I'd like to introduce Glitch #159. What are glitches? When we consulted with thousands of small business owners during the pandemic, to assist with securing disaster funding in the United States, we quickly uncovered a woeful deficit in the small business arena.
There were countless business owners ill-equipped to manage the "DIY" process of applying for a business loan. Whether it was how they organized their company documents, managed their finances, or filed taxes, there were many issues we saw that lowered the probability of a loan approval and heightened the probability of a loan declination.
It was a challenging time for all. The U.S. government capped our consulting fee, but the time necessary to rectify the errors on both sides of the process, the business owner's application request and the loan representative underwriting the loan, the errors seemed insurmountable at times.
We reported various oversights on our Youtube channel and streamlined the onboarding process to aid in getting what information, we knew would assist, out to as many people as possible.
When the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program ended, we shifted our focus to begin sharing fundamental, operational considerations with small business owners in the United States and likely globally as well.
We launched a Web3 project with daily (or weekly) content that identified mistakes we saw during the pandemic. We rebranded the concept of "mistakes" to "glitches" and created the Biz Glitch Project.
it's an exclusive small business owner project with tips, insights, and reminders on the various issues we encounter when running a business.
There are 366 glitches, one for each day of the year (including Leap Year) because when you own a business, every day counts on honing skills including the ones that are a weakness.
Glitch #159 is in the Sales and Grow Your Business category. Typically each glitch has an opening question to prompt curiosity. There is a goal and an actionable item(s) as well. Many include additional supporting resources.
❓Conversations with customers: Have they, do they, will they refer family members or friends?
When I was in the life insurance business, I ran into two kinds of people.
a. Those who naturally refer people to professionals they like and trust.
b. Those who are naturally uncomfortable referring people.
I went through a couple of experiences related to this predicament.
I had a script on how to train people to feel like an advocate when they talk to friends and family. This helped to ease them into the action of reaching out to friends and family who may need assistance with life insurance.
The other incident almost cost me a dear friend, my best friend since 7th grade. I had called her to ask for a friend to help someone find a job. I didn’t tell her why I needed the number. She hesitated to give it to me. I asked her what was going on. She responded with trepidation because she thought I was going to ask them if they wanted to buy life insurance.
I was hurt and insulted. I exclaimed, "What does it matter if I want to sell them insurance?" This was my livelihood. I hung up in a huff, but what she didn’t tell me was that when she had given me a referral to a different friend a few years prior, and after I called the person she referred, the wife, of the couple she referred, ended up calling my friend and chastised her for giving me their phone number.
There are some people that don’t like to give referrals and some don’t like to get unsolicited calls from people looking to sell something.
It’s all in how we position the experience with the person who's making the referral and the person was was referred.
🎯 Goal: Take an emotional inventory of how comfortable you are with launching a referral campaign.
🚧 Actionable Item: Craft a referral script for when you're speaking with someone or for an email campaign.
💥 Here are written and verbal script examples courtesy of ChatGPT & Bard that you can reference to use no matter your product or service.
We hope you enjoy this and if you're curious about this project, you can get a sample of seven glitches for each of the first seven weeks of the project. Visit this page and complete the form to receive the download.
We welcome feedback on this glitch or any of the seven glitches if you decide to download them.
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I can totally see why your friend was hesitant. Her previous experience made her gun shy. And it may have cost you referrals in the years since that original less than ideal experience.
I can also see why the wife of the couple chastised your friend for giving you their phone number. In today's world we would call that opting in. They did not opt in to receive a solicitation from anyone. Doesn't matter that it happened to be you.
I think these days we are more careful with permission than we were in the past. I know I will double check with someone before connecting them with someone else. I'm guessing it's all the GDPR and privacy training in recent years.
Knowing what you know now, how would you have handled that situation differently?
Yah. That was over 20 years ago and things have changed quite a bit indeed. Qualifying prospects is a whole new process.
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