The Desert of Arizona
Rain 59 Degrees
I mentioned last week how I prefer “growing” my own clients through the use of a media Platform instead of getting clients referred to me.
If you want to go out and engineer “word of mouth” referrals, then read this book and go do that. That book will help you stop viewing “word of mouth” as something fueled by hope and chance.
Today, I want to focus on another other kind of referral–the one that isn’t scripted. I mean the referral that you didn’t purposely generate but the one that is sent to you from someone else.
Referrals are supposed to be great aren’t they?
Well, my experience isn’t quite that way, and I’ll tell you the reason why.
My friend and I laugh about what sometimes happens when a well meaning individual sends a referral your way. That referral shows up WITHOUT the complete story about you. The person doing the referring transferred a BIT of the story, but that’s usually it.
So the prospective client shows up and kind of says, “Jack sent me, he says you’re great. Let’s see what you can do for me…”
Then there is this somewhat awkward moment where the ball gets put in your court. You went from stranger to almost client with this person in like 10 seconds flat.
It’s like dating and getting married all in the first date! (This is almost never good 🙂
So you propose a course of action and put the ball back in the prospective client’s court.
At that point, the attraction is gone. The interest generated from the person who referred you isn’t there to sustain the prospective client and things start to feel weird.
This has happened several times over the years and it gives me a chuckle every time.
The problem isn’t the referrer, or the referral. As with all things I don’t like in my little bubble, the problem is me!
For some reason, when a current or past client sends a referral, it’s easy to want to “treat them well.” And what that means is that you are tempted to treat them differently than other prospects.
Your relationship with the referrer caused you to skip OVER the relationship with the person they referred to you.
Don’t do this if you actually want to help them. You can’t “transfer” relationships, you have to build them.
Here’s the moral of the story:
Don’t shortcut your process for anyone. If you have a process for how you deal with incoming prospects, STICK TO IT. Even if it’s the Queen! It’s not “mean.” In fact, it’s in the best interest of your future client. If you shortcut the process and that screws up your chances of working with them, they walk away without getting the value you provide. That’s a loss for them.
Make a process and stick to it. That’s how you find freedom from the emotionally awkward situations that make you do stupid things 🙂