What Sasquatch, Dolly Parton, And My Brother-In-Law Jared
Can Teach You About Getting Referrals

My brother-in-law Jared is a big dude. Like Grizzly bear big. Like lumberjack big. Pretty much like Sasquatch big. Big enough that he calls me “Tiny” even though I’m a fairly average 6 foot tall, 180 pounds.

So I was a bit surprised when Jared improbably announced he was going to begin training to run a half marathon… and asked if I wanted to join him. That’s how I found myself with him on an early July morning sweating out what was supposed to be an easy 40 minute jog. Afterwards, when I asked Jared how it went, he said he felt great—except he felt a shin splint coming on, which he blamed on not having the right shoes.

In business, this is the perfect setup for what you’d call “The Referral.” Sure enough, he asked, “What kind of shoes do you have? I need to get some new ones.”

He shouldn’t have asked. Can I just tell you, I love my running shoes. Nike Zoom Vomero. I found them at Academy Sports & Outdoors priced at $109 and instantly fell in love with them the moment I tried them on. They were so soft, so comfortable, so incredibly awesome; I seriously considered wearing them out of the store like a 5-year old with a new pair of Buster Browns. Okay, I did wear them out of the store.

Unfortunately, Jared couldn’t try mine on since I wear an 8 ½ regular and he sports the Dolly Parton of shoe sizes with something like a 27 quadruple H. But I told him what they were called and where to get them and encouraged him to at least give them a try.

He must’ve gotten busy, because almost a month after our run together, I got this text from Jared: “What kind of shoes were those you said I needed to check out?” Another golden opportunity for a referral.

And believe it or not, hidden in this story lies the key to unlocking the mystery of getting referrals: the vast majority of your real referral opportunities are going to come from your customers’ routine conversations with their friends, family, and associates well AFTER the moment of sale.

But conventional referral-getting wisdom in contractor marketing says just the opposite, doesn’t it? It says the best time to get referrals is to simply ask for them right there when the customer is buying from you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t ask for referrals at the point of sale, but I am saying that the vast majority of referral opportunities occur much later, after the sale.

To understand why, Imagine for a moment, hypothetically, what would have happened if the shoe salesman would have asked me for a referral when I bought the shoes. I would have shrugged my shoulders and said “Nope, can’t think of anyone.” And I would have been telling the truth, too. I don’t walk around with a mental inventory of everyone I know who might need running shoes at a given point in time. Or telephone service. Or a laptop computer. Or a new swimming pool. Or any of the 716 things I might happen purchase during the course of a year.

Most salespeople are all-too-familiar with the “I can’t think of a single soul who would want one of these” problem. That’s why almost every sales person quit asking for referrals at all, and why referrals for your company probably don’t exist. And even if you do get one once in awhile, it’s more like finding a $20 bill in a jacket you haven’t worn since last year. Not exactly a product of careful planning.

The secret to getting lots of referrals, then, is to make sure that your customers are ready and willing to recommend you when the topic of conversation naturally makes it way around to whatever it is you sell. Making this happen takes a little effort, but is very doable. Here are the five main steps:

1. Get Real: The first thing you’ve got to do is align your expectations with reality. Your customers have better things to do with their time than sell crap for you. Think about things you’ve bought and how anxious you were to go out and get your friends to try. Not very anxious, right? And even if they are anxious, they still don’t honestly know anyone right now who needs what you sell. This is called reality. Deal with it.

2. Create & Promote A Powerful Identity: If your customers know up front WHY they should do business with you… if they buy from you on purpose because they WANT to buy from you…. if they know the EXACT reasons you are different and better than your competitors… then the chance of them recommending you to their friends goes up exponentially. On the other hand, if you fail to communicate these things with them (even though you perform on them), they won’t notice and your impact will be greatly diminished. Identity isn’t optional.

3. Focus On Communication: The number of referrals you get will depend heavily on how good you make the customer experience. Smile a lot. Answer the phone promptly. Over-communicate… tell people what to expect and when to expect it. Send emails with updates. Have somebody call just to check in and ask if everything is okay. This will go a long, long way toward getting referrals.

4. Pro-Actively Reward Your Customers: Send your customer a thank you gift. It serves two purposes: 1) it’s a good way to say thank you (duh!), and 2) you can thank them in advance for getting the word out about you to their friends and associates. The gift should be something of real, tangible value that’s commensurate with the size of the sale or the likely size of the lifetime value of the customer. You can’t go wrong with a restaurant gift card, and if you’re feeling extra saucy, send them something that’s a literal gift in a box.

The idea here is to invoke the law of reciprocity—you’ve done something nice for them, now they’ll feel obligated to do something nice for you. They’ll be sitting there eating at Chili’s on your nickel and start to feel guilty if they don’t help you out somehow. If you think that sounds sneaky and manipulative, you’re probably not married. Or at least not happily married. This is called human nature—it’s how we operate.

I recommend that you have one specific person in your office that’s responsible for the gifts, and I strongly recommend that you keep this program simple. Make sure the gift goes out within a day or two of the transaction so it lands while the customer is still thinking about the purchase. If you’ve done a good job delivering a great customer experience, this gift should have the effect of being a giant exclamation point at the conclusion of a good experience.

5. Ask For Referrals In A Systematic, Consistent Way: You can hope that your sales people remember to ask for referrals at the point of sale, or you can take it on your shoulders to pro-actively ask for referrals on an ongoing from the corporate level. As has been stated above, people are going to get busy with their lives, and 12 months after they bought from you, they might not even remember your company’s name. So fix that by sending them a steady barrage of mailers to remind them. Not just emails—regular mailers too.

Send them at least one postcard per quarter thanking them again for their business, and asking them to mention your name if the situation comes up. You might even want to send more gifts later on. For example, a pool company I know about sends their customers an annual anniversary present—a pool toy or towel or goggles or something—as a way of keeping in front of their customers’ face. Top of mind, so to speak.

The idea is simple—by using this five-step methodology, you’ll anchor the customer to a good experience with the innovative company and thank you gift, then remind them on an ongoing basis that they had a good experience. Then the next time the topic of (what you sell) comes up naturally in conversation—BAM! Referral.

Or you can just leave it to chance and see how that works out. It didn’t work out too well for Academy Sports & Outdoors—by the time I bothered to return Jared’s text a few days later, it was too late. He had already bought another pair of shoes from another store. A store, it turns out, that sells shoes in size 27 quadruple H.

Run on, Sasquatch!

© 2014 – 2016, Rich Harshaw. All rights reserved.