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It’s Only Common Sense: The All-powerful Referral!

Someone talking about how good you are is much more powerful than you saying how good you are. Similarly, a customer praising your products is much more credible than you telling people how good your products are. A customer going on and on about your fantastic service will help you grow your business much more than anything you could say, do, or advertise. The customer referral is the most powerful way to grow your business. The only problem (or is it really a problem?) is that you have to be truly great for customers to want to refer you.

The same applies to testimonials. Think about how much a customer has to like you, your company, and the service you provide, to want to write a testimonial about it. The customer has to be head over heels in love with you to be willing to put their name on a testimonial about your company. The motivation that it takes to get a customer to go out of their way and make a concerted effort to tell others about how good your products are has to be enormous. You really had to please—nay, elate—that customer so that they will not only write, but also publish a testimonial about your company or products/services. There is nothing better.

So, how do you do it? How do you get your customers to publicly praise you or at least give you a referral? And better yet, how do you get them to write you a testimonial?

First, you have to be outstanding. No one gets referrals or testimonials if they are not great; it’s as simple as that. I have to confess that I have worked with some companies who were so insecure about what their performance had been in the past and what their customers thought of their performance that they would not even dare ask for a referral. And, may I add, they were right. Asking for a referral from their customers based on their performance would have been asking for trouble. So, yes, you have to be good; if not, then forget it.

But there is more to it than just being good. Here are six characteristics you need to be referable from Jeffrey Gitomer’s excellent book Sales Manifesto: Imperative Actions You Need to Take and Master to Dominate Your Competition and Win for Yourself...For the Next Decade.

1. Be likable. This is the first prerequisite. Without a friendly relationship, there is no need to go further.
2. Be reliable. The company, the product, the service, and you just be the best. And you need to be there when you're needed.
3. The customer considers you an expert in your field. To be referable, you must have expertise that breeds customer confidence.
4. The customer trusts you. The customer is certain that you will do everything in the referred party’s best interest like you have with theirs.
5. You have a track record of performance. You have already done the same thing with the customer, and they are comfortable that you can repeat the performance.
6. The customer considers you valuable a resource, not just a salesperson. There’s no real value in just doing what you say. Provide value to the customer beyond your products and service. Help the customer to be more profitable, more productive, or some other form of value–either attached to your product or not. I don't mean value in terms of you but in terms of the customer.

There is no doubt that if you fit these six criteria, you are able to consider yourself ultimately referable. But there is more work to do to get those referrals and testimonials. You have to ask. Having established that you are good and listing the great things you do for your current customers to make them willing to refer you to another potential customer, but that is not enough; your work is only getting started. Now, you have to ask your customers for referrals. And if you are fully qualified and indeed referable, then most of your customers will agree to give you a referral.

The thing to remember is: those who can will give you a cooperate with you, but others—through no choice of their own—may not simply because they cannot. If your customer is a large company like Raytheon, Lockheed, or Intel, forget it. Don’t even try because the people who work for these giants are not allowed to give referrals or testimonials that will be published as part of your marketing. What you can get from these folks is a what I call an intercorporate referral. If they are happy with you, they will gladly refer you to others in their own company. Considering a huge company like the ones I named, this can be a very very good thing. But don’t expect them to put their company’s name on any of your marketing materials. If they even tried to do that, armies of their corporate lawyers would descend on them in droves from their magnificent corporate offices in the sky.

It is always best to get your testimonials from smaller, independent companies. If they like you, they will be happy to do it for you and themselves because they will also enjoy the publicity that a good referral for you will bring them as well.

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.