In today’s information age, referrals, which were our lifeline as financial advisors for decades, are dead. Everyone has everyone else’s name and number. The good news, though, is that referrals as we knew them are reborn as introduced referrals — or as my mentor calls them, recommendations.
Recommendations are pure gold. I’ve been in this business for more than 24 years, and in the last five years, I’ve made a simple shift from referrals to recommendations using three scripts. I will share one in this blog post and the two others you can see in my 2025 MDRT Global Conference presentation.
The first script to convert a referral into a recommendation goes like this:
“Joseph, thank you so much for giving me Antony’s name. Could you recommend Antony to me over a cup of coffee or a meal? Actually, can the three of us catch up tomorrow or this Saturday at the Grand Hyatt for lunch?”
It’s very important that I name my customer’s favorite restaurant in the script. When I use this, 60% of my clients say yes to this lunch meeting, but 40% still say no. When they say no, I move to my second script, which you’ll find in my meeting presentation.
Here comes the four times magic of recommendations. When I meet Antony one-to-one, my conversion is minimum of times two. Let’s say that I would’ve made one sale from four referrals. Now, I would get one sale from two recommendations.
Second, my case size at least doubled. If I received $10,000 from a referral sale, I would get minimum $20,000 from a recommendation sale. I’ve received as high as five times, or $50,000, very easily from the recommendation meeting. The case size is so high because a trusted friend has vetted me, tried my service, liked my service and then personally recommended me.
Now, when Antony becomes my client, he assumes that this recommendation style is how I work and recommends all his friends over a cup of coffee or a meal. The magic of the recommendation cycle will continue automatically.
Sudhakar Gabriel is a 10-year MDRT member and a Court of the Table member.
Excellent idea I will enforce immediately