I want you to think back to your high school or universitypsychology class.

Do you remember learning about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Ialways remember that the first level is physiological like:breathing, food, water, sleep, etc.

After that my memory is fuzzy. I’m thinking beer, pizza andMonday Night Football — but that may be a little off.

You may be wondering “What is the hierarchy related toreferrals?” Because I have a B.A. in sociology and a B.S. inreferrals, I’ve created my own hierarchy. I hope you find thesedistinctions helpful so you take more effective action.

Word of mouth

If you owned a restaurant, you would probably thrive with greatword-of-mouth marketing. However, for most businesses,word-of-mouth marketing simply isn’t enough to keep the lights on,let alone grow at a nice pace.

With that said, I sure hope that you are garnering some word ofmouth that generates unsolicited business. If you aren’t,you may not be as referable as you think.

Referrals

The word referral can actually encompass a pretty wide rangeof related activities. Heck, I named my business Referral CoachInternational. So for me, I use the word referral as a largeconcept under which these five terms reside.

For the purpose of this hierarchy, I’m using the word referralsin the context that is often referred to as referred leads, meaningyour referral source tells you “Give George a call and use my name.That should be all you need.”

Guess what? That’s usually NOT all you need. These days, it’sjust so darn hard to reach people, dropping their friend’s nameinto your message (voice or email) simply doesn’t work as well asit used to.

If this is all your referral source iswilling to do, all is not completely lost. You can still do somewarm research where you learn as much as you can about your newprospect from your source AND you can do some cold research on theinternet, such as finding George’s company’s website and hisLinkedIn profile. This research might help you leave a verywell-informed and compelling message for this prospect.

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Recommendations

Now we’re getting into more productive territory. We have thereferral source reaching out to their friend or colleague in thespirit of recommending you and the valuable work you do. Arecommendation comes with a sense of endorsement — that havinga conversation with you is worth the investment of their time.

Almost all of your referral sources want to protect theirrelationships. In some cases, they’ll want to have a conversationwith their friend or colleague before you take any action. Andsometimes all they want to do is to give their friend or colleaguea heads up that you’ll be reaching out to them.

This recommendation could come in the form of a text, email,phone call or even in-person conversation. “George, takeHeather’s call. It will be worth hearing what she has to say. Infact, she has a set of questions that will really get youthinking.”

Introductions

While the first three categories all have value and can lead tosome results, the robust results start to come when you getintroduced to your prospects.

Email introductions (email handshakes) can be veryeffective. “George meet Heather. She’s been my financialadvisor for over 5 years and I suspect you’ll find a lot of valuein her council. Heather meet George. As I mentioned, George is mybrother-in-law, so I’ve known him for over 30 years. He’s basicallya pretty nice guy — as far as brother-in-laws go.”

Advocacy

Advocacy is the highest level because your advocates usually createthe best connections; introductions that actually turn intoclients.

First, they truly advocate for your value and who youare as a person. They understand your value andwant others to experience it. And they like and trust you, so theywant to help you in addition to helping their friends andcolleagues.

Second, they usually take a stake in having the introduction gothrough. After making the first connection, they’ll circle back tomake sure you and their friend have connected.

Your action step

With these new distinctions, I hope your referral program willno longer allow you to settle for word of mouth or referred leads.Instead, you’ll up the quality of your introductions so you’llserve more people, make more money and have morefun.

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