will ask about these people because I was put on this earth to make a difference for others.”
Here are some steps that will get you comfortable.
**Reading this once and nodding your head will not help much!
Most people do not get comfortable without an ‘a-ha’ moment when they realize they bring a lot of value and are not cheesy sales people hitting up unsuspecting victims.
1. Face your fear of rejection and your fear of people.
a) First be honest with yourself that you do feel fear and stop blaming other things such as not having a polished referral script, elevator speech or high-end sales materials to hand out.
b) Stop listening to the bad advice of a young child. As children almost all of us experience some emotionally painful rejection and make some strong reactive decisions (often at a very young age) that we never want to experience that rejection again.
c) Focus on the other person: forget about the extra business and focus on helping more people
d) Use a little inspiration to remind yourself that you are never alone:
“The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid but he who conquers fear.”
Nelson Mandela
2. Identify Your Unhelpful Beliefs
Ask yourself: why don’t I ask?
For most people it comes down to:
1. Fear of looking pushy
2. Fear of looking needy
3. Fear of spoiling the relationship or losing the sale
4. Mostly: fear of being rejected and hearing ‘no’
There are other reasons people don’t ask and you need to figure out why you are uncomfortable.
One big insight for me was learning to tell the difference between aggressive and assertive. Unlike aggressive/pushy, assertive is healthy: “I’m very good at what I do and I can help people my happy client cares about. So I will ask about these people because I was put on this earth to make a difference for others.”
3. Get under your own skin!
Ask yourself better questions much more often:
Why should I hide my value from people who could benefit from it?
Successful people (no matter how you define successful) are not afraid or too shy or too cool to promote their value to others.
In other words, you are denying your prospects a great opportunity by not asking.
And if you can’t believe any of this, you should find something else you can get passionate about. You can’t fake it.
One of my favorite quotations comes from Barry Hearn who organizes major sporting events and manages professional athletes in the UK. Imagine an important meeting in your mind and ask yourself this:
“Why did you start doing what you’re doing? Did you not begin with a dream? Did you not once want to be in the position that you’re in now? All your life you’ve aimed towards a certain point. Are you going to blow it now by not believing in yourself when it’s your whole life? How much do you want this?”
4. Really believe in your value by creating empowering beliefs about asking.
List at least 20 reasons why someone should do business with you. Most people grossly underestimate how much they know that their clients don’t know! Nobody has time to know what you know about your industry.
This is about becoming your #1 fan: “I’m very good at what I do and I can help people my happy client cares about. So I will ask about these people because I was put on this earth to make a difference for others.”
5. Know when to ask
You ask when the client has truly recognized the value you have brought – in other words they have talked about it in some detail. You ask when the relationship is very good. You do not ask all the time and you do not shoot too soon. Click here for more on this topic.
6. Change how you ask.
When you have bought into your value, you ask with more confidence. 92% of human communication is non-verbal. Your body language, tone of voice and eye contact will communicate this confidence.
When you have bought into your value, you ask with more sincerity. Can’t fake that either. If you truly want to help the people your client cares about, they will know. Then they are far more likely going to refer you.
7. Change the words you use to ask for referrals.
Use the 6 Steps to an Effective Referral Conversation: acknowledge your client; have a value conversation; get specific; reassure the referral source; coach the referral source, and keep control of the process.
8. Earn the referrals.
Build stronger relationships with your clients because nobody recommends ‘business as usual’! You have to earn the referral just like you earn respect, love, friendship, credibility and trust. First establish trust but remember that being liked matters more.
9. Show courage and accept that the asking may be done badly at first.
Easier said than done. Role playing helps a lot – make some of your mistakes with someone in your office, a coach or a mentor. There was a time in your life when you were willing to try something new and fall down a few times. Read any autobiography by someone who made it big and you will read that they were willing to make mistakes.
10. Accept that some people will never ‘get’ it.
This isn’t a recipe for machines.
Deal with it: SWSWSWSW: some will, some won’t, so what, someone’s waiting.
11. Be patient and persistent.
If you’re open-minded to learn, willing to tweak these ideas to work for you and willing to stick at improving your mindset, you will get more and more comfortable. And by the way, those three things do not come quickly for most people so you might want to read that list again!
You’ll discover that most of your clients will respond favorably and want to help out – if you ask.
Earl Nightingale hit the nail on the head when he said in the Strangest Secret:
“Practically all of life is a mental game. Our attitude directs our minds and our minds direct us.”
Once you master your way of looking at asking for referrals, you can start to enjoy the benefits that I wrote about last week!
This is about becoming your #1 fan: “I’m very good at what I do and I can help people my happy client cares about. So I will ask about these people because I was put on this earth to make a difference for others.”
Are there other managers, trainers, centers of influence, or referral partners who might get value from this? Please forward it on.
