Over my 35+ years in this industry, I’ve learned what it takes to build a real business that grows and lasts. Today I want to share with you one of my favorite training videos. It contains specific language patterns and specific techniques to help you build more consistency, wherever you are in your business today.
As you know, my company is called By Referral Only. We specialize in helping those in the real estate and lending business stop being transactional agents, and start building a true referral-based business. One that sends predictable and consistent business flowing in each and every week.
How Referable Are You Really?
There are essentially two tracks to building a referral business. The first is Referrability.
Are you referable? Are you a person that other people would want to refer people to? This is the personal track.
The other one is skills. Do you have the language and the strategies and the methods to build a referral business… this is the business track.
I know people who are highly referable, extraordinary people, with integrity, true passion, lots of purpose, core principles, really awesome people…but they’re missing the elements of language, asking in an intelligent, articulate way, doing it at the right time, having specific requests for what they want. So they struggle and they continually say, “Oh, I wish I could get more referrals.” Simply put, what they’re missing are the linguistic skills to make that happen.
Now, there are some people who are very strong with their language, and very good with their business development, but they’re missing the qualities that make them referable.
So the goal is getting the two in alignment. Get your referrability and language, and your referral systems working in alignment.
What Does it Mean To Be Referable?
A referral is when somebody sends a person they love or care about to a person they respect.
I care about my daughter. I have a 234-year-old daughter, Traci. I love her to death. If she was going to go buy a house, I would go out of my way to introduce her to a real estate agent or a mortgage broker that I truly respect. I wouldn’t just hand her a business card and say, “Hey, call this person.” I would go out of my way to introduce the two of them.
That’s a referral.
It’s Not About YOU!
Now that you understand the word referral, I’m going to ask you to get rid of it, and we’re going to instead insert the word, introduce.
Now, whenever you’re about to ask somebody to refer, stop and instead say, how can I ask them to introduce me?
EXAMPLE SCRIPT:
If you have a friend or a family member who could use my help, feel comfortable introducing them to me.
Which is very different than, “If you know anybody who could use my services, would you refer them to me?”
One is all about what you want, the other is all about what they want to do for the people that they care about.
Let me say that again so that can get into that unconscious part of your mind.
When you are asking people to introduce you to a person that they love and they care about, it’s not about your services. It’s about the help you provide to the person they care about.
So when you say, “My services are what I do for a living,” and you talk about what you do, it’s about you.
When you use the word help, it’s about them.
Do They Feel Comfortable?
Now, eliminate the word “service” from your vocabulary and replace it with “help”.
EXAMPLE SCRIPT:
If you have a friend, a family member or a neighbor or a colleague or somebody that you really care about that needs help, please feel comfortable introducing them to me.
Not, “Would you refer them to me?” But, “Would you feel comfortable introducing them to me?”
Because the core issue for almost everyone, when it comes to introducing, is, “Do I feel comfortable doing that?”
The BIG Questions That You MUST Ask Yourself Right Now…
All of this leads to some significant questions that you now need to ask yourself in order to determine if you can create that consistent flow of new referrals coming into your business, like clockwork:
- Do I really help people or am I all about my service?
- Do people really want to introduce me?
- Am I introducible?
- Am I the type of person people always say, “Oh, you’ve got to meet Joe. I want you to have this introduction.” And they’ll go out of the way to make that happen?
Are you that kind of person?
Do the people that know you respect you enough, where you could build your entire business from this approach?”
Could all of your business (more than you could imagine) come to you through introductions because people who you know care enough about their friends, their family members, their coworkers who need your help… and they will go out of their way to make it happen for you?
The answer is YES. With the right training, support, systems, and community you can do this, just like the thousands of others in the By Referral Only Tribe do each and every day.
How To Get On The FAST Referrability Track
Here’s what we do at By Referral Only and what we’re about.
If you’re looking for more (free) trainings check out our next session here.
