With the cost of acquiring new customers mounting, many media companies’ customer bases are shrinking due to lost confidence of advertisers and consumers alike.
Referrals are often one way to get your additional advertising sales without too much additional work.
If you learn these three simple referrals systems you’ll avoid the disappointment of cold calling, call reluctance, one time sales and much more.
You will also improve your call rate and closure rate like never before.
There are three types of referrals systems or general rules you need to understand when thinking about referrals.
- Direct Referrals
- Direct Endorsement
- Implied Endorsement /Referral
In this article I am going to discuss direct referrals which are the most common of the three. A direct referral is a request to your advertiser to direct you to a potential client who they know that may also like your services. It’s a recommendation from a client to another friend or business.
Most direct media sales people understand this one – many use it spasmodically and often by chance. Here are 3 action steps to get a direct referral that will increase your call rate and closure rate very quickly.
1) Choose the top 10 advertisers you want to target. Ask them for a referral.
2) Set a time every day to go and ask those clients.
3) Do this for your top 10 advertisers over a 30 day period. This will set a habit in place that will most certainly benefit you for the long term.
Work on these steps and you will soon begin to see an improvement in your call rates and closure rates, and more importantly the disappointment of cold calling, call reluctance will reduce.
Now it’s time to ACT.
Here is what to do right now to get an immediate result. Call two clients and let them know that you will be coming to see them for a referral. Mentally visualise them giving you that referral. Write the goal in your diary or on your weekly planner.
Remind yourself every day that your goal to more sales and easier closing rates are referrals.
Good selling
PHOTO – angelamaphone
