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Today’s show featured an interview with The Complete Client Acquisition System creator Craig Lowder.
Find Craig on LinkedIn.
CRAIG’S TIP: “Have you ever tried to sit on a one-legged stool? That’s why you need three strong referral partners in each category — it gives you balance and consistency.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: I’m excited to have Craig Lowder on the show today. Craig, why don’t you introduce yourself?
Craig Lowder: My background is 40 years in B2B sales leadership and also working as an independent trusted advisor. Since 2012, I’ve had my own sales consulting practice that serves small businesses as well as independent, trusted advisors. Along the way I’m humbled that I published two bestselling books on Amazon, Smooth Selling Forever, which is focused on the small business owner, and Trusted Advisor Confidential, which was published at the beginning of this year that focuses on the people out responsible for making it rain.
Fred Diamond: Craig Lowder, tell us a great sales story.
Craig Lowder: Great sales story. I’m going to set this up. The studies show that 80% of our best business clients come through referrals. The question that I have is, why do not business professionals, sales professionals, trusted advisors have a proactive system for generating quality referrals? I had one gentleman that I worked with who was a commercial real estate broker. His name’s Nick. Nick used the tool that I’m going to talk to you about in a minute called the Connector Compass, which I’ve trademarked. He followed that system and within the first year of implementing the system, he increased his qualified leads annually from 19 to 32. He improved his lead conversion rate from 37% to 66%. That’s almost doubling it. He increased his average contract size from $16,000 to $29,000. That’s a 50% pickup. Here’s the stunner. He increased his personal income from $116,000 to $291,000.
The tip here is you need to have a dedicated, proactive system to generate qualified leads and referrals weekly. You need to have a system, and the system that I’m advocating is called the Connector Compass, which is on my website. That’s not meant to be a promotion, but you can get it for free at trustedadvisorconfidential.com. Two steps. I think all of you watching, listening understand this, number one, identify the categories of professionals that are your best referral sources. Secondly, pick three individuals in each category that you would like to build a value exchange mutually beneficial relationship with. I’m often asked, “Well, Craig, why three?”
I use the story, have you ever tried to sit on a one-legged stool? Not easy. If you lose one referral source in a particular category, you got to start all over again. Two, better, but it’s still hard to sit on and you’re subject to somebody going away. Three, and we know the power of three, whether it’s your social security number, your telephone number, advertisers know it. Just do it absolutely positively, overnight, snap, crackle, pop.
You have to have three. Anything more than three, it’s hard to feed everyone’s mouth, because if they’re providing you a quality referral, whether they say it or not, at some time, are going to be expecting you to return with a qualified referral. If you have too many mouths in a particular category, it’s very, very difficult, if not impossible, to do that. You’re one call away from losing that relationship because you’re not reciprocating.
Tip, develop a proactive system for generating qualified leads on a regular basis. Two steps. Identify the categories that are good connectors, bankers, CPAs, human resources professionals, fractionals, et cetera, and then identify and work on developing relationships with the three names that you put in each category.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great story about referrals. Thank you so much. What would be your advice for someone who’s with a company, like if they work for a Microsoft or an Oracle or a large company, Ericsson, something along those lines? How do referrals come into play for something like that?
Craig Lowder: Great question. Quality referrals and lead generation is a two-way street. We’re going to receive leads more than likely from our company through their marketing efforts. However, each of us is different. Therefore, we need to take a rifle shot in leveraging our skills and experience. You need to develop on your own the categories that you’re seeking referrals from, and the people that you can develop relationships with.
Fred Diamond: Once again, thank you Craig Lowder for today’s insights on referrals. My name is Fred Diamond. This is the Sales Story and a Tip Podcast.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo