Transcription
In this video today, I'm going to walk you guys through referrals and how I manage to sell using referrals and how I think it's a very good way of doing it and how you should structure your day to get the most referrals possible. Okay?
Now, referrals should make up anywhere from 5 to 10% of your income. You need to be making money on referrals. Okay? Two reasons. Number one, if you make money on referrals, you're not dependent on just inbound or paid marketing and leads coming to you. Second reason is it's free money you can get that increases your income. And so like I got to a point where I remember there was one month I did like you know 70 to 100 grand collected cash collected from just referrals alone and I demanded right demanded 15% commission. I was like I was getting paid 9%. I was like hey dude that didn't cost you anything in marketing. The biggest expense every company has is usually marketing. That's usually a big part of the expense. If you as a salesperson can get good at making money without relying on paid marketing and leads. You can fundamentally also make more money by asking for a higher commission and that's not unrealistic. So, if you can get to a point where you're closing 5, 10, 15 deals a month strictly on referrals, to go to a company or your manager and say, "Hey, dude, like nobody else is doing this. I'm closing 15 deals, which is resulting in this amount of cash in the business. Would it be okay if I got paid a little bit more considering that there's no marketing and I'm just doing that myself?" Right? That's a great way as a salesperson and as a closer, you can get more commissions. Okay.
Now, the thing with referrals is I don't think there's a right way to do it. Okay? So, like my if you want to know the languaging of how I did referrals, it was literally this. It was, "Okay, cool, man. Who else do you feel like I know that you feel like I could help? Who else do you feel like you know that you think I could help in like fixing their sales skills for X? Who else do you feel like you know you know that you feel like I can help in like you know fixing their fitness like the way we're doing with you?" That was it. And the thing with referrals, I think more than like languaging or the wordings, you just [ __ ] need to get in the habit of asking for it. Ask everybody for referrals. Now, when you should ask them is kind of what this video is about. Whenever you're asking for referrals, you want to make sure it's at the right time. You don't want to make it a constant thing. Otherwise, people sort of like feel like you're just it's too much, right? So, I used to ask referrals over the course of four occasions on average with one sale. Okay.
Number one is right after I made a sale, I would end the call. Let's say they bought, onboarding is done. I'm like, "Hey, dude. How do you feel?" And they're like, "Dude, I feel good." I'm like, "What are you excited about?" They're like, "Well, Ben, I was uncomfortable, but I'm excited for this. I'm excited for that." I'm like, "Dude, amazing. So, tell me one thing, man. Who else do you feel like you know that you feel like I could help and like improving their sales skills to really get them to the next level the same way you're about to do?" And usually people would say something like, "Oh man, I don't know, but like I know I've got people." Well, if you thought about it, bro, give me at least two names. And they'd be like, "Well, these two guys." And I'd be like, "Okay, why do you feel like you know this would help them?" Well, they're kind of like me, man. They they're struggling with this. They're struggling with that. Okay, dude. Well, if it helps, cuz again, like I want to try to help as many people as I can the same way I did with you today. If you're cool with it, could you make a text group chat with you, me, and them, and I can have a chat with them. I don't know if I can help them yet, right? Like with you, obviously, I had to speak to you first, but I can see if I can help them, and if it makes sense, you know what I mean? like I can kind of get them into this as well so they can start their journey to get to the next level. Like is that cool? All right.
And so the other thing I would do and like I would get some referrals through that, but most of my referrals I would say came after the first month or two months of them actually going through the program cuz then obviously they're getting results. And the thing people [ __ ] up on is like they won't be in contact with like the sale for like a whole month or two and then randomly out of nowhere they call them up to try to upsell or get referrals. You can't do that. Okay. So whenever I sold somebody every like 3 4 days I would just text them like nothing like no no intention. And I'd just be like, "Hey dude, how's the program?" Or, "Hey, dude, how's life?" "Hey, dude, I know you were working on that big deal. How's that going?" Like, it was just a constant like evolution of like creating an ecosystem and like texting people, making sure that, you know, I didn't disappear right after the sale. And the more I did that where I stayed in communication with my leads and my sales, people just ended up like they like you. The thing with referrals is if somebody's going to give you a referral, they need to sort of like you and trust you and they want to make they want to see you win. So, like with people that would give me referrals, like I used to have people that would give me one or two referrals. I also had people that like just loved me because I helped them. I objection handled, right? I was in touch with them and they gave me like 5, 10, 15 referrals. So, there's no set number, but like my metric for success is every 10 sales I make, if I can make at least two referral sales, I'm happy, right? So, 10 sales, I make two referral sales. That's good, right? Because that also makes my ROI higher. And what I mean by ROI is let's say it takes 40 grand a month of ad spend or marketing spend to fill up to fill up your diary, right? to give you inbound bookings and outbound leads, whatever it is. If I can get two referral sales for every 10 sales I make and I make, you know, let's say 40 sales a month, that's an extra eight sales, I've just increased my income by about 20 to 25%. Just by referrals. So again, referrals is not going to make up a majority of your income. But that 10 15% ends up being a lot for two reasons. One, if you have a terrible closing ratio and you can make money through referrals, you'll seem like you have less terrible closing ratio. The second thing is like I can just increase my ROI, increase the money I make without necessarily working harder. Right?
The thing people also [ __ ] up with referrals is you have to still take them through the sales script. A lot of people think because they get a referral they're lay down. Don't make that mistake. You still have to take them through intent logical certainty. Like you still need to take them through the process. Okay? And so with referrals, I would just simply ask people right after I made the sale. And then like I'd be in touch with them throughout the next 60 90 days. And then like every month, right, like 30 days after that, hey dude, again, like do you know anybody else you feel like I could help now that you've kind of been through it for a month? Two months. Hey man, do you know anybody else you feel like I could help? Right? Three months, hey man, do you feel like you know anybody else I could help? I'd constantly ask, right? And so like every month on average, let's say out of 10 people, like three to four of them are like, you know, actively engaged in kind of giving me referrals. I could get one a month per person. So let's say every 10 sales I got, you know, four people to give me referrals. Four times three referrals over the course of 90 days, that's 12 referrals. On referrals, I closed at about 40 45%. That's an extra six deals. Now, if you compound that across all the sales you're making, it's huge, right? Whenever you make a no sale, ask the person for a referral. There's never a time you don't ask for referrals, but you want to set up your referrals correctly where you're asking them at the right time to maximize, right, the result of getting actual referrals. So, somebody goes through your program and they get a result, right? They get a win because you're in constant contact. It's like, hey man, congratulations. Give them a quick call. Hey dude, I'm really proud of you for achieving XYZ. Hey, man. And you know, they're like, yeah man, I'm really happy that you know, you sold me into this program. Thank you so much. Okay, cool dude. Like, who else do you know I can help? So like if you're constantly in touch with your leads, they won't get annoyed when you ask for referrals. And then from there, it's just a constant game of like being in touch, creating an ecosystem, and then like constantly being in touch with your leads. And so the way I would organize it is once a month, I had a call with everybody I sold. So I would have like these quick like 5 10-minute calls with like, you know, 100 200 people on the Sunday, the last week on Sunday of the month, right? Because the no-show rate was high on Sunday. So I would just speak to people and, you know, go through how the program has been, how they're liking it, and then I would just ask for referrals right after that. Okay? So referrals, make it a priority. Just get into the habit. It's just a habit, right? The more you ask for it and the better you get at it and the more money you make, the more you're going to do it. Always ask for referrals. Okay?
Now, let's pretend somebody connects you with a referral. Like they usually I tell people to make a group chat and introduce me, right? And they'll make a group chat and say, "Hey, you know, Barry, this is Yosh. He got me into XYZ. Um, I thought it'd be worth to have a chat, right?" And then usually I I'll call the person. I'll be like, "Hey, what's up, Barry? Um, you know, Yoshir here. I know your friend, you know, Tom connected us. Um, we're kind of working with him on like, you know, X, Y, and Z." like we're working with him on his sales skills to kind of increase his commissions and usually cuz Barry and Tom have spoken briefly he's like yeah man like I don't know just you know you know obviously Tom recommended it like what do you guys do and I'll be like yeah man it just depends person to person um it's more around you know improving X to get to Y like so tell me a bit about you man like tell me kind of a little bit about like why do you feel like this could possibly help you cuz you know Tom mentioned that he thinks it could help you because you know you guys are in the same industry and this and that. So when I sold sales people, I'd be like, you know, you know, Tom told me that, you know, you're in insurance like he is, but you know, he mentioned he was struggling with objections and he's been able to, you know, increase his income in the past 30 days. He said that might be relevant to you. And usually they're like, yeah, maybe, man, you know, I I do get objections sometimes. And then I sort of I'm right into my intent stage where I'm like, okay, cool, dude. Like, what do you feel like it's in specific, you know, you would kind of need help with to, you know, increase blah blah blah, get to XYZ, kind of like how we're doing with Tom. And then from there, I'm able to create a big enough gap, right? I do intent, logical, certainty, and then I'll be like, okay, cool, man. Like, I'm happy we had the chat. I think there might be ability we can help you like we did with Tom if it's cool why don't you and I chat maybe tomorrow or you know maybe a day after just because I'm in between appointments but I want to have a deeper chat just to make sure we can help and if we can bro let's get it rocking and rolling and usually they're like yeah man I'd be open to that and then I again I have to send them the pre-all confirmation is my pre-all confirmation a bit different to a referral sale rather than an inbound booking that has seen the marketing yes I have to customize it a little bit because again this is a referral and the only reason why they're moving forward with me is because it's a referral okay so you don't need to complicate at the process, you're still going to go through intent, logical certainty, everything is the same.
So, key points from this is ask for referrals. Don't settle not to. Out of every 10 sales you make, try to get two referral sales. And then make sure that you know you're constantly pipelining for referrals. Now, if you can imagine, if I close Tom, what am I going to do with Tom? Cool, man. Who else do you know I can help? So, it's just an ecosystem and a snowball effect. And the better you get at it, the better you're going to be. When I was making about 100 grand a month in commission, a good 10 to 15 grand came from just referrals. And I got paid higher on those. I got 15% rather than 12%.