You will be able to ask a happy customer for one specific introduction at the right moment.
A client messages you on a Friday evening: "Thanks so much, first time I've understood our numbers." You feel good, reply with a thumbs up, and the moment passes. Three months later, when you finally ask the same client if they know anyone who might need help, they say, "Hmm, let me think," and you never hear about it again.
The client did not become less happy in those three months. You asked at the wrong moment and in the wrong way. This short lesson covers how to ask for one introduction so that it actually happens. Building a full referral habit is a bigger subject, and it has its own course.
Ask for an introduction right after a customer tells you something good about the result. Skip the invoice email, the end of a quarterly check-in, and any mass message to everyone you have ever served.
At that moment, the customer is thinking about what you did for them. The value is fresh and they can describe it in their own words. A week later it has become normal, and normal things are hard to recommend.
So when Mei's client sends that Friday message, the reply is not just a thumbs up. It is something like: "That's great to hear. Can I ask you something? Do you know any other founders who've just opened a second or third outlet? That's usually when the books get messy." She has asked inside the same conversation, while the client is still pleased.
For Darren, the moment might come at a review meeting, when a client says that knowing their family is covered lets them sleep better. He asks right then, before the meeting moves on to paperwork.
"Do you know anyone who might need my help?" is the question most people ask, and it almost always fails. It sends the customer searching through everyone they know, with no filter, and the brain gives up and says "not really".
Ask for a specific type of person instead. "Who else do you know who just opened a second outlet?" "Any friends from your antenatal class who were asking you about insurance?" "Do you know other clinic owners who are still doing their own payroll?"
A specific description lets the customer picture one or two faces straight away. It also tells them who you are good for, which means they are less likely to send you someone who does not fit your profile. Take the type straight from the profile you wrote in lesson 1.4, Write your ideal customer profile on one page, and phrase it the way a customer would.
Asking for a number has the opposite effect. "Could you give me three names?" turns a favour into a quota, and most people go quiet when they are handed one.
Even a willing customer stalls at the next step: they have to write a message that explains who you are. That feels like work, so it slides to tomorrow, then next week.
Offer to write it. "If it helps, I can send you a short message you can forward to her." Then send two or three sentences written as if the customer were speaking. Something like: "Hi Priya, my bookkeeper Mei sorted out our accounts after we opened in Jurong. She works with cafe groups our size. Happy to connect you if useful." The customer reads it, changes a word if they like, and forwards it. The whole favour now takes them thirty seconds.
Ask the customer to check with their friend before passing on contact details. An introduction where the other person has agreed to hear from you is warmer, and it keeps you on the right side of the consent rules in lesson 5.2, PDPA basics for prospecting: consent, purpose and records.
When the introduction arrives, reply quickly, thank the customer in a separate message, and tell them later how it went. People who see their introductions treated well make more of them.
This lesson treats referrals as one source among several in your prospecting, alongside your network and the sources in lesson 2.3. Turning referrals into a system, with a regular rhythm of asking, ways to thank introducers and content that makes people come to you, is covered in the course Social selling and referrals: LinkedIn, content and word of mouth.
For now, think of your three happiest customers and the type of person each of them is most likely to know. In the activity below you will write the one line you would say to each of them, and the line has to name the exact type of person you want to meet.
Write the one-line referral request you would use with your three happiest customers, naming the exact type of person you want to meet.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).