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How to Get More Referrals Using Offers

Posted by

Ian Brodie on June 20th, 2009.

Referral Offer One of the biggest challenges I find clients have when trying to get more referrals is that their referrers (the people they've asked to introduce them to someone) struggle to make the introduction sound attractive to the potential client.

For example, let's say you're an employment lawyer and you've asked an accountant to introduce you to small manufacturing businesses in your area. Or perhaps you've been smart and used Linkedin to name some specific people and organisations you know he knows.

How is he going to make that introduction sound attractive to the potential client? Chances are they don't have a specific need for your services at this point in time. And even if they did, the accountant might not know that. So although a recommendation and offer of an introduction from a trusted partner like an accountant is more likely to succeeed than a cold call – it still might not seem attractive.

And it may also be embarrassing or uncomfortable to the accountant too. It may feel a little too much like he's simply selling for you with no real benefit for his client.

Now of course, you're going to try to inspire your referral partner by demonstrating what a great resource to his clients you're going to be. And of course, you're going to be “courting” that referral partner to keep yourself top of mind for when the time comes to give recommendations.

But still, 1-on-1 with his client he's going to have to pop the question. So maybe he'll wait until the client's in a good mood. Or maybe until a related topic comes up. Or maybe….

But what if the accountant had something to offer the client on your behalf? Something that was valuable to them without relying on them having an immediate need.

It could be a report you've prepared on the key facts manufacturers need to know about employment law. Perhaps an invitation to a monthly seminar and Q&A session your firm runs on new legislation which impacts small firms. Perhaps some kind of related checklist or spreadsheet tool.

Then there's no embarrassment or difficulty.

The accountant will feel they're adding direct and immediate value to their client. They're not just suggesting a meeting with you which might lead to value for the client. They're giving it straight away.

And the client will feel much more disposed to meet with you and much more confident that you're going to be a useful resource.

The whole situation has changed from the referral partner doing you a favour – to them doing themselves and their client a favour.

So not only will the accountant be recommending you when the time is right and when the client's in a good mood. Since your offer adds value to his clients, he'll be recommending you whenever he can to get “brownie points” with them. He'll be actively looking for opportunities to make recommendations and raise the status of his relationship.

So what resources do you have that your referral partners can offer?

If you don't have any, start working on them now.

PS For more details on this strategy, check out Steve Gordon's excellent book Unstoppable Referrals.

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The Referral Formula

Posted by

Ian Brodie on June 17th, 2009.

This is the second in a series of posts on how Professional Firms can get more referrals. Read the first in the series – Referrals: You've Got to Have A System

To some degree, succeeding with referrals is something of a numbers game. More referrals equals more business. However, for busy professionals who need to balance business development with billable hours, it's rarely wise to sacrifice quality for quantity. Better to go for a smaller number of high probability referrals and devote enough time to convert them to sales.

So what makes a high quality referral?

Referrals work because of transferred trust. Obviously I am going to put more credence in a recommendation from a colleague or business partner I know and trust and who I know has experience in the area than from a casual acquaintance or someone I bumped into at a networking event (although it's surprising how much credence we do give to those more distant referrals). The higher the level of credibility of the referrer, the higher the quality of the referral.

In addition, the level of endorsement we get in a referral can be crucial. This is why referrals from clients can be so valuable. Referrals from clients are more credible because they have actually experienced our work. And if we have performed exceptionally well the referral will be much more complimentary than a referral from business partners who know us but have never worked with us ever could ever be.

Finally, a high quality referral is a targeted referral. We are far more likely to get a sale from a prospect who we know needs our services right now and has the budget to pay for them than from a random, unqualified “name and number”. This is one of the frequently overlooked strengths of referrals. In many professional service businesses, client needs are often difficult to detect from the professionals perspective. Businesses considering a takeover don't like to make their intentions public by announcing they're looking for M&A advisors. Couples with marital problems try to show a united face in front of strangers. Companies planning to make major layoffs and needing HR and employment law advice rarely want the news to leak out until after they've had that advice. As a result consultants, lawyers and other professionals rarely see these opportunities on their radar screens until it's too late. However, an insider or current advisor in frequent contact is often alerted to these opportunities well in advance. That's why accountants, who are in frequent contact with their client businesses, are such sought-after partners by lawyers and other professionals. They can give highly targeted referrals to clients with pressing needs.

Putting all that together gives us what I call the “Referral Formula” – a simple guide to the key areas professionals should work on to maximise the value they get from referrals:

Referral = Number of x Potential of x Credibility of x Strength of
 Value     Referrals     Prospect        Referrer      Endorsement

Future posts will go into more details on specific aspects of generating more referrals

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Know, Like and Trust – the Keys to Cross Selling

Posted by

Ian Brodie on May 8th, 2009.

Know, Like & Trust It's one of the oldest (and truest) phrases in selling: people buy from people they know, like and trust.

But it actually applies much wider than buyer-seller relationships.

One of the emerging findings from my research project into law firm business development best practices is the importance of cross-selling – especially in today's economic climate. It's so much easier and better for professionals to sell more work to their existing clients – those who already know, like and trust them – than it is to hunt out new business. And it's also better for the client too – their risks are greatly minimised by doing business with people they trust and they know will be looking out for their best interests.

Yet sadly, most professionals aren't great at cross selling. My research has identified two main barriers:

Most professionals have very limited knowledge of the services their colleagues can deliver. They don't know who their ideal clients are, what to look for to spot an opportunity, or what to say to begin to engage with the client.
Sadly, many professionals also don't trust their colleagues enough to want to pro-actively cross-sell their services. By this I don't mean that they dis-trust them. Simply that they don't know what they do well enough, or have enough experience of working with them to feel confident that they would do a great job. And if they're not confident of that they will hesitate to recommend them and put their strong client relationships at risk.

So in fact, success in cross-selling is driven primarily by whether you Know, Like and Trust your colleagues.

How can we increase the level of knowledge and trust in professional firms? It's something I discussed over a few drinks with Will Kintish last night.

Will has come up with a great idea. As many readers will know, he's the UKs leading trainer and expert in Business Networking. He runs a lot of courses teaching professionals how to network externally: how to build relationships based on Know, Like and Trust with potential clients and external referral partners. But, of course, the same skills can be applied internally. By asking the same questions and networking internally, professionals can begin to break down the silos between their different units and teams. In Will's Internal Networking training sessions, not only do participants get to learn great networking skills which can be used to great effect externally; they also get to experience networking live with their internal colleagues. As part of the session they essentially “speed network” with many people from different functions and tak the first steps to building the trusted internal relationships which will give them the confidence to cross-sell.

Another approach to this I've used in the past is to hold an informal “trade show” event for staff. This can be an evening or Friday afternoon session where each practice area showcases its client work to the rest of the firm.

But it's not dry, formal, powerpoint presentations. Instead, each practice area or specialism hosts a “booth” – rather like at a tradeshow – with posters and charts giving examples of client projects they've done. Each example is in story or case study form:

Who was the client we worked with?
What was their business issue?
How did we help them? Did we do anything unusual or different for them?
What results did they achieve?

They close with talking about the sort of clients they're looking for introductions to.

The audience organises into small groups (preferrably mixed from across practice areas) and gathers round each booth for a 10 minute interactive presentation. Because the presenter is talking to a small group rather than presenting to the whole audience, there's a lot of interaction, questions and discussion. After 10 minutes, the groups move round to the next presentation which is repeated for them.

For a firm with 4 practice areas the whole thing can be done in about an hour. But be sure to add at least as long afterwards for informal networking and discussions as individuals follow-up on interesting things they've seen and areas where they've spotted opportunities.

They key is to keep it informal and client focused. No presentations about how great your team is, what revenues you achieved last year, or how you're better than that PI practice down the road. Focus on who your clients are, and what you've delivered for them.

By doing this, not only will staff get a much better understanding and knowledge of what each practice area does and how well they do it – but by interacting personally in small groups they'll begin to develop the level of trust between each other that's necessary for cross-selling to work.

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Sales Excellence Podcast – Episode 4 : Lead Nurturing

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 30th, 2009.

In most businesses, between 70-80% of your leads are long term. They're potential clients who pass all your qualifying criteria – but they're just not ready to buy right now.

Ideally, you want to begin to build a relationship with these potential clients so that when the time is right to buy, you're in the front of their mind.

Unfortunately, most firms tend to drop leads the moment they find out they're not going to close in the short term. This is a huge mistake. Almost all these potential clients will buy from someone in the next 24 months. The role of Lead Nurturing is to make sure that someone is you.

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Sales Excellence Podcast – Episode 3 : An Interview with Mike Southon

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 9th, 2009.

The Sales Excellence Podcast Mike Southon is one of the UK's leading business experts and entrepreneurs. He's best known today for his best selling “Beermat Entrepreneur” series of books and his regular column in the Financial Times.

Mike built his reputation, however, in sales – and in particular: selling professional services.

I caught up with Mike recently and asked him about how professionals can differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace; and how firms can build more sales oriented cultures.

Mike has a number of free resources available on the Beermat Entrepreneur site – I thoroughly recommend you head over and take a look at them.

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Networking: Start Early & Start Right

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 25th, 2009.

Start Networking Early! I'm currently carrying out a research project into the most effective business development skills as percieved by North West (England) based law firms – and the best ways of developing those skills in staff.

Some of the results are a little surprising so far – but one thing which I had expected was the very high importance attached to the skill of networking for lawyers.

Participants are reporting that:

a) Networking is the most critical business development skill for lawyers

b) In order to build your networking capability – and in order to build a “mature” network of contacts which will bear fruit when you need it; you must begin networking early. Productive networks take time to build – almost always longer than the lawyers initially expected.

c) Networking skills can be learned from experience – but formal networking training can be a real accelerator. A number of participants highlighted the benefits they had personally received from attending networking training (e.g. from North West based expert Will Kintish) but highlighted that they had discovered and arranged funding for this themselves rather than it being part of a company sponsored programme.

While it was ecouraging to hear that most law firms are now making strong moves to encourage or mandate their young staff to go networking; there is a vital lesson to be learned about equipping them with the right skills to do the job rather than just throwing them in at the deep end and expecting them to sink or swim. The same firms that wouldn't consider for one second letting a trainee or associate handle technical aspects of a case without expert training or mentoring do exactly that when it comes to business development. It's time that interpersonal and business development skills were awarded the same degree of thought and investment as more traditional legal skills.

Ian

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Staying "Front of Mind" with Referral Partners

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 10th, 2009.

One key feature of selling many professional services and other high value business-to-business products and services is that they are bought relatively rarely.

As I detailed in Three Painful Truths for Business Developers this means that whenever you make a proactive sales outreach to a potential client, the chances are very, very high that at that point in time they will not be actively looking for your type of services. In fact, they will most likely not even be aware at all that they have potential problems or needs in the areas you can help them with. And no matter how memorable your interactions with them, the reality is that a few short weeks later they will struggle to remember you.

Smart professional firms and sellers adopt a variety of tactics to overcome this with the core principle being to nuture the relationship with high potential customers over time. Each interaction – be it a call, a meeting, a useful article clipped and sent, or an email newsletter – is designed to add value to the customer/prospect and to strengthen the relationship. Done well, these approaches have a huge payoff.

But few firms adopt a similar approach to their referral partners – be they clients, ex-clients or network contacts. They may adapt the best practices of preparing for and asking for referrals – timing the request for when they have delivered value to the partner, being very specific in who they are asking to be referred to, clairfying the value the referrer and referred-to will get, etc. But these are all “outbound referrals”. A one-off contact or approach by the referral partner to introduce you to someone you want to be referred to. They suffer the same challenge as a proactive sales outreach you do yourself – the chances are that at the time of contact the prospect will not be aware of a need in the area you can help with.

By far the best sort of referral is what I call an “inbound referral” – when someone contacts your “referral partner” looking for a recommendation and you are referred then – at the point of need.

In this case the prospect is actively looking for help in your area – and the referrer's opinion is clearly respected because they were called rather than initiating the contact.

The problem, of course, is that just like with your sales prospects themselves; you aren't necessarily front of mind for your “referral partners”. So they may not give you a particularly strong referral. After all, how many other accountants does that lawyer you count as a partner know and refer to? How many other printers does the marketing consultant you speak to at the chamber of commerce know? Usually quite a few.

In order to get these referrals – the most valuable ones – you must be front of mind with your referral partners when they receive the call.

Now, if they are a current or recent client you have done great work for then chances are that you will be the only one referred. Or if you are part of a “leads group” like BNI – then members of that group will automatically refer to you. But these situations are in the minority for most referral situations for most professionals and sellers. In order to maximise the number of referrals you get, you need a wide network of high potential referral partners, and you must be front of mind with them despite them not being recent clients or part of a “club” with you.

How do you do this? In the same way you stay front of mind with high potential clients. You invest in and nurture the relationship. You may not be able to work with them daily or meet them every week – but you can keep in touch and you can add value to them with every interaction.

A great example of this approach comes from Paul Halliwell, the Business Development director for the Urquhart Partnership in Manchester. Paul is a great networker and keeps in contact with a wide range of professionals from allied industries – all of whom could be potential referrers at some point.

In order to build his relationship with this network (and in addition to all the normal pracitces good networkers do), Paul produces a monthly “Take 5 Minutes” newsletter. It's the referral partner equivalent of an email newsletter to clients. Because it's to partners it's very relaxed in tone and just done in simple Word format manually emailed to a distribution list, rather than using HTML and an email management system. It doesn't feel at all like a sales document. It includes some personal news, Paul's views and reviews of local networking events he's been to (really useful information for his contacts to know which netwokring events are going to be valuable for them) and a couple of really bad jokes.

It's fairly simple stuff – but does involve an investment of his time. The end result is worth it though. I know many firms who provide the sort of training & recruitment services that Urquhart do – but none that keep in touch and nurture their relationship with me the way that Paul does. So when anyone asks for a recommendation for HR services, training or recruitment – guess which firm is at the front of my mind?

Ian

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What's Your Backstory?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 22nd, 2009.

One of the most common pieces of “wisdom” we're repeatedly told in marketing and sales is that since our clients are tuned in to WII FM – What's In it For Me we need to adjust our messages and our interactions with them accordingly. In other words everything we say about ourselves must be geared to how they can benefit by working with us.

And to a large degree this is true. Our “elevator speech” or “audio logo” must be set in client focused terms to create empathy and interest – or they will simply switch off. However, it's not the full story.

Our clients and prospects are not completely self-centred creatures. They are normal human beings. As the old saying goes: people buy from people – and we are all inherently interested in other people's stories. It helps to humanise and cement relationships. Think of the strongest relationships you have with your best clients: are they purely business oriented? Or, in fact, haven't they transcended the “what's in it for me” and moved to a level where you are genuinely interested in, and care about the interests of the other party?

So in addition to the business-focused elements of your elevator speech and the initial discussions you have with people at networking events – you must be able to move on and open up about yourself in an interesting way which lays the foundation for a deeper human relationship with your prospective client.

One of the best ways to do this is with a compelling backstory. In fact a frequent follow-up question in initial meetings is “so how did you get here?” or “what's your story”.

In the world of literature, TV and the movies, the backstory is the history of the characters. How they got to where they are today. It gives logic and legitimacy to their thinking and their actions. Helen is bristly and reluctant to form close relationships because of a painful divorce she went through. John is lacking in self-confidence because he was always told he was no good as a child.

In similar manner, a well-constructed and engagingly told backstory can really help further your relationships on both a business and personal front:

Your personal backstory humanises you – it helps people see inside to what motivates you and why you do the things you do and why you are the way you are.
It provides mental hooks for people to remember you by. “You're the guy who gave up the big corporate job to focus on helping local businesses”, “Ah yes, you're the lady who was thrown in at the deep end and learnt her selling skills the hard way.”
Most importantly, it provides evidence and credibility to back up the claims you make about your business. Did you spend 5 years in Japan learning their quality methods? Perhaps you witnessed the pain of your parents' messy divorce and were motivated to become a divorce lawyer who did things a better way.

Used in this latter way, your backstory can stand alongside testimonials and qualifications to “prove” you are highly competent at what you do. And it feels so much less “salesy” and more natural than trotting out customer quotes or a string of letters.

Of course, it goes without saying that your backstory must be true. But unless you think about it and prepare it carefully you won't be able to articulate it well and link it to the key selling messages you are trying to get across. You need to look at your value proposition or USP and think through: what is it I have done that makes me uniquely qualified to do this? Then find a way of articulating this in your backstory.

My own personal backstory focuses on how I have both consulted for 15 years in strategy, sales and marketing to some of the worlds leading firms – and have been in the trenches myself selling professional services (in my case consulting projects). It tells of how I learnt the hard way through mistakes – so it's a relatively self-deprecating backstory and doesn't sound like I'm showing off. The key is that it tells potential clients in a subtle and understated way that not only have I expertise from consulting, but I have been in their position and “walked the talk” and sold professional services successfully myself.

One of the best backstories I've heard is from a local accountant (Jesse Oldfield of Lymm) who, before returning to accounting, ran a number of small businesses as MD himself. Without shouting it out loud, this tells prospective clients that he really knows what they're going through running their own business. Any accountant can claim to be able to give solid business advice to their clients – but Jesse can do so with real credibility because of his backstory.

You won't use your backstory every time you meet someone. But you will be asked about your history or “how you got here” surprisingly frequently. And if you've prepared an interesting backstory, you will be able to cement their perception of your credbility – while enhancing your personal human relationship with them.

Ian

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Warming Up Cold Contacts

Posted by

Ian Brodie on November 4th, 2008.

Heart on Fire I've been “tagged” by Ford Harding to take part in an interesting concept: a “blog meme” – a series of posts by different bloggers on the same topic.

So here goes……

Warming Up Cold Contacts
In “Managing the Professional Services Firm”, leading professional services guru David Maister labels cold calling as a third-tier “desperation” measure.Certainly the vast majority of professionals intensely dislike cold calling and are more than eager to accept the many pronouncements that “cold calling doesn't work”.

But the reality is that many professional service firms and sole practitioners have used cold calling very successfully to grow their practices.

One of the keys to making cold calling effective is to “warm up” the call beforehand. In many cases this means pre-establishing a fledgling relationship with the prospect before the call is made. Perhaps sending a letter or an article in advance, or getting an introduction form a mutual contact.

But there is another – often overlooked – method for ensuring your prospect is more receptive to receiving your call. It's simply to focus your calls on people who actually need your services.

It sounds ridiculously simple. Surely that's what everyone does anyway?

In reality, it's not. The majority of cold calling is to relatively unqualified prospects. Sure, they may be in a target industry, or be “likely” to need your services. But do they definitely need your services right now? Usually not.

And that's why most cold calls get rejected – the repeated experience of prospects that the call is a waste of time. We're an interruption to their busy schedules, and they've learnt that 9 times out of 10 a cold call is going to offer nothing of value to them. So they've learnt not to take calls from people they don't know.

But what if you could be sure that the majority of people you call actually do need your services – right now? If that was the case then in the first few seconds of the call you could establish your value and they would be willing to listen further. Instead of calling hundreds of prospects for a tiny and therefore uneconomic response, a small number of calls to highly qualified prospects would result in a high number of positive responses and follow-ups.

How can we do this? It really depends on the situation:

For certain types of product or service we can use desk research to identify the customers who definitely need our service. For example, a consultant who specialises in helping technology start-ups find their first customers will almost always get a good reception when they make targeted calls to these types of firm.
If emerging customer needs are visible from outside the client firm, this can be used to identify prospects with definite needs. For example, a “trigger event” such as a change in leadership or the divestment of a business can generate specific service needs.
The “grapevine” – networks of allied professionals and service providers close to a target client can provide information on their specific needs.
A “low risk” cold call can be made to staff lower down the organisation than the target prospect. By calling people less likely to reject the call, vital information and real insights can be gathered on the true needs of the prospect.
Allowing prospects to self-select and identify themselves is also possible. For example the typical on-line strategy of using pay-per-click advertising to offer a free report or resource in a specific area will allow prospects with needs in that area to identify themselves.

Other methods are also possible – always following the principle of investing before the call to identify highly qualified prospects.

Of course, such a strategy isn't always possible. And it could be argued that such an investment in advanced research is more costly than simply calling a large number of loosely qualified prospects and finding out who's interested by trial and error.

But doing detailed qualification in advance does two very positive things.

Firstly, it gives the sales person confidence that they are likely to get a positive response from the people they are calling. This confidence will come across in the call and make the prospect more likely to listen – creating a virtuous circle of success.

Secondly – and to my mind more importantly – it shows respect for your clients. Even if it costs you more to do detailed research in advance that it would to call in a less qualified manner, it shows that you have prioritised your client's time over your own. It shows you care enough not to waste their time on a “fishing expedition”. Doesn't that in itself speak volumes about the kind of sales person you are?

Ian

Now, I'm tagging Craig Elias and Paul McCord – both of whom I'm sure will add their own unique insights to the meme.

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Forget Your Competition

Posted by

Ian Brodie on September 26th, 2008.

Mr Forgetful It's really important to think about your competitors when developing strategy and trying to develop a unique differentiated position for your products and services.

But when you're selling – actually communicating with customers – thinking about your competitors, or even your differentiators, can be a huge mistake.

What customers are primarily interested in, of course, is what you can do for them: the end results or benefits they get.

But when you think about your competitors your focus turns instead to yourself and what you do – and how it's different from what they do. Your communication begins to move away from being customer-focused, to being seller or product-focused.

In fact, in the majority of cases, the best way to differentiate yourself is not to think about your competitors; but instead to focus purely on the value you bring to your customer.

If you can really understand that value – and communicate it clearly to your customer – then 9 times out of 10 you'll be the only one doing so. And that in itself will be a huge differentiator.

Ian

PS The picture is Mr Forgetful, of course.

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