This Is What Your Referral Program Is Missing

Do you know your referral gap quotient?
Steve had a referral program. (Or so he thought.) He proudly told me that 30 percent of his company’s business came from referrals. “How did that happen?” I asked. He explained that whenever clients moved to a new company, they always brought his team in. “Terrific,” I said. “What about your account executives? Do they know how to get referrals? Are they asking?”
There was a long pause and then a blinding flash of the obvious. He said in an excited voice: “We need to train them how to do that!”
He got it right there and then. He realized that referrals were hit-and-miss in his organization, because they were dependent on inbound calls. His so-called referral program couldn’t be measured and didn’t hold sales reps accountable for results. What he needed was a dedicated and proactive outbound strategy.
Most sales organizations don’t have an outbound referral