7 minute read
Why Work by Referral?
When Clients Feel Appreciated, They’ll Work For You
by Brian Buffini
Growing up in Ireland, my four brothers and I worked in the family painting business each summer. Our dad reminded us regularly that in a small country like Ireland (where it seemed everyone had the last name Murphy or Kelly) the quality of our work had no option other than to be excellent. If the work was excellent your good name would spread like wild fire and you’d have more business than you could handle. Conversely, the opposite would be true if your work was poor and you could wind up with a dry and barren business.
Question: Can you put your name on it?
So each of us were mentored by my grandfather Harry Buffini who would take us into his home each summer and, like Mr. Miyagi with the Karate Kid, walk us through a series of painstaking exercises to help us become what he called “professional painters.” Later on when you graduated to the jobsite my grandfather would come and inspect your work at the end of each day.
Pointing a cigar stained finger at what you had done that day, he’d ask: “Well, Brian can you put your name to it?” If you couldn’t put your name to the work you’d done, you had to do it over. The goal was to not just meet our customer’s expectations but exceed them. Grandad knew that if we exceeded their expectations they’d exceed ours and send us lots of business.
I never got to meet A.E. LePage but he sounds a lot like my grandfather. He believed in both customer service and innovation. It’s clear that his legacy stands to this day with Royal LePage’s dedication to professionalism, service and high standards. The difference between my
grandfather and A.E. was that in addition to providing great service, A.E. was also a world-class promoter. Some of the creative things he did were way ahead of his time whether building a house in one day, pioneering newspaper advertising or using film to showcase homes.
Old-world values and a strong promotional marketing system
I built a very successful real estate career by taking old-world values and combining them with a strong promotional marketing system. When you put those two things together you get the kind of business you’re looking for. As an agent, I averaged 30-40 high-quality referrals a month because I had a system that promoted value and benefit to my customers while communicating my character and competence.
Today, I’m Chairman of Buffini & Company and we’ve built the world’s largest business training and coaching company based on this system. In the U.S., our clients earn seven times that of the typical NAR Member and the several thousand Canadian agents we serve are on pace to exceed the incredible success of their U.S. counterparts.
Referral vs. word-of-mouth business
The single biggest mistake I’ve seen people make when coming into contact with the systems we teach is that they confuse simplicity with simplistic. Our system is very simple to understand yet requires a significant amount of elements to make it come together.
Why Work by Referral?
(…continued from page 17)
Many people think they are already working by referral when in fact they have a word-of-mouth business. Let me give you some examples of word of mouth. Has this ever happened to you? A friend of a friend or a friend of a family member does a transaction but does not use you? Someone tells you about his or her acquaintance who wants to move: “I gave them your card and told them to call you!” Yet you never heard from that person?
These are classic ‘word-of-mouth’ symptoms and the reason people don’t spend time, money or attention on the referral side of their business is that they believe they can’t direct it. They feel that referrals just show up out of the blue whenever they show up. At Buffini & Company, we’ve taken the Working by Referral system and engineered it so that it’s duplicateable and produces a steady stream of high-quality referred clients. That’s why I’m so excited about the relationship we’ve entered into with Royal LePage. Whether it is our 100 Days to Greatness® training program or collaboration on a number of events, it excites me to see a company with the same values and principles that I was raised with get a hold of real estate’s most powerful marketing system.
Working by Referral
If there is one element the service industries have in common it is the importance of relationships. Building relationships is the cornerstone of a successful real estate business but the typical way a lead is generated in this business is all too often non-relational (i.e. cold calling, door knocking, etc.).
When I first entered the real estate industry in San Diego, my personal philosophy on how to treat people did not seem to sync up with these traditional methods. The day I realized that clients who appreciated the service I provided would actually help me build my business by referring others to me was the day my career changed forever.
I saw great success as an agent because I implemented a systematic approach to generating referred leads. With referred clients, any obstacles we encountered did not become disputes – they were simply challenges we worked together to overcome.
A systematic and proactive approach
I believe that without a system, you are simply waiting for word-of-mouth
business. With a systematic and proactive approach to lead-generation by referral you are actively creating opportunities to get leads, not ‘waiting’ for them. So let’s take a look at how you can achieve this:
Build – Gather the names of all those you know, including past clients.
Sort – Prioritize this database and consistently communicate with those who refer you most.
“A’s” – most likely to refer you.
“B’s” – would refer you, if asked and shown how.
“C’s” – might refer you in the future.
“D’s” – names to be deleted from your database – it’s good to get rid of a headache, so do this up front!
Qualify – Using targeted dialogues, continually prune and refine this database to determine who is willing to do business with and refer you.
As you can see, you don’t need to market to everyone; you just need to market to your most responsive audience. Provide first-class service and value to your high referring clients and you’ll cultivate a core group of advocates for your business.
“Client Appreciation Program”
At Buffini & Company, we teach our Members to implement what we term a “Client Appreciation Program”. Often, salespeople “forget” about their customer after the sale is made but we teach a 3-pronged communication system designed to stay in contact with clients after the sale is made. This system has three elements: • Contact (Calls and ‘Items of Value’)
• Care (Personal Notes and “Pop-Bys” - visiting clients with a small, meaningful gift)
• Community (Business luncheons and client parties)
Provide first-class service and the referrals pour in
It is important to let clients know that instead of prospecting for business you devote your time to serving their needs. I based this system on the philosophy of “Give, Ask & Receive.” I gave outstanding service and provided “Items of Value” to my customers, I followed-up each conversation with a request for referrals, and because I had provided first-class service – the referrals poured in. This is really about being intentional.
It is a proven system based on principles that stem from the heart of sales: relationships. Working this system this way means that you’ll not only be able to put your name to the work you do, your clients will be more than pleased to put their name to you and refer you to all their friends. I guess as much as things change is as much as they stay the same!
Brian Buffini is the Chairman/Founder of Buffini & Company. Headquartered in San Diego, Buffini & Company is the largest real estate training and coaching company in North America.
