Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
Does this make you cringe as much as it does me?: “The finest compliment one can receive is a referral to the family or friends of a client.” If you’re using it, admit that it never works. Here’s a better, classier way to ask for a referral that won’t put you on the social offender list.
A referral cannot be a social assault
Here’s why the “finest compliment” cliché above is a social assault.
- It’s presumptive. Who are you, Prince Charles? Queen Elizabeth? Who said anything about you deserving of a compliment? You (the receiver) are the one assuming you’re worthy of a favor, not the giver.
- It’s false. The finest compliment anyone can receive is being told that you changed somebody’s life in a meaningful way. The finest boost to your paycheck you can receive is a referral. Those are two different things; one works in the other person’s favor and the other one works in yours. By the way, aren’t you busy plastering language to your website about how altruistic you are?
- The aristocratic tone of this phrase makes me harken back to high school English class reciting the prologue to the Canterbury Tales. It was irritating then and it’s irritating now.
- It sets up the recipient to feel awkward, like when you use the washroom at a high-end restaurant and boom, there’s the attendant staring you down for a tip because he or she held out the paper towels after you washed your hands. I realize everyone has to make a living but some things are a little too in your face to be productive.
- It asks too much of the referral source. Who do you know that I could help just like I’ve helped you? Oh please, don’t make me do the mental gymnastics of having to run through my virtual Rolodex.
- It sounds desperate. Period.
How to ask for a referral without having it be a social assault
I’ve been guilty of using some of these sleazy referral lines. I was an advisor and went through sales training. It was really annoying, because all they taught me was social assault tactics like these. I tried them out and I kept getting blank stares or weak excuses.
Social media isn’t just for broadcasting your content to an audience. Value it for what few do: the sheer amount of data that is freely up for grabs.
Realize that in many cases a simple LinkedIn search on your second-degree connections will provide you with enough introductions to build a business.
The assault-free referral
Let’s say you want to meet C-level executives in the Dallas Fort Worth area. By using a LinkedIn filtered search, you can come up with a list of people who fit that description. You can even configure the search so that you filter through the connections of a particular first-degree connection of yours – and you can specify whom. So you could run this search on all the connections of your clients or centers-of-influence.
Now that’s transparency!
There’s a specific way to do this and it can get a bit technical, so you may have to try it a few times. But eventually when you get there you’ll find that this eliminates the problem of making the referral source do the work. You’ve done it for them.
But, you still have to get the intro. How do you do that?
This is where most people mess it up. When you reach out to your first-degree connection to ask for him/her to introduce you to the “target,” don’t get too caught up in the asking part. That’s about you, not about the target.
Make this an act of giving, not receiving. It’s simple enough to do if you look at the target person’s background and figure out a logical reason that you can help the person.
Hint: Use the data about the target and try to understand their world, such as a problem he/she may have and why you can help this person with that problem.
Now wouldn’t you say that’s likely to make everyone involved feel more comfortable as opposed to assaulting them with some contrived, stiff awkward dance?
Sara’s upshot
I’m not just making this tactic up out of thin air; I personally use it and have used it for years and gotten good results. I have found that it puts control into your hands instead of making you wait until you cross somebody’s mind. It makes you seem far less desperate, and portrays you as a selective, focused person who is looking for the right person to add to their client list, not just anyone.
Let’s compare the old way with the new way. The new way provides:
- A greater number of opportunities
- More control to you as the asker
- Less pretense
- Less guesswork
- More focus
- More immediacy
Because I feel so strongly that this is the right way to expand your business and one that many advisors are not utilizing to the fullest, I designed a set of videos in my membership portal that demonstrate how to execute each step of this process. You can click here to join and view them – the LinkedIn technique I’ve described is published as the November content series.
Sara Grillo, CFA, is a top financial writer with a focus on marketing and branding for investment management, financial planning, and RIA firms. Prior to launching her own firm, she was a financial advisor and worked at Lehman Brothers. Sara graduated from Harvard with a degree in English literature and has an MBA from NYU Stern in quantitative finance.
Read more articles by Sara Grillo
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
