Lesson 23 - Reach Out with a Referral

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Referrals open doors to new conversations. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to leverage mutual connections and ask for referrals effectively. Your assignment will involve reaching out to two mutual connections and requesting introductions to key decision-makers at your target accounts.

Transcript

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Nick, welcome back to the daily quota. I'm your host, Nicholas Hill, and in today's lesson, you're going to reach out to a prospect using a referral. Now, a referral is basically just someone in the organization giving you access to someone else in the organization, recommending that you speak, that you speak with them or introducing you to them, using a referral is incredibly powerful, because it's a really fast way to bridge the trust gap. So if I'm reaching out to someone and it's a cold outreach, they're far less likely to click on my email, read my email, respond to my email, set up a meeting. But if I reach out to someone and say, Hey, your coworker Michelle sent me, or one of your employees sent me, or one of your colleagues over here sent me, I'm far more likely to get some traction. Now, when it comes to reaching out with a referral, obviously, the first thing you have to do is get that referral, and that can be pretty challenging. So as you begin to build your relationships at the organizations that use your solution, always be looking for potential people, coaches, champions, etc, basically, contacts that like you, that might be willing to refer you. And they can either refer you, we call it across or up the organization. So if they're referring you across the organization, that would be like one director referring you to another director, or they're referring you up the organization, so a director might refer you to their VP. This is a really great way to expand within existing accounts. So you land at one department and you expand into other departments, functions, geographies, roles, et cetera, by asking for these referrals. So once you have someone that has a good relationship with you, send them an email asking them for referral that might look like you know, the subject line could be seeking your insights for a referral. Be upfront and honest about what you're asking for. The body of the email might say, Hi, Michelle. I hope this email finds you well. Thank you again for all of your positive feedback on how Sprout Social has enhanced your team's campaign strategies over at trendy apparel, as we continue to see great results, I'm looking to further discuss how we can support broader strategic initiatives at trendy apparel, specifically, we have new solutions that are tailored for scaling digital marketing efforts, which could be crucial for upcoming company wide initiatives, would you be willing to introduce me to the decision maker overseeing these broader initiatives, such as your CMO or head of digital marketing strategy? Your endorsement would be invaluable in facilitating a meaningful conversation on how we can drive even more significant outcomes. Thank you for considering this request. Nick is the email perfect? No, of course, you can nitpick any email that I give you in this course, but the goal of this email is essentially to get in front of them and say I'm looking for a referral. And the reason I'm looking for a referral is so that I can help. I'm going to give value to the person that you are referring me to in these ways, not just I'm going to take value or ask them for something, because if that's your approach, you're far less likely to get a referral. Now, once you have that referral, obviously, now you have to write a second email. It's time to craft your outreach to the person that you've received the refer referral to and you can use the y, u, why you now framework for this, you should obviously acknowledge the person that referred you, and in fact, I would do that in the subject line. So the subject line might be Michelle suggested we connect, right? That will automatically pique their interest. Okay? Well, I know Michelle. I like Michelle. I wonder why Michelle suggested we connect. They click on the email, and then in the body of the email, you might say something like, let me read it off here. Hi James. Michelle Rogers at trendy apparel suggested I contact you as trendy apparels account executive at Sproul social I've been closely involved in enhancing your team's social media campaigns. And Michelle has been incredibly supportive of our collaboration. Given your role as chief marketing officer, I believe there's a substantial opportunity to leverage our solutions across trendy apparels, broader digital marketing objectives, we've seen significant successes in areas like multi channel engagement, data driven Strategy Optimization, which could be highly beneficial for your upcoming projects. I've attached a brief overview of our capabilities and some case studies that illustrate our impact. Would you be open to a brief discussion? So call to action about how we can breathe bring similar successes to other areas within trendy apparel, I've added a link to my calendar and look forward to the opportunity to. Speak with you, Nick, maybe that one's a little long, but ultimately, I've done a couple of things. I'm reaching out to you because Michelle suggested that we connect. I'm reaching out to you right now because we're seeing success in your company already, and we believe we can drive further success. Here's my call to action. Here's my simple signature line. So in conclusion, referrals can dramatically cut down the time it takes to get a meeting with somebody, to get them to click respond, reply to your email. They make your outreach more personal, more relevant from the very first contact, they greatly increase the likelihood of a positive response. And of course, always remember to show gratitude to anyone that's willing to provide you a referral. It is a very small way that they are putting their reputation behind you and showing faith and trust in your ability as a salesperson. It showed they it shows that they believe you're going to be professional. Yeah. All right, now it's your turn for today's assignment. You are going to reach out to someone that you have a good relationship with, already a an existing champion in your account, or a contact that you have a good relationship with, and you are going to ask them for a referral. If you get that referral, you are going to draft an email. And really you should draft the email anyway, just to get the practice, you will then draft an email to the person that you are being referred to, letting them know that you want to get in front of them that the referrer asked suggested that you connect and asking for their time. Make sure that you review this with your manager, mentor, new hire buddy, your study guide, will walk you through it, and that's it for today's lesson. Thanks for listening to the daily quota, and we'll see you next time you.