I’m often asked during the Q & A portion of my live events if one should offer incentives (read: bribes) for their customers to provide them with referrals. Should they be offered cash? Perhaps, a gift?

I strongly suggest not doing that.

There are generally two challenges with offering incentives for referrals:

1. If the referrals are not based on loyalty and “know, like and trust” but rather on reward alone, it tends not to be sustainable.
2. (Most importantly) Those to whom you are referred will most likely feel resentful upon discovering they were referred because you bought and paid for the referral. How will they find out? When you tell them that they will receive an incentive for referring you to others.

This could result in their being not too pleased with the person who referred them. I know I’d feel that way, as would many with whom I’ve spoken.

Recently, I received an email from a firm that sells a high-ticket service to speakers. In the email, it said I would receive a referral fee for any speakers I referred. I wrote back (politely, of course) to let the salesperson know that not only could I not refer them without first knowing more about them through references, but that there were now two challenges:

1. If the references are being bribed to refer, that tells me nothing about the quality of their work.
2. There’s no way I would ever want another speaker to think I referred them because I was being paid to do so!

I suggested that — instead — they provide speaking professionals with amazing service and, as a result, they would do terrific via both proactive referral and reactive word-of-mouth. And, that’s what I would share with you.

So, my suggestion is to not offer inducements of any kind for referrals.

However, there is something you can do, which is actually much more effective.

And, we’ll discuss that in the next post.

During the Q & A part of a recent Endless Referrals: The Go-Giver Way program, a very nice woman asked a question that was obviously troubling her:

“Even after receiving a referral from someone, isn’t calling the referred prospect just one step above a cold call?”

After explaining to her that the point of the referral was to positively leverage the already-existing relationship of two people who already “know, like and trust” each other (thus, much more than simply a cold-call plus), I could see she was still quite uncomfortable.

So, we did a bit of a diagnostic. After just a few moments, it came down to the fact that she so dislikes receiving phone calls from strangers — even those referred by those she knows, likes and trusts — that she assumes that those she calls will feel the same way.

And…when she calls, they probably do. Not because she’s a bad person. On the contrary, you could sense in her essence that she is kind, sweet, lovable and terrific in every way. In fact, she had such a nice, encouraging smile, it’s difficult to think anyone wouldn’t embrace her, even over the phone.

However, because the idea of a call (even one based on a very qualified referral) from a stranger is something she finds so offensive, she transfers those feelings to her prospects.

It goes back to the old saying:

“If it doesn’t bother you, it won’t bother them.”

However, as we know, the opposite is also true.

In actuality, this post is not about calling a referred prospect. It’s about understanding that whatever we are doing when interacting with others, we need to feel so comfortable with the process that we communicate comfort, not discomfort.

In this specific context — calling a referred prospect — we do this most effectively by feeling so secure in the value we bring to that other person, that we know we are doing them a service by calling them.

How do you utilize this principle, both in the sales process and in non-sales situations?

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Off to the airport, first to Las Vegas, Nevada to speak at a corporate client event, and then on to St. Louis to speak at Dixie Gillaspie’s Dynamite Live event. Won’t be on the Internet a lot so will most likely end up responding to your comments when I return this weekend. (Just wouldn’t want ya’ ta’ think I was ignorin’ ya’!)

Many years ago, in his bestselling, How to Sell Anything to Anybody, Joe Girard provided what he called his Law of 250. This basically says that most of us know about 250 people.

Joe knows from whence he speak. He was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as “The Greatest Salesman in The World” for 12 years in a row after having sold more cars than anyone else on the planet. And, we’re not talking fleet sales, but individual, new car sales. WOW! And, he did this via relationship-building and lots and lots of referrals.

In a recent tweet, referring to the many connections people have on Twitter he wrote:

“The law of 250 may be even more now with the internet! Think of all the people waiting to be impacted in a positive way.”

Of course, Joe being quite savvy, he knows that most of the people with whom we are connected or with whom we are “friends” are not people who we could genuinely say are true friends. However, many of them are…virtually or not. I’ll go so far as to say that some of the people I treasure most as friends I either met first on Twitter or Facebook, or have met only on Twitter or Facebook!

Social Media certainly provides us with the opportunity to get to know people we most likely would never have had the opportunity to meet had it not been for these platforms. The key however (in my opinion), is understanding that every component of building a true and value-based friendship and/or business relationship holds just as true online as offline. Quantity does not necessarily equal quality.

It still comes down to, “All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like and trust.”

So, while having 35,000 or 100,000 or 15,673 or 2,175 connections on Twitter and 3,017 “friends” on Facebook doesn’t tell the whole story, it certainly provides an opportunity to provide value to the lives of more people than we might have otherwise.

And, as Joe suggests: “Think of all the people waiting to be impacted in a positive way.”

A recent post discussed the difference in results between saying to someone, “If I could prove to you that…” as opposed to “If you could prove to yourself…”

With that in mind, here’s another helpful tip.

Again, this was learned from the great, Zig Ziglar (a few of you might be aware that he is one of my all-time favorites).

He says that people do not; they will not change their minds.

Huh?

That’s right, they will not change their minds. “However” he also teaches that…

“People will make new decisions based on new information.”

I love it! And, ain’t it da’ truth? I learned that from him 25 years ago listening to one of his audio programs and have found it to be a principle that has withstood the test of time.

Try and “change their mind” and the chances are dismal that you will obtain the desired results. But tactfully present and communicate your data in such a way that they see it as new information that “they” have concluded as being true, and the odds increase significantly of their mind being open enough to emotionally let it inside. Then – and only then – are they likely to come to a new conclusion.

Have you found this to be so? Examples, please!

The smallest change in phraseology can make a big difference in how our ideas come across to another person.

Has anyone ever said to you, either while attempting to prove a point or during the sales process, “If I can prove to you that (such and such) will save you money…”?

And didn’t you sort of say to yourself, “This guy/gal isn’t going to prove anything to me!” I know I have. It’s human nature to resist when challenged.

Here’s a more effective way* to help someone be more receptive to your ideas:

Instead of saying, “If I can prove to you that this widget will be more cost-effective…” say,

“If you could prove to yourself that this widget will be more cost-effective…?”

Or, rather than, “If I could prove to you that this would be a more productive alternative…?” say,

“If you could prove to yourself that this would be a more productive alternative…?”

Now you’ve allowed that person to take ownership and prove something to herself. Remember, people don’t resist their own ideas.

Practice this enough so that when the situation arises, the correct way of phrasing your point will come out naturally.

After all, if you could prove to yourself that this idea would help you to more effectively persuade, wouldn’t you want to master it?

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*Credit for this idea goes to Zig Ziglar.