Author: Bill Cates

Tell me if you’ve ever experienced this…

You’ve connected with your new prospect. You believe you can bring real value to -them. They seem to agree. But then… crickets. They keep putting you off. Or worse, they stop returning your emails or phone calls without a word of explanation. You don’t want to be a pest, but “What the heck?”

What went wrong? Why didn’t your prospect follow your recommendations?

Could it be that your prospect didn’t have a sense of urgency to act? And you didn’t help them?

INBOUND fuels the passion that drives the most innovative and successful business leaders of our time. From November 8-11, 2016 thousands of marketing and sales professionals from almost every industry imaginable and from all corners of the globe will attend INBOUND in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

Tis the season for many social events, where you’ll be spending time with friends, close family, distant relatives, neighbors, and – yes – total strangers.

Many of these people might make great clients for you. Many others may never become clients, but might have the ability to refer and introduce you to others.

Let’s say you’re at a holiday party or other social event and someone asks, “What do you do?” How do you respond? Do you whip out your best elevator speech? Do you pretend you don’t want to talk about the great value you bring to your clients?

Are you blowing an opportunity?

I was reading some sales tips the other day and the author said “Selling services is selling an intangible. You can’t put it in their hands to hold or they can’t take it for a test drive.” Or can they? (Keep reading.)

While I agree that selling a service promise can often be more challenging than selling a product, there are a number of things you can do to make your service promise more tangible to your prospective clients.

Learn the power of using visual representations of your service model and providing prospects a “test drive.”

What’s that definition of insanity again? Oh… right! “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

One form of referral insanity is using outdated methods. Managers and trainers often teach what worked for them, but only produce mediocre results in this new world where we need to blend the analogue side of referrals with the digital side.

There are 5 insanely common and easy to make mistakes that so many people are making in their efforts to boost referrals and introductions.

PLEASE tell me you’re not making these mistakes!

For many years, the “letter of introduction” was a common practice when someone traveled to another city for the purposes of doing business.

The telephone almost, but not quite, replaced the letter of introduction. And the in-person introduction still remains as the highest form of introduction.

So what is the one thing that is so significant to warrant my bold claim?

The Digital Introduction!

Email, LinkedIn, and Texting are becoming the introduction of choice. But are they the most effective?

Are you wondering what a guy taking an axe to his beard has to do with growing your business with referrals and introductions?

You have to hear this quick, fun story about how a financial rep generated the most referral activity he ever had in a 45-day period AND had a ton of fun doing it.

More importantly, his clients had fun with the entire process and he’s still getting residual referrals and introductions without even asking.

Have you ever been part of a networking group where all the referrals seem to go to the gift basket lady, the printer, and the handyman who get all the referrals?

No surprise there. It’s a much easier referral to give.

In one week, I had 3 conversations with 3 financial professionals who were members of a formal networking group, but not having great results getting referrals.

What’s that all about? After all, every member is supposed to provide referrals to the other members.

The easier you can make it for people to introduce others to you, the more likely they’ll do it. Here is an easy 3-step digital strategy that you can set up to help make it very easy for your clients, centers of influence, and other advocates to provide you with quality introductions.

I was having lunch with a financial professional last Friday and discovered that he has a “hole in his WHY.”

Meaning… he didn’t talk about his WHY is as powerful and effective way as possible. Therefore, he was missing opportunities to create strong engagement with prospects and clients.

I asked him to tell me what he told his prospects and clients about WHY he did what he did… WHY he believed in his work.