Your Cowardly Ways Cheat Your Clients-- And Your Prospect Pipeline

Let’s start with some deductive reasoning –

As a producer, writing new business is your primary goal
Writing new business means you have to get in front of qualified candidates
You can’t get in front of qualified candidates if you don’t spend time prospecting
But, the more time you spend searching for prospects, the less time you have to spend with active prospects and clients
Bottom line, it isn’t enough to just spend time prospecting, you have to be efficient with that time

To that bottom line, there is no more efficient way to feed your prospect pipeline than with targeted introductions from your best clients. Period.

Yet, almost every producer I talk to admits to not proactively asking their best clients for those introductions. There are only three reasons as to why this can be.

You don’t do a good enough job to have earned the privilege (Rarely the case).
Your clients don’t like you enough to do you a favor (Even more rare).
You are afraid and/or don’t know how (BY FAR, the most common reason, but also easily fixed).

Because we’re talking about prospecting here, I’m not going to get into any detail on the first two points.

If you truly haven’t done a good enough job, then you have bigger issues to deal with than new referrals.
If you don’t think your clients like you enough, channel your inner Stuart Smalley – You’re good enough. You’re smart enough. And, doggone it, your clients like you.

Now, for the other 98% of you who are doing a good enough job and who have clients who appreciate you for the job you do, it’s time to face your irrational fear. And, if you won’t face it for yourself, realize that you need to face it for the benefit of the very clients you are avoiding.

Take a quick look back at the deductive reasoning at the top of this post. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Stronger relationships; higher close ratios

Targeted referrals from your best clients to their strongest relationships are, without a close second, the highest quality opportunities you can put in your pipeline. They will be larger in size and have a higher close ratio. Because of that, you will hit your sales goal in the most efficient manner possible.

By not asking your clients for these targeted introductions, you make the job of prospecting more difficult. Without trusted introductions:

You are going to face more “no thank yous” when prospecting, adding significantly to your prospecting time.
You will end up working on smaller accounts, which means you need to spend even more time prospecting to increase the quantity, to make up for the lower quality.
Your conversion/close ratios will be lower, again adding to your time spent prospecting.

Not only does all this additional prospecting time come with a huge “suck factor” for you, you are stealing this time from your existing clients. This additional time spent prospecting is time your clients no longer have access to your attention. It drastically reduces the time you have available help address their challenges and problems. They are now getting less value from their relationship with you.