Can You Swim?
June 2003
Does drowning sound more appealing than asking
clients for referrals? Referral Aversion Sales Call Reluctance prevents salespeople
from asking for referrals even when they know how to do it, intend to do it,
and want to do it. It is entirely a learned behavior and is easily curable once
recognized.
by Frank Lee
Sales Academy,
Inc.
"If you cannot ask for referrals, you had better
learn how to swim!"
That was the advice I had received from a sales manager eons ago when I was
still learning how to sell. He compared referrals to bridges—bridges to the
next sale. I can still remember him drawing circles on a blackboard (yes, that's
how old I am!) and calling the circles "sales."
He then drew bridges from one circle (sale) to the next.
"Guess what these are?" he would ask, pointing to the bridges. We would all
dutifully answer, "Bridges from one sale to the next."
"Right!" he would yell out, "and if you don't build those bridges, you had
better learn how to swim. And how do you build those bridges?"
"By getting referrals!" we yelled back triumphantly.
At that point, he would draw the little squiggly lines that indicated water
between the sales (circles) and glare at us as if to convey a message of some
dire importance. We got the message. I certainly did. I had better ask for referrals
or I would surely drown because I knew I could not swim.
He then went on to teach us how to ask for referrals. I thought it made perfect
sense. We were fast learners. He had hardly taught us how to do it when we could
teach it right back to him through our role plays. He taught us that satisfied
clients were only too happy to give referrals and even unhappy ones would give
us referrals just to get rid of us. We learned that there is no good time to
ask for a referral, and there was no bad time either.
We should ask for referrals anytime we felt like it. The worst that could
happen was that the client or prospect would say no. We learned all the techniques
from "who do you know?" to "the person I am looking for is…." By the end of
that day, we knew everything we would ever know about asking for referrals.
We went out determined to ask everyone for referrals.
I Drowned
My first opportunity came the very next day. I had just closed a deal and
my new client was happy with my work. I braced myself to ask for the referral.
As I looked into his eyes, something in my stomach told me not to ask just yet.
I must have shown some confusion because he asked me if anything was wrong.
This gave me my second opportunity to ask for that golden referral but again
I hesitated. Before I left that day, I knew I had blown at least four opportunities
to ask him for a referral.
After I left, I kicked myself mentally. I was puzzled. Why was this so difficult
to do when yesterday it had seemed so natural? I also did not ask any of the
other people I spoke with that day.
The next day, when my sales manager asked us how many referrals we had gotten
the day before, I lied and told him eight. Everyone else had gotten their referrals
too. From their responses, I gathered that my eight might have seemed like an
exaggeration and I determined to say four next time. He beamed his approval
and never discussed referrals with us again. He just assumed we now knew what
to do and how to do it. He was right. We did. But some of us did not do what
we knew how to do and said we wanted to do.
Some of my fellow salespeople had learned how to build bridges. Some had
learned to swim. I had drowned.
It Gets Worse
Even though I did not have to lie about it after that first time, I still
felt guilty when I did not end a day with referrals. However, I'm human, and
I soon became accustomed to living without those pesky referrals. It wasn't
that I was not getting any. After all, I was a good salesperson and my clients
did some referring without even asking my permission. That made up for the referrals
I didn't ask for. While other salespeople got into the habit of asking for referrals,
I got into the habit of not asking. We were both successful in getting what
we wanted.
When I started training salespeople, I found that teaching salespeople to
ask for referrals was one of the easiest classes for me. After all, it made
logical sense, and every salesperson told me they knew they should ask, and
they wanted to ask, and they would ask. Like my previous sales manager, I would
beam my approval and bless them for their efforts. And my stomach would turn
because I knew a whole bunch of them would pay lip service but not do it.
Then I met George Dudley and Shannon Goodson, authors of The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance,
and I understood why.
Referral Aversion Is a Call Reluctance
I would never have guessed that not asking for a referral would be one of
the call reluctances, but it is. What surprised me was that I did not have a
severe case of it. When I took the Call Reluctance test, it showed that I had
some—but not at toxic levels. I remember wondering what it must be like to have
really high doses of it. Would you actually turn down a referral?
Like most people, once the behavior had become a habit, I had stopped thinking
about it. Like most of the call reluctances, you don't know you have it until
it hits you between the eyes. It hit me between the eyes when I had to answer
all those questions on the test about asking for referrals. I know it made me
uncomfortable because it highlighted the need for good salespeople to ask for
referrals, and I knew I did not. Although I think I even lied a few times on
the questionnaire, it still pegged me accurately.
Referral aversion, it seems, prevents salespeople from asking for referrals
even when they know how to do it, intend to do it, and want to do it. When the
opportunity presents itself, they conveniently forget. The mantra of the referral
aversion salesperson is, "The time was not right." The time is never right.
It is entirely a learned behavior and is easily curable. In my case, I fixed
it when I took the test and read the book on it. That's when I decided I had
too many other problems and didn't need this one too. I fixed it through sheer
disgust with it.
My referral aversion was mild. I had simply let it get out of control and
had developed a bad habit. Once exposed, it was relatively easy to cure.
How Much Will Your Company Spend To Fix It?
Since my "born-again" experience with referral aversion, I have been able
to help many salespeople overcome this pesky call reluctance. I have always
found it to be relatively painless for the salesperson and myself to tackle.
One thing that continues to amaze me is how huge companies who should know
better spend thousands and thousands of dollars on training their salespeople
how to ask for referrals and then assume they will.
It does not take one or two days of training to teach salespeople about referrals.
It can be covered in one 2-hour session. You don't have to sell salespeople
on the logic of asking. They already know that. You don't have to spend hours
teaching them how to ask. That's pretty simple too. The problem is not knowledge
of how to ask for a referral. The problem is actually doing it. These companies
would be better served dealing with this problem as a habit-level behavior rather
than as a skill.
Manage the Behavior
Here's one thing my previous sales manager could have done even with no knowledge
of sales call reluctance—he could have required that all the salespeople collect
at least one referral each day for 4 weeks and prove to him weekly that they
did. If he had followed up his workshop by requiring us to perform the behavior
and then managing us to make sure that we did, he would have quickly uncovered
those of us who had referral aversion call reluctance. Back then, he probably
would not have known what to do about it except to tell us that we did not love
our company, but at least he would have known that there was a problem of execution,
not one of knowledge.
I always recommend testing for sales call reluctance. That is the surest
way to determine exactly how much and what type a salesperson has. However,
when it comes to referral aversion call reluctance, it is an easily observable
call reluctance. If sales managers detect this in their salespeople, they can
confirm it by managing the behaviors. I believe that managing the behaviors
will also eradicate mild cases of referral aversion call reluctance.
Other Sales Call Reluctance articles include the following:
Call Reluctance, the Fear-Free
Prospecting and Self-Promotion Workshop, and all related terms are copyrights
and/or registered trademarks of Behavioral Sciences Research Press, Dallas,
Texas. Sales Academy, Inc., is an Advanced Authorized Dealer for the Call Reluctance®
Program. Frank Lee is an international expert on Call Reluctance®. He can be
reached at (800) 898–3743 or at franklee@sales-academy.com. He welcomes calls or e-mail from salespersons
and sales managers even if just to chat about the call reluctance problem.
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