28. Constantly seek referrals. Every prospect is an opportunity for additional prospects.
Opportunity is everywhere if you just bother to seek it out. Your network truly is your net worth, and who you know is still more important than what you know. Both clichés for sure, but whether speaking with your oldest customer or newest prospect, there is an appropriate circumstance in which to solicit their endorsement for a valuable trip through their rolodex.
Start with the lowest hanging fruit of loyal established customers. If they’ve volunteered to serve as a reference or stuck with you through adversity when they could have easily saved some pain by jumping ship to the competition, they surely think highly enough of you and your product to help you build a bridge to their contacts when simply asked nicely. Reach out and let them know that you value their business and would appreciate an introduction to anyone they know who shares their purchasing influence and professional standards.
New customers and prospects take a more proactive approach to seeking referrals, but their inherently closer proximity to the decision making process tends to reap more immediate rewards. They don’t have a track record of satisfaction to draw upon, so make them more likely to open doors by incentivizing them to do so. Come up with a kickback program that rewards referring customers for their endorsements. Very few business decisions are made without counsel, so a prospect may be compelled to move first and bring on board the rest of the crowd if made comfortable that they won’t regret the putting their stamp on your name.
Even lost deals can be a source of referrals. “Hey, I know this didn’t work out, but can you point me towards anyone you are familiar with who might be a better fit?” The worst case is they turn you down, but you had nothing to lose anyway.
Constantly seek referrals. Then seek referrals from referrals. Repeat.
29. Honor the process and review your checklist constantly.
Every sales program needs to have a logical and repeatable process if there is to be any chance of sustainable success. Presumably, this was handed down by your manager during training or laid out on your own before any attempt to bring a product to market. If you can’t define your process, stop everything and map out the steps from initial contact to closed sale immediately.
Now, assuming this process is at least theoretically in place, it should be the first place you look when sales fall off pace. Either the process needs revamping or you’ve let yourself get out of the habit of following it adequately. Most likely, if the process worked in recent history, you’ve gotten away from executing on the plan that has made you successful in the past.
Review your recent behavior to be sure you’re following the process from start to finish. If you’re not, the fix to your sales troubles could be as simple as going back to the basics. If you are, the market may have changed, and it’s time to revise the plan.
Ensuring that you are honoring the process is step one in troubleshooting recent failure. Revisiting the process when it’s failing over a long period is step two. Remembing Rule 24 is step 3.
30. Proactively contact customers to maintain the relationship.
Disasters happen and tastes change. You want to know about both before they occur, or at least be in the loop when they do. It’s called loyalty, and you can’t build it retroactively.
The nature of your relationship building efforts depends largely on the industry. In high ticket low volume sales, schedule monthly ‘status update’ meetings. It could be as simple as lunch or a conference call. In low ticket high volume sales, you may need to work hand-in-hand with Marketing to develop a feedback loop through newsletters, gifts or personalized emails/letters.
Do whatever you can to stay informed and in front of customers without being intrusive. Ongoing relationships become friendships beyond that of ‘my sales guy’, and nobody want to turn their back on a friend. Build the relationship. Build loyalty. Built revenue. Churn and burn won’t get it done, especially with competitors more than willing to court your beau.
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