CFandango profile picture
CFandango profile picture

CFandango

Account Executive

Executive
Opinionated
Fire Starter
+3

Asking for a referral

I'm trying to get into the habit of asking every prospect I close to refer me to someone in their network, but I'm struggling with the best way to go about it. I'm wondering how reps in here go about it. Mainly:


  • When is the best time to ask for a referral?
  • What exactly is the ask or CTA?
  • If asking in email, what's your subject line?
  • Any incentives for offering referrals?


🔎 Prospecting
☕️ Workflow and Daily Habits
7

12 comments

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CoorsKing
WR Officer
7
Retired King of the Coors Knights
I normally always ask once they are live and successful on my product (2-3 months post sale). I always do it informally over the phone “hey <name> do you know <ref name> by any chance? I think they have similar pains to what we solved for with you. Any chance you would be able to broker an intro?”
TheSolicitorGeneral
Politicker
1
Small Market AE
Pretty much this. My advice to tack on to this is stay involved with the client after the sale to give the appearance that you truly care about their success on the product. (You should care that they are happy on the product as well)
CFandango
Executive
1
Account Executive
Should I care about them or give the appearance that I care lol? I get your point though, what I’m trying to do is leverage excitement and buy-in during the sales process to ask for a referral earlier. But I think my chances of success will be higher if it’s a few months down the line and they started seeing value post-launch
TheSolicitorGeneral
Politicker
1
Small Market AE
Both! lmao you'd be surprised at how much you have to exaggerate your level of care. I too think that if you ask for the referral upfront, before you've really earned it per se, you won't have much success.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
2
🦊
Once you've built value and implemented your product launch and training you should be golden. I'd wait to the first business review. By then you will have someone you feel is a bigger champion of yours. Ask after you're sure they are happy and any issues have been resolved.
GDO
Politicker
1
BDM
2 options

- ask when up and running and they re happy

- give a small discount when the refer you while discussing the deal. 
Kosta_Konfucius
Politicker
1
Sales Rep
I always prefer asking for an intro, usually they are more likely to help vs refer
softwaresails
Politicker
0
Sales Manager
We ask for referrals on the two week post live call. We ask them a handful of questions to determine how they are liking the system and if they hit a certain criteria we ask them a few more questions about other accounts like them that could us and by the end of the call they are giving us a couple of referrals each.
softwaresails
Politicker
1
Sales Manager
I'd also add to not do this over email... the engagement will be so low. Referral asking should be done on a call.

We will typically give a month of free service to anyone that referred an account that signed up.
CFandango
Executive
0
Account Executive
I really like that, it’s like a mechanism to solicit feedback and get a referral at the same time. Right now we do that at the 6-month mark, but I think that’s too late, where your relationship with the client has gone cold and there’s an increased risk of them being unhappy. I like the fact that it’s done at the two week mark
softwaresails
Politicker
1
Sales Manager
Yeah I think it needs to happen earlier than six months. Unless that's how long it takes them to get fully integrated into the software. 

The earlier you can have that conversation the better in my opinion but you need to at least way until they are actually using it and seeing value as well.
Maximas
Tycoon
0
Senior Sales Executive
I guess best time to ask for a referral is when you realize that this company is for you and you're appreciated for meeting your targets so that once getting your referral accepted he would feel the same.

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