11/9/2023-Referral Prospecting

Your friends have friends who you don’t know, and this represents the best part of referral prospecting. Why wouldn’t you want to make a new business friend who is already tight with your BFF?

Who knows where Dale gets his stats, but his claim might make you think about where you rank statistically, asking for referrals.

Yesterday’s MySalesDay excited you about requesting referrals at the end of your client pitch meetings. Today, the focus is on referral prospecting.

You have a robust group of business friends, former clients, former teammates, and even current teammates who are willing to help…so…put ’em to work.

There are two keys to referral prospecting:
1. Direct your friends with specific instructions.
2. Get ready to return the favor.

You spent a lot of time building your network… use it.

Bury your face in LinkedIn today and determine which of your friends know the top five prospects you want to meet.

Because you’ll inevitably hear, "…I only met him once and don’t know him that well," you’ll need to identify a few friends per targeted prospect.

When you’re ready to engage your friends, send a note asking them to talk on the phone about "exchanging networking help." You should use the phone – not email – because you’ll need to qualify your friend’s relationship with the prospect.

Also, that convo with your BFF is bound to uncover even more prospect ideas from your pal.

Now that you’re climbing out of your skin with excitement about prospecting, remember two things about leveraging your network:
1. Lead with a reciprocal offer of help – your friends will be more open to helping you if you gesture to help them.
2. Be prepared to guide your friend with specifics. Write a script they can send to their friend; they can edit it according to taste, but you’ll make it easier for them to help you.

Enlisting your friends to help you is another form of inside sales – you need to get your friends excited about your offering so they can feel engaged in connecting you to a new prospect. After briefly describing your value prop and reasons to reach their friend, your friend is more apt to steer you in the right direction. Sometimes, you might hear, "Oh, now that I know what you guys really do, you need to talk to Bob, not Cindy…."

Good. That’s how it works. Work it.

And, of course, you are offering your network and intro abilities back to your BFF as a reciprocal favor.

Just reading the lyric "I get by with a little help from my friends" will immediately get you humming that famous little ditty.

Take a breather and spend 3 minutes watching The Beatles perform "With A Little Help From My Friends."

The great thing about network activation is reconnecting with folks you haven’t spoken with in a while. You’ll hear what they’re working on and their family life, and generally become energized by genuine human interaction. (Screw email!)

After that, good luck getting this catchy line out of your brain… "I get by with a little help from my friiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnds"