Tel: 0844 394 8877

Boulden Management Consultants

Sales Skills  >  Half-Day Courses

Generating Referrals

training course on generating referrals

How to get an existing client to recommend you to their contacts

Half Day Course

Course Brochure Download
Generating Referrals brochure
  • Appreciate the power of the Referrals Matrix concept
  • Overcome the barriers to asking for referrals
  • Learn the six elements of effective referrals

Overview

In most businesses the vast majority of sales revenue comes from the existing (or warm) client base. This is intuitively obvious because if people know your work and like you personally, they are inclined to give you repeat business. In addition, a great source of new business comes from referrals from these existing clients. One of the reasons that referrals work well is that we don’t have to prove our credibility, because someone the customer trusts has vouched for the quality of our work. A key business development skill is to learn how to get these referrals in a structured way, so that requests are made professionally, systematically and appropriately.

Learning objectives

By attending this highly interactive and practical half-day Master Class on Generating Referrals you will:

  • Discover a simple process for generating referrals in a ‘business to business’ context
  • Acquire strategies making it easy for people to recommend you
  • Learn how to explain the type of contact you want to be introduced to
  • Understand some techniques for asking directly for a referral
  • Develop the ability to deal with objections or resistance when asking for a referral

Who should attend?

This half-day workshop is for all those who need to win new business as part of their role though ‘word of mouth’ recommendations, including; Sales Executives, Relationship Managers and Senior Partners in professional firms.




Workshop

Referrals explained - (the referral concept in a nutshell)

Referrals matter because a potential customer is much more likely to buy from you when you have been put forward as an option by someone they know and trust. Referrals are consequently one of the most cost effective ways of winning new business.

  • Active vs. Passive Referrals
  • Referral sources & targets
  • The referrals matrix

Exercise: Assessing your current referrals strategy

The golden rules of referrals

People who are good at getting referrals have a ‘mind-set’ or attitude that helps them to be self confident and self assured. Here we explore this ‘referrals mind-set’.

  • Brainstorming the golden rules of effective referral generation
  • The principles of effective referral generation
  • Barriers and pitfalls in generating referrals

Exercise: Overcoming the barriers

Making yourself easy to refer

Experts at generating referrals work to make sure that it is easy for their contacts to refer them.

  • Educating the client about your overall ‘offer’
  • Being clear about what types of referral you want
  • Generating good visibility in the market

Exercise: How well do customers understand what you have to offer?

Designing your referral process

Building, designing and maintaining a robust Active Referrals process involves working through a methodical process, which we consider in depth here.

  • Features of a good Active Referral process
  • Identifying key referral sources
  • Identifying key referral targets
  • Setting the scene for the referral
  • Making the referral request
  • Contacting the third party
  • Monitoring results

Exercise: Writing and role-playing a 'script' for setting the scene

Exercise: Writing and role-playing a 'script' for asking for the referral

Handling objections and resistance

It can sometimes happen that contacts have concerns or doubts about making an introduction, so here we review techniques for dealing with any reluctance to make an introduction.

  • Brainstorming the common objections that occur when asking for referrals
  • Standard objection handling techniques

Exercise: Object and overcome



Feedback

Feedback is based upon peer review using Boulden assessment checklists. Completing the assessment checklists is not only valuable to the people involved in a given role play or case study, it also helps those completing them to gain an in-depth understanding of the building blocks that make up effective referrals generation.


Remote Training

All of our workshops can be delivered as Remote Training via e-learning modules plus Zoom based virtual workshops. Please see our Virtual Training page for more information.


Contact

Further information on this course is available by contacting
Boulden Management Consultants:
via our Contact form
Tel: 0844 394 8877