‘Tis the Season for Referrals!
Yikes! It’s April already!
One of my greatest coaches once said to me, “If you can’t see your year by June, you’ve lost the year”.
Even to this day when I remember him saying this, I still somewhat shudder. Yet, he was right!
Jumping Ahead to Recovery
Let’s look at 2021 pragmatically. All signs point to recovery either in Q3 or Q4. What this global realization means is that we’ll be somewhat back to our normal style of operations, albeit potentially in a hybrid manner, but for sure with the societal intention of face-to-face meetings!
That’s great news except, who are you gonna see?
Of course, you’ll be meeting with clients and constituents you’ve had commercial relationships with pre-COVID. The larger question is: where is your new business coming from in 2022?
New Business from Existing Client Equity
This is actually not as scary/daunting as you might think. What we’re speaking about is cross-selling and the opportunity to gain referrals from clients with whom you already have equity!
Said simply, this is the time to monetize your client’s value by recommending an additional product or service that’s accretive to their mission. As you build equity, you will:
- Align your clients’ goals to your commercial goals
- Strengthen your relationship
- Illustrate your prescience
- Drive trust
- Potentially increase their spend
From there, you can manage the relationship in a way that gives them confidence in recommending your service/product internally or externally, thereby strengthening your long-term sales funnel.
In the great book, “The Trusted Advisor” by David Maister (please get it) he states: Existing customers generally give us the opportunity for an audience. They’ll hear us out. The deeper question, however, is whether they’ll engage and open up.
In my next blog, we’ll focus on HOW to accomplish this.
