5-15-50-80: For More Referrals Know These Numbers!

5-15-50-80: For More Referrals Know These Numbers!

5%: at best the amount of business you’ll get from cold calls.

15%: the amount of business you’ll get when you use a name and say; “Sarah Megson gave me your name” – but your call is NOT expected. And that person may be a little puzzled why Sarah never mentioned anything to them.

50%: the amount of business you’ll get when your call IS expected and you say; “Sarah Megson suggested I call,” and they reply, “Oh, yes, that’s right. How are you?”

80%: the amount of business you’ll get when you are personally introduced.

The Sandler Sales Institute studied this several years ago and my experience has found their numbers to be pretty accurate.

Lessons to Learn:

You don’t just want a long list of names of people not expecting your call. (15%)

Certainly some names that you mention will carry more weight than others but rarely as much as we’d like to think. (15%)

What you always want to aim for is to ask your referral source to warm up their referral by talking to them briefly or finding out c/o email whether that person would be interested in a quick conversation. You want someone else to go out to bat for you. (50%)

Another advantage to this is you will avoid one of those meetings where someone has agreed to meet you who has NO IDEA what you do and why they’re meeting you! (50%)

The best kind of referral to get is without question the personal introduction – lunch, coffee or beer after hours work best. 80% of the time if someone personally introduces you to a prospect, the business will happen. Their actions speak volumes for your credibility. Clearly we save these requests for bigger fish. Revisit your prospect list and decide who you would like to meet in person.

How Do You Get Your Referral Warmed Up?

Use Steps 5 and 6 of the Six Steps to an Effective Referral Conversation.
Step 5: Teach your referral source what to say
Step 6: Keep control of the process