C’mon, be honest. How many referrals do you really get? If you’re like most businesses, not very many. And it’s not because you don’t do 
a great job. Far from it.
There are a number of reasons people won’t directly refer you on. The chief being no one wants to “sell” on your behalf. Nor do they want to stick their necks out when their reputation as a referrer is at stake.
There is a way around this and it’s relatively simple. In fact it uses the same mechanism you should be using to attract and educate leads. A referral pack.
A referral pack is any material a referrer can hand out on your behalf to a prospect. It outlines the issues your target is facing, how you’d solve them, includes social proof in the form of case studies and testimonials and includes a call to action.
Think of the pack as a silent salesperson that does all the work of qualifying and moving a prospect down the funnel. It’s inanimate so it can’t feel rejected. Duplicated, it works tirelessly time and time again giving you leverage.
Met a chap offering building inspections at a Chamber of Commerce meeting.
His target market is residential home buyers needing reassurance they’re buying a structurally sound property.
Part of a major franchise, he is struggling to get clients. Frankly, a pretty common problem.
I mentioned our neighbours had been caught out with major defects and rectification costs even though they’d had a building inspection. Obviously one that didn’t go beneath the surface.
He told me some inspectors spend just 20 minutes going through the house whereas he can spend up to 3 hours looking for termite evidence, structural issues etc.
Hmm I thought. This was a classic case of someone really good at what they do not articulating their value in ways a prospect would go, “I get it, I want it and I want you”.
So I gently probed a bit deeper.
- Did he explain how thorough he was to his clients? No.
- Did he talk about how much grief he could save them down the track? No.
- How about how much they could negotiate a price down if they knew there were issues with the property but still wanted to buy it? No.
Put simply, he wasn’t demonstrating his value and giving people reasons to choose him.
I suggested he create a referral pack which answers common questions like…
- What were the main issues to look for when buying a home.
- What percentage of homes he inspected had issues – termites, structural, etc.
- Then go on to show how much money and grief he had saved his clients due to his thoroughness.
- Put in some case studies and testimonials and a call to action.
Then when someone made an enquiry, have the pack do the educational based selling for him. Takes the pressure off him. He doesn’t have to “sell”. The written word does it for him.
And he could give this kit to referral sources like real estate agents and conveyancers as well as have it available from his website.
And yes, we could create such a pack for him. We’ve done it for hundreds of different businesses and got proven results.
Marketing and selling doesn’t have to be complex or expensive. Talk to us about some of our innovative, easy to apply ideas will bring you more leads. We can teach you how to sell so you convert more business and get on with what you love doing – producing results for your clients.
Call us on 0414 913 334 for more information.
