The Rick Hunter Referral Strategy |

Action Plan

THE RICK HUNTER REFERRAL STRATEGY

This strategy builds upon your current database to get appointments with your highest-value targets.

SECTION 1: GETTING STARTED

How to get the most out of this action plan

Here’s how to get the most out of the content in this Action Plan:

1. Read the entire AP once – Read through this entire AP, watch any videos and download the resources. Don’t execute on the steps until you have finished reading the entire AP. This will help you understand the progression of the steps and put them into context.

2.Complete the steps – This Action Plan is a checklist. Each step builds upon the next. Complete each step in order. Please post all questions in the Linked University VIP Club.

Please bring questions about this Action Plan to the monthly group coaching call. The call takes place at 10 am CST on the last Thursday of the month. To register, please click here.

The Rick Hunter Referral Strategy Overview

I have a quick question for you…

What makes the absolute best business lead?

In a perfect world, it would be someone who already knows about you and your company and has a favorable impression of you. Even better, maybe they’ve even heard a raving review of you from a friend, colleague, or family member who has directly told them to call you.

Of course, those types of leads are called referrals and as you already know, they’re the easiest lead you’ll ever close. They’re a gold mine.

A gold mine with a big *IF* attached.

Here’s the Big “IF”

Referrals are a gold mine IF you can find a way to get a steady flow of them coming in on a regular basis to keep your business rolling along steadily.

But for most people, referrals are an every once in a while thing. They’re like a nice surprise. “Hey! We got a referral from Bill. Cool!” They come in hit and miss – like a very slow drip, not a steady flow.

And although they’re always welcome, a nice surprise like that every now and then isn’t going to float the boat long-term.

The alternative to waiting for referrals to happen is to actively seek them out by working your existing contacts and networking. That, too comes with a downside though.

A lot of people aren’t big networkers. Maybe that even describes you.

So if you’re someone who doesn’t love reaching out to complete strangers or working a room, what can you do to generate more referrals? Are you stuck with the every now and then slow drip of these incredibly valuable leads?

Not at all. We’ve actually developed an incredibly powerful referral generation strategy that gets around those barriers.

In this Action, we are going to show you a very potent referral generation strategy that LinkedSelling (and our clients) have been successfully using for years that will allow you to proactively go out and get targeted referrals with prospects who are a perfect fit for your business.

This strategy will allow you to create that steady flow of super-valuable referrals without having to approach total strangers. It’s a super warm approach that works like gangbusters.

The Rick Hunter Strategy is a scripted LinkedIn outreach process we’ve developed that consistently gets an average of 70% favorable responses from targeted prospects for us (and our clients who use our entire system).

Let’s dive in…

SECTION 2: A BIZ DEV PROCESS WITH A 70% RESPONSE RATE

Strategy By The Numbers

For our purposes in this Action Plan, we’re going to use Architecture as the target industry. This is just an example, and this strategy will work for any industry in any part of the world.

Step 1: Do a LinkedIn Search for Your Target Area

Step 2: Check Your Shared Connections

After scanning the results of your search (on the screenshot above), let’s say we identify Tyler Stephens as a perfect prospect. You can see that I have 16 shared connections with Tyler, so I want to identify one of my good existing connections to help me connect with Tyler.

In this case, I chose Rick Hunter.

Step 3: Ask Your Shared Connection for Permission to Mention Their Name When You Reach Out to Your Target

In this step, we’re going to send a short message to Rick to ask if it’s ok to mention his name when we approach our target. The key here is to make it very easy for them to say “yes.”

Let’s fast forward to after Rick responds and says, “Absolutely! Go for it.”

Step 4: Get to Know Your Target’s Profile and Send a Simple Connection Request

Having gotten the green light from your connection, you’d now go familiarize yourself with Tyler’s profile and send him a simple connection request to take the next step – which would be some sort of one-to-one contact. An appointment.

By sending the right kind of connection request, you’re leveraging the relationship you have with the shared connection (in this case Rick) to get your target to respond to you. This kind of approach that you see in the screenshot, is tremendously effective. It’s very hard to say “no” to.

Over the years, we’ve developed, tested, and tweaked many messaging scripts until they’re as effective as possible. I’m sharing one of them with you here, but keep in mind that in order to be as effective as possible, all scripts should be properly customized depending upon your type of business and several other factors.

The messaging scripts need to be in your own language – and above all else, not sound like a sales pitch. You need to keep it simple and sincere at this point to position yourself properly.

Step 5: Send a Follow-Up Email

Next, you’ll send a short follow-up email. There’s no need to wait a day or two after the connection request. We’ve designed the follow-up email script to be perfectly appropriate to use right away.

The Rick Hunter Referral Strategy – A Business Development Process with a 70% Response Rate

Please Note: Don’t get distracted by the outdated LinkedIn UI…it may look a little different different, but the strategy stays the same!

Additional Resources

Referral Strategy Scripts

How to Get a Ton of Targeted Referrals & Be a More Productive Networker Using LinkedIn

Setting Up a Referral Strategy Utilizing Your Most Valuable Asset: Your Clients

Why Most People Suck at Cold Outreach

A good companion to this strategy is a webinar we did a while back with Neville Medhora.

While the webinar was all about “cold email” the same strategies can be applied to the copy and messages you send on LinkedIn!

Here’s the video:

Why Most People Suck at Cold Email

SECTION 3: FINAL THOUGHTS

The Big Picture

As we’ve mentioned before, the process averages a 70% favorable response rate. As long as you implement the ENTIRE PROCESS.

Just remember that the approach and the script needs to be customized to your business for it to be as effective as possible. And you need the follow up process, too.

Here’s the system, one more time:

1. Find a targeted prospect that you share mutual connections with.

2. Get the introduction from your shared connection.

3. Reach out and connect with the prospect.

4. Follow-up with an email.

That’s it! Now keep those referrals coming!

What's Next?

Now that you have the five simple steps of the Rick Hunter Strategy, put it in play. Start staking out your target industries and identifying shared connections you could approach in this way.

If you follow these steps as I’ve outlined, you’ll find that getting warm, qualified referrals on a consistent basis becomes much easier and more consistent. You’ll be connecting with the most sought-after prospects in your market and booking appointments with a large percentage of them.

Tell us what you think!

Find us in the Linked U VIP Club and start a new discussion thread to talk shop, get feedback on scripts, or help with identifying the right people to reach out to.