I Need to Generate Some Referrals

[NewbieNewbie]

I am looking to generate additional referrals. To give a bit of additional info; I am a captive agent, and I have about 1000 clients, mostly middle market (50k to 150k) a year. It is primarily term with some GUL in the mix. They are all sold over the phone, but I get maybe 2 to 3 referrals a year.

I know I am missing out on a huge amount of additional business. I would love some thoughts to ramp up referrals. I am considering soc, but any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[Josh]

It's going to sound lame, but ask everyone you talk to whether or not you sell them something. Another thing you can do is add something to your signature line asking for them; you'd be shocked by how many people think they might be bothering you with referrals.

Good luck!

 

[Whirleybird]

Give me your email address and I'll send you something

 

[walthamny]

My opinion is that once you had 10 clients you should have started seeing referals. If not, you need to adjust how you close or whatever that is not working in your sales cycle. At 1000 clients you should have a database of 2000 to 3000 names, birthdays, and many wedding anniversaries. Just calling on these, should generate more than 3 referals a year.

One sales metric is how may referals you are consistently generating from each household. If you only focus number of leads bought versus number of sales you will miss out in the long run. If your new business is always leads, you will be hard pressed to increase case rate or average case size.

Now how do adjust your sales cycle to increase referals without messing up your cash flow. You have to take a look at the whole picture and figure out. I would start with the 3 referals you get every year. Ask the clients who refered you why, you will surprised to hear what they say about you.

Since you built this business by phone, why not call each of them on their birthdays.

 

[NewbieNewbie]

My opinion is that once you had 10 clients you should have started seeing referals. If not, you need to adjust how you close or whatever that is not working in your sales cycle. At 1000 clients you should have a database of 2000 to 3000 names, birthdays, and many wedding anniversaries. Just calling on these, should generate more than 3 referals a year.

One sales metric is how may referals you are consistently generating from each household. If you only focus number of leads bought versus number of sales you will miss out in the long run. If your new business is always leads, you will be hard pressed to increase case rate or average case size.

Now how do adjust your sales cycle to increase referals without messing up your cash flow. You have to take a look at the whole picture and figure out. I would start with the 3 referals you get every year. Ask the clients who refered you why, you will surprised to hear what they say about you.

Since you built this business by phone, why not call each of them on their birthdays.

Good and well thought out. I will contact the few referrals I have had. It might be more than my initial post but not much. Thanks for the input.

 

[jboussea]

Do you have annual reviews with your clients? Do you have a reason to keep in contact with them periiodically... if that line of communication is open .. whenever they hear someone asking about life insurance.. they will think of you and refer someone.. .and those would be the best referrals because they're ready to buy .. it's not just a name that of someone that you have to call that may or may not be ready to buy

 

[pfg1]

Good info provided.

How did you get your 1000 clients? That is a great database to work with... you should be able to generate a decent amt I would think.

 

[djs]

I'll be the contrarian, but realize that I do this mostly from a P&C perspective. Life is different, so feel free to ignore this advice.

Referrals are great when they come from the right sources. They are time sinks when they come from the wrong sources.

Right sources:
- Mostly centers of influences, someone who understands YOU, what you do, as well as the prospect and what their needs are. This is amazingly great when the COI has some immediate impact on the prospect (i.e., loan broker, realtor, pastor, etc)
- Other sources you have vetted and developed. This can be clubs, churches, BNI groups, LeTip (is that still a thing?), Chamber of Commerce, etc.

Wrong sources, even though it is still worth asking:
- Clients and prospects. They refer individuals who have strange problems. In fact, a large number of these referrals in the P&C world are people who have been through many agents already and have an issue that will take some work to solve.

I also asked clients for referrals, but the better referrals and the quantity of referrrals always came from COI's, not clients.

Dan

 

[hayyojo]

Give me your email address and I'll send you something

Can you send me info too? Thank you!

 

[jdeasy]

I am looking to generate additional referrals. To give a bit of additional info; I am a captive agent, and I have about 1000 clients, mostly middle market (50k to 150k) a year. It is primarily term with some GUL in the mix. They are all sold over the phone, but I get maybe 2 to 3 referrals a year.

I know I am missing out on a huge amount of additional business. I would love some thoughts to ramp up referrals. I am considering soc, but any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

I say referrals are earned. Not asked for. And the ones telling you they are asked for are usually FOS marketers that never got a referral if they ever worked in the field.

Do a good job for your clients, answer your phone and provide good customer service and they will refer you to others.

And beware of any clown that wants to send you advice through PM's.

You asked on an open forum. If they can't reply on an open forum it's because it can't stand the light.

You will learn that most of the posters here are not producers.

Over time the real producers here stand out. There should be an asterisk by all the marketers so a new agent can know to avoid them.