How to Make Better Referrals
(By Gil Gerretsen) Referrals are the lifeblood of most professionals and service businesses. Yet, it’s something most people struggle with. They don’t know how to make referrals well, and they don’t know how to receive them well. There’s a simple process to make it easier, however. I developed this approach many decades ago and have taught it to folks around the world. It’s quick, easy, and very effective. Let me share it with you too.
There are just a couple of important “rules” to getting referrals right.
RULE 1 - You don’t need to (and shouldn’t) ask for permission to facilitate a referral. If you think two people would benefit from knowing each other, just make the introduction. They can decide for themselves whether there’s a fit worthy of dialog.
RULE 2 - Keep yourself out of the middle. Continuing from Rule 1, don’t create work for yourself when making an introduction. If you ask for permission, you now create a new “to do” item to followup up on. You should have better things to do. Further (and this is critical), keeping yourself in the middle means you now have to explain two marketing marketing messages for other people. Almost certainly, you won’t do it as well as each person can do without you in the middle.
RULE 3 - A simple email formula does the trick. The subject line is “Sally meet Harry - Harry meet Sally” and the message has three easy parts, as follows:
PART 1 - The two-sentence opening paragraph. It says simply: “Hi Sally and Harry. I think the two of you might benefit from knowing each other and having a chat.”
PART 2 - A short paragraph to each person with a VERY brief reason why you think they would want to have that chat. For example: “Sally, I think that Harry might have access to some investors you should know. Harry, I think in addition, there might be other synergies between your businesses.”
PART 3 - A final short paragraph passing the baton to each of them. For example: “At this point, I will let you each take it from here. I’ve included both of your email addresses in the ‘To’ header so you can create a new dialog if you so desire. I hope good things develop.” Wrap up with you email signature. Then hit send and move on with your day.
Give this approach a try and let me know how it works for you.
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