How to get your referrals teed up

Step 3 of the 4 Step Fearless Referral Process is called HOW: how to get introduced – how to make sure your referral sources do a good job of teeing you up.

When it comes to any of your referral sources – the people willing to introduce you to others - you want to see yourself as the Head Coach to your team of advocates – and no good coach is going to send his or her team on the field without any directions.?

Your job is to make it easy for people to help you by a) identifying who you want to meet (that’s step 2 of my referral process) and b) guiding them on how to introduce you. The best way to start coaching others is via email - put it in writing.

It's your responsibility to get better at this and try not to fret about why your referral sources don’t follow through well without guidance. Mostly it's not very high on their priority lists.

How to coach people to introduce you effectively:

1.?When you ask someone to introduce you, they have to feel?comfortable?and?competent?with what you're asking them to do.?For comfortable, that’s why you make sure you ask them to introduce you to people they like. Competent means you work with them on?how?they are going to refer you effectively. Otherwise, they're probably not going to do it.

2. Get your referrals warmed up first

The quality referral is when ask your client FIRST to find out if the person you want to meet would be open to an introduction to you. You say something like: “I’d love to think I could be helpful to Clare too. Would you mind finding out if she’d be open to an introduction?” If Clare says yes, now when you follow up, she has heard of you and has agreed to the introduction.

3. What to Say:

The best thing to say to your referral source or introducer is:

“How would you be most comfortable introducing us?”

If you feel it’s too direct to ask: “HOW would you be most comfortable?” then you take one step back and ask the closed-ended question: “Would?you be comfortable introducing me to your sister/to your business partner/to Stacy?”

That's a yes or no response, but if they say “yes”, then you can use the next logical question.

“Thanks. What would be the easiest way for you to connect us?

?4. How to coach

The basic introduction has never changed from one homo sapiens saying to another: “This is great. I recommend it.”?You are asking someone to open a door and say: “Emily does great work. I highly recommend that you at least have a conversation with her. Can she give you a call sometime?”?

When it comes to guiding others, it’s best to do this by email because people don’t remember details in conversation for more than a few days, if that:

I’ve known Sofia for over four years.

She focuses on working with business owners.

I trust her and her company.

Would you like to meet her?

?If there is one extra line to add because you're a financial advisor, it is to shoot down the objection people sometimes have in their heads that they don’t know whether someone needs your help or not, often because they don’t talk about money matters with them.?

You do this by adding one sentence: “I don’t know how happy you are the financial planning you’ve done in recent years” – so the intro reads:

If you’re going to TALK them through how to introduce you rather than send an email, ask them:

“I’m curious: What are you planning on sharing with them?” or “What do you think you’ll say?”

This will make it clear what they will say if you don’t guide them. Then you can thank them and politely say: “You could do that. What most of my clients say when they introduce me is:

a)????You've been very pleased with the work we've done together

b)????You don’t know how happy they are with the financial planning they've done in recent years, but..

c)????You highly recommend the work I do

d)????Would they like to meet me?

The third statement (You highly recommend the work I do) can be swapped for:

c) I focus (or specialise) on working with people in abc situation (e.g. within five years of retirement) or in a specific vocation (e.g. dentists, executives, business owners)?

When you email, keep it simple:

“Thank you so much for offering to introduce me to Nadia. The easiest thing to do is copy and paste the following bullet points. Feel free to make any changes you want.” (And people will hardly ever make changes) Then list the same bullet points.

I do sense sometimes quite a bit of resistance to the idea of emailing people with what to say, but I urge you to think of the alternative which too often ends in silence, disappointment, and awkwardness.?

Keep in mind too that even if people don't forward on the wording in the email because they're going to talk to the person, it still gives them something to read to make them sure to help them do a more competent job of it.

A common mistake to avoid is you don't have to tell people that you're going to send them an email with what they should say. I think if you ask a social worker, a schoolteacher, or a police officer if you could email them some wording to introduce you, it might feel a bit strange.

But go ahead and send the email anyway.

?If it’s a center of influence, a great way to broach the topic is to ask: “Would it be helpful if I emailed you a couple of things to share with your client?” Because most COIs don’t know how to make an effective referral either!

Lastly, the one group NOT to do any of Step 3 with are the 2% who are already referring you with success. If someone’s already doing a great job with it, then leave them alone.

Remember you've got nothing to lose by trying to coach others how to introduce you. No one's going to be annoyed if you try, they just won’t use it.

To warm referrals!

Matt

Copyright Matt Anderson, 2022