Early in my sales career, I thought a referral was nothing more than getting a phone number and a name from one of my customers. After calling a few of these supposed prospects, it didn’t take me long to realize that this was nothing more than a glorified cold call. Check that, calling it glorified would be unfair to the word itself.

The thing is, getting a “real” referral requires much more than asking for a name, phone number, or email address for a prospective customer. What you are really asking for (when asking for a proper referral) is for your customer to put his or her credibility on the line in order to get you in the door to make a sale. This means that your customer will need to communicate in some form (i.e. a letter or phone call) on your behalf to the referred party. If you obtain a referral without having your customer communicating on your behalf, all you have at “best” is a qualified prospect to call on.

When you think about referrals along those lines, the process becomes far more dynamic and difficult. However, the odds of successfully executing a sale or picking up a new customer will go up dramatically. Make sure to get your customers involved in your referral process by having them communicate on your behalf.