Here are two scenarios that show how you can create a bandwagon effect that should prove alluring to your best potential referral sources.

Scenario One: A Positive Report

At a recent dinner party, I sat with a fraternity brother to whom I had not talked in years. (He is a CPA and is probably reading this article. Hello, Tony.) Tony is one of the best and most connected guys I know, and he has always been generous, albeit discerning, in sharing his connections to help people get ahead. He asked if I was still helping lawyers and CPAs with their marketing. When I answered “yes,” he asked, in a moderately interested tone, “So how is that going?”

Allow me to break away for a moment to point out that questions like Tony’s represent a critical moment in such conversations, and how we respond sets the tone for what follows. “How’s it going?” is a socially obligatory question, often asked in lieu of something more original and without a care as to the answer. A one-word reply, even a positive one — “good,” “great,” “awesome” — doesn’t give the other person much to sink his teeth into and generally serves to put the brakes to what could be a very productive exchange. Now, back to Tony.

Trust me, I did not have a pecuniary motive for how I answered his “how’s it going” question. But it just so happened that, earlier that day, I had reviewed my financial information for the past quarter and, thanks to the Almighty’s providence, it looked really good.  So I said, “Tony, last year was my best year ever, last quarter was my best quarter ever, and last month was my best month ever.” The way Tony looked at me seemed to change a little. After staring at me for a few moments, he told me about an attorney friend who was trying to expand his firm, and he told me to call him. I did, the attorney returned my call (I suspect that Tony played a role in that), and the story had a happy ending.

That happy ending had nothing to do with my marketing prowess, such as it is. It had everything to do with a random experience that taught me that a positive, prosaic description of what’s going on in your practice can create a bandwagon onto which referral sources can climb – once they conclude you don’t really need their help.

Scenario Two: A Compelling Future

The Tony experience was a passive example of what can happen when you say the right thing to the right person. But as one of my clients proved, actively involving a friend or supportive acquaintance in your marketing plans offers a greater and more consistent payoff. The key here: respond to their “how’s it going?” question with a compelling account not of where you’ve been, but where you’re going.

Over a period of a few weeks, David scheduled lunches with six or seven of his favorite clients. When they asked how he was doing, David responded with something like this: “Things are great. In fact, I’m coming off my best year ever. My practice grew by 17 percent, and I’m going to use that momentum to grow it by 25 percent this year.” He went on to describe what his practice growth would allow him to do – buy a summer place in Carmel, send his son to Stanford, make a big gift to the church, and so on. David told me that, more often than not, his clients would respond with, “How are you going to do that?” David’s response: “I’m going to target prospects that have certain characteristics.” He would then describe his ideal prospect – by age, industry, income level, ambition, character, shoe size – until his client would interrupt him to say, “You should talk to (blank).” To which David would reply, “I’d love to meet him. You set up lunch, and I’ll buy.”

David understood that quality clients associate with, and have influence over, quality prospects. What made it easy for his clients to think of someone was that David’s description of his ideal prospect sounded just like that client – age, income level, ambition, character. The keys to making David’s strategy work:

• a compelling vision for the future,

• a standard for attracting referrals only from his favorite clients, and

• the tendency for people, when hearing a list of personal qualities, to automatically scan their mental database for people who have those qualities, and then to blurt out their names.

Be Willing to Ask for Help

In Winning with People, John Maxwell writes about the power of telling people that you need them. If Tony hadn’t recommended that I call his attorney friend, I could have told Tony that I had had a good year, that I wanted to have another one, and that I needed his help. Being the kind of person Tony is, he would have come through.

If David’s clients hadn’t asked how he planned to achieve phenomenal growth, David could have said, “I’ve never achieved that kind of growth, and I can’t do it on my own. I need your help. The people I want to attract to my practice…” and then begin his list of those client’s personal qualities.

Try it. Have the right conversation with the right people, and names and introductions will often follow.

Norm Hulcher is a Phoenix-based client development consultant. His firm, Hulcher & Hays (www.hulcher.net), provides marketing training, one-on-one coaching, and marketing materials production for law and accounting firms in Arizona and other states.

AZ CPA – September 2006