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how to get more referrals for a consulting business

Never Cold Call Again: How to Get More Referrals for Your Consulting Practice

By Greg Provance
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Wondering how to get more referrals for your consulting practice?

In his book Permission Marketing, Seth Godin explains that there are two forms of marketing:

  • Interruption Marketing: the old, intrusive marketing methods where you interrupt your potential client.
  • Permission Marketing: marketing methods where you draw potential clients in — inviting them to listen to your marketing.

At Consulting Success®, we teach Magnetic Messaging as the foundation of permission marketing. We use our Magnetic Messaging to draw our ideal clients in rather than just interrupting them with outreach.

Cold-calling is the consultant’s equivalent of interruption marketing. When prospects answer a cold call, it’s unlikely that they’re sitting around waiting and ready to apply our solution to a problem they probably don’t even know they have.

Think about it: when was the last time you answered a random sales call and ended up doing business with that person?

For me, never.

I’ve asked hundreds of consultants and CEOs across multiple industries: “how do you get most of your clients?”

The most common answer is referrals.

And even though referrals is the most common answer, very few have a system in place to generate referrals consistently. Mistakenly, many consultants think of referral opportunities as being limited to a select few warm contacts. And once they’ve given us a referral, the well has dried up.

We should be using multiple marketing methods to get our Magnetic Message out to the world. But those marketing methods should include a system around generating referrals: the most effective way of generating quality leads.

I’m not saying that outbound marketing is completely replaceable. Instead, we consultants should balance our outbound marketing with a systematic approach to generating consistent referrals. In this article, I’ll give you 3 foolproof ways to rev up your referral engine — and keep those leads coming in.

Very few consultants have a system in place to generate referrals consistently.

1. Deliver Incredible Value for Your Clients

The first step to attracting referrals for your consulting business is to delight your clients with great results. A client who’s excited about the value they’ve received from working with you is the one who’s most likely to sing your praises with their network. They will naturally refer you based on the experience of working with you, and the results you’ve created for them.

This might be obvious to you. But you can be more systematic about delighting your clients.

Challenge yourself to consider the specific type of value you provide for your clients, and how you create it.

With your specific type of consulting service, is the value you create around…

  • Economic results (more money, or saving them money)?
  • The level of intangible, emotional support you provide?
  • How quickly you’re able to step in, solve problems, and provide guidance?

Value can come in many different forms. And it’s essential you understand the precise forms of value you create. That way, you’ll be able to create the most “WOW” experience for each specific client — an experience from which they’ll shout your praises from the mountaintops for everyone in their network to hear.

Challenge yourself to consider the specific type of value you provide for your clients, and how you create it.

2. Continue the Relationship Beyond Your Contracted Engagement

Amy is the owner of a bridal boutique. New brides come to her shop to find the dress of their dreams. Throughout the entire process, Amy gives them an amazing experience. She goes out of her way to take the anxiety that goes into shopping for the perfect dress. Her customers walk away from the experience feeling confident, empowered, and ready for the day they’ve been dreaming about since they were children. Amy’s clients receive an incredible amount of value for their investment in working with her.

However, once Amy’s customers have purchased their dresses, their working relationship ends. The brides go off to their wedding and live happily ever after. Once the magic of the wedding day wore off, Amy had no idea if her customers would refer business back to her, despite the value she created.

So, Amy developed a plan for keeping in touch with her customers after their wedding day. She continued the relationship, which helped her create a referral base from her previous clients who had an amazing experience with her. All she had to do was keep in touch: sending little notes, discounts, and offers to pass along to their friends and family. She checked in frequently, letting her past customers know she could create the same wonderful experience for any brides they knew. Once she made a habit of continually following up with her past customers, her referrals increased exponentially.

Do you see the analogy to your consulting business?

Getting referrals is often as simple as staying relevant and top of mind with your community of clients. Make a habit of sending a simple follow-up message to all of your past clients every few months.

By keeping these relationships alive and the conversation going, Amy created a more consistent referral business — and you can do the same.

Make a habit of sending a simple follow-up message to all of your past clients every few months.

3. Work on Expanding and Engaging Your Network

How many numbers do you have in your phone that you haven’t called in years?

How many of those numbers are people you’ve been meaning to call, l but you just haven’t — for one reason or another?

Joe Stumpf is the founder of By Referral Only, a program that helps real estate agents generate more leads and referrals. He recently gave a talk on the power of regularly reaching out to your network to engage with people who could provide referrals.

Let’s say there are 50 contacts that you could reach out to and reconnect with. During that conversation, you’ll naturally discuss what you’ve been up to lately. Once you catch up, (whether on the first call or the second), politely remind them:

“Hey, next time you’re speaking with someone who would benefit from my expertise, think of me.”

This isn’t really asking for a referral — but instead, it’s asking if they are comfortable recommending you.

By consistently expanding and engaging with our network, we vastly increase the chance of having a meaningful conversation with a prospect who could use our help.

The Bottom Line

There are many ways to reach our ideal clients, most of which require that we spend a good deal of time building rapport and trust before they will engage our services. Referrals come to us from a trusted source thereby taking a ton of time, effort, and money out of the equation in getting someone to consider us as their best solution as opposed to our competitors.

There are many ways to reach our ideal clients. And many of them require that we spend a lot of time building trust and rapport before they invest in our services.

But referrals come to us from a trusted source. Therefore, they reduce the amount of time, effort, and money it takes to turn a prospect into a client.

Why?

Because they come from a trusted source who is recommending you as the best solution. Your referral partners are helping to do your marketing for you.

Don’t get me wrong: cold-calling can work, but it is the longest road to building trust and rapport.

In addition to your cold calling and cold emailing, make sure that you are spending effort cultivating a base of referrals. When you have systems to generate referral business, you can build a successful consulting practice more quickly — and with less headache.

If you want help implementing a referral strategy so you can get more clients (and much, much more), check out our Clarity Coaching Program.


Greg Provance is a Consulting Success coach in the Clarity coaching program as well as the owner of GP Hospitality Partners LLC, a full-service restaurant and hospitality consulting firm and author of BUTTS in SEATS: how to create raving fans who come back again and again. In addition to being a consulting partner for Everbowl, Southern California’s fastest growing fast casual chain, Greg owns several restaurants in the San Diego area and serves as a principal consultant and advisor for restaurants across the country. Greg lives in San Marcos, CA with his beautiful wife, two strapping young lads and a cat. He has committed his career to serving business owners who seek to increase profitability, position for scale and create more free time.

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