What do people DO that corrupts referrals?
1. Show the Speaker you’re not paying attention to them.
- Examples:
- Look at your phone while they’re talking,
- Send emails while you’re on a call with them,
- Post to social media during a meeting (there’s a time stamp, remember),
- Reply to a text while you’re with them.
- Multi-tasking means: one thing that takes attention + one thing that doesn’t.
- If the speaker feels they are the thing you aren’t giving attention to,
You lose.
You lose referrals.
2. Assume respect.
Referrals are earned, not owed. They’re earned by respect.
- People feel respected when they see your eyes, and your smile, and you ask questions about them.
- Be on time, return phone calls, say thank you, dress appropriately.
- There’s more.
Show the respect they expect you to give their client.
3. Demonstrate a lack of preparation.
- Riffing off the InfoMinute of the person before me means: I wasn’t prepared.
- Talking about today’s news means: I wasn’t prepared.
- Apologizing for not having a prop or saying, "my printer was out of ink," means: I wasn’t prepared.
If I’m not prepared for you how can you trust I’ll be prepared for your client?
4. Share bad news with the group.
- Good news to groups, bad news 1:1.
- Good news for eyes, bad news for ears.
Last week a Member, apologized during the meeting for standing another Member up for lunch.
- Which told the whole Team they couldn’t be counted on to keep an appointment, and made it clear they hadn’t reached out that day, on bended knee, offering to wash their car.
- People assume that how you do anything is how you’ll do everything. No one can afford the risk of to referring to a rude person.
5. Pitch. Constantly. At every opportunity.
- For instance, when a Member tells about a referral they gave do you say, “Hey – that would be good for me, too!?" won’t work.
- Poking people with a stick while saying, “Gimmee gimmee,” is not an effective referral strategy.
People know what you do, I promise, they do. They aren’t skipping you because they don’t know. Really. They know what you do. They refer to who you are.
6. Inappropriate humor.
This one is difficult for me. I’ve found my sense of humor often isn’t . . . appropriate.
- The humor maxim is: when it doubt, leave it out.
- I leave it out a lot – when I don't, I call to apologize.