08/23/07 - More on referrals

In last Thursday's issue we talked about more behaviors that can interfere with getting referrals. Today, we continue that discussion, with the addition of some new behaviors. Once again, I'd like to ask you to share behaviors that I haven't thought of. Email them to me at eric@succeedinginbusiness.com. I will share them with everyone on this mailing list.

If you know of others who are not competitors, but who are equally committed to succeeding in business, please forward this article to them. For many, this is all they will ever need to reliably build professional and financial security for the rest of their lives.

[These are the next six reasons you don't get referrals.]

You don't ask for referrals often enough. Plan on asking for them six or eight times per year. If you are short, crisp, and have conviction that you add value, nobody will mind. Remember, they want to contribute to your success and are happy to do it if you make it easy!

Maybe you're trying to sell them on making a referral. Don't. You can be guaranteed that nothing will happen if you try to sell them on it. Either they will gladly do it from a simple request or they won't. This one is a killer if you don't follow it. Stay detached.

You're asking for a referral even though you're not sincerely interested in the other person's well-being. For some reason, people know when you are sincerely interested in their well-being, and will respond only when they can, at some level, detect that sincerity. Go figure.

You don't refer enough to others even though they don't refer to you. Doing so is making use of the law of reciprocation. Do it enough, and well enough, and eventually, they will start referring to you.

Maybe you ask for referrals every time you see someone who could make them. Don't do it. Ask too often, and they avoid you. Ask too seldom and nothing happens. I do it about 30 percent of the time, at most.

You don't dress for success. Dress and behave so the person you're asking is comfortable with having a friend or business associate contact you. Take a long look in the mirror. Do you look like success?

Of course, there are more behaviors that interfere with getting referrals, and I'll talk about more of them in next Thursday's issue of the Success Tips Newsletter. And, don't forget: If you know of other behaviors that interfere with getting referrals, please email them to me at eric@succeedinginbusiness.com. I'll share them, in turn, with the others on this newsletter list.

In the meantime, a short note to help us (and you) pay the bills:

The Marketing Fast Track course has been a great success, and the next session is filling up rapidly. It begins on Wednesday, September 12, 2007, at 1:00 P.M. PST, and "meets" each subsequent Wednesday until October 24, all at 1:00 P.M. PST. Check it out.

The course will give you the tools you need to create a message that will get you 1,000+ referrals. It will also:

Make getting steady referrals a routine part of your life.

Give you reliable tools to make more money than you ever thought you could.

Show you new things you can use to make more money, more easily, each week.

Show you how you can quit cold-calling.

Understand how to stop being your own worst enemy in marketing and sales efforts.

Cheers,

Eric Albertson
Portland OR
August 23, 2007