Referrals & Environments

It’s Day 2 of my internship and Gary taught me something extremely important: REFERRAL STRATEGY. Sounds fancy, I know. In simple terms, there’s a REALLY BAD way to ask for referrals and we want to avoid that.

My summary literally looks like this:

The Bad

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The Good

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But for the sake of this summer in Mar-Comms Dummies Guide/Blog/Journal-entry-advise-section, I will break it down better. Attorneys don’t like asking for referrals because they’re afraid of looking desperate and they don’t want to beg. The importance of confidence has been a big theme in my internship so far, and for referrals especially, lacking confidence is like a death wish. Instead, for example, personal injury attorneys will hire ambulance chasers to go to the scene of tragedy and hand the injured people their business card. Dirty practices like these produced the professional conduct rule from the BAR that prohibits payment of non-attorneys.

So now, asking for referrals became even more important. In business and marketing in general, you have to ask for them to grow client lists. Getting a referred client means they trusted the person you asked for a referral from.

Here are some of the benefits I picked up on:

• Referrals are easier to get an appointment with 

• Price is less of an issue 

• Referrals give attorneys more time to practical law

  • Cheapest way and less time consuming

• Getting referrals is a snowball effect

  • People who were referred give more referrals

  • Loyalty with referee (person who said, “Hey, you should do business with ___”)

How to do it:

• When is the best time to ask for a referral? 

  • When client is getting a dopamine hit from how cool you are *insert sunglasses emoji*

• How do you ask for a referral?

  • Compliment client back when they’re thanking you at the end of an interaction

    • Make it specific, why is this individual client great? Give them a genuine compliment while describing the ideal client for you 

    • Looks something like this: If you know any clients like YOU, let me know because I love working with people like you! “Send them over to me.”

AND THAT’S HOW YOU ASK FOR A REFERRAL WITHOUT SAYING THE WORD “REFERRAL.”

Additional Do’s and Don’ts

• Never ask for a referral from someone you have never given value to 

• Beginners ask for referrals all the time when you’ve just met and you have to say no 

• Reciprocation is important - if you give me business I’ll give you business 

• Easiest way to market: Always expand on what’s in it for the client

  • How will they benefit?

  • You should refer them to me because it will work out and then you’ll look like the hero 

• If you’re asked to give a referral: Make sure you have a lot of information about who you’re referring - are they right for the client? 

Referrals can be a little confusing, and when Gary explained this all to me some parts were ??? But I’m really glad we went over this, because marketing for business owners entails other skills like referrals that aren’t taught in the class I’m taking, for instance.

Speaking of my class, there’s an interesting concept we just went over that has to do with micro and macroenvironments. Take a look.

“Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior” broken up into 5 parts: Cultural, social, personal, and psychological. Some of the same factors that influence the environment of a company’s product or service also affects consumer buying behavior. Choosing your target market can narrow these factors down a lot, but it’s nice to have a visual. The next session for my internship is in 2 days, but tomorrow brings a whole new marketing strategy I’ve never tried before…