The greatest compliment you can give me is a referral. That sounds like something Jimmy Stewart would say. Which means it's as dated as the reference.

Passive Email

What's worse? Seeing that statement after your email signature. That says to me, "I'd like a referral please, but I'm too afraid to ask you."

It should be scary, and it should feel awkward, and you should be embarrassed. Why? You didn't do anything to earn it. All you did was YOUR JOB.

Social Media

LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. are platforms for sharing information. They're also informal and the wrong place to ask for something so personal.

Spam

Unless you're Jimmy Stewart, who died before email was created, you shouldn't be emailing someone for a referral. The one exception would be if you're buying referrals. "Send me a referral and I'll give you a $50 Amazon gift card!" And if that's how you're doing business I'll pray for you tonight.

Your commission is your reward for administering the transaction of insurance. You shouldn't expect anything more.

It's like the tip jar that appears everywhere in NYC from fast food joints to shoe stores. Yes, shoe stores. Come to Broadway & Canal.

The right way to ask for a referral is face to face or over the phone. And there is an art to getting a great referral. Here are a couple of ideas on how to get a well qualified lead.

By well qualified I mean you're not going to ask them if they'd like a FREE QUOTE. You're going to lead with helping them with a challenge they have that you can solve.

You Saved them Money

If you've got amazing market access and/or you saved a client money without reducing coverages, that is worth a conversation. Call your client.

You Lowered their MOD

Not many brokers are talking about Risk Management let alone taking action. If you've put a plan in place like safety training to create a safety culture and it lowered your clients MOD, congrats! Get a referral for that.

You Solved their Problem

Do you have a specialty program that is unique to your client's industry? Call them and ask them if they have any friends in that industry that could benefit.

You Protected their Wealth

Did you or one of your services prevent your clients from making a bad decision with an employee like a termination or manager retaliation? EPLI doesn't cover everything, but you were there looking out for them. That's worth a referral.

If you do more for your clients than just being the middleman between them and the carrier then you're doing more than 90% of agents. That is worth a referral! Here is how you ask:

"Hi Mrs. Customer, did you know we (insert what you did for them) which resulted in you (saving money, not getting sued, not losing your wealth)? What does that mean to you and your business? Is there anyone you know that would benefit from that type of service?"

It's a soft market, you need to get creative. Or you could just put out a tip jar.

-R