I attended a presentation by Dan Allison recently. He is a US-based trainer that works with finance professionals to help them generate more referrals. It was one of the best presentations I have been to for a long time.

Anyway, Dan explained this concept of 'gold mines' versus 'land mines'.

A land mine is a person that will never give you a referral no matter how awesome the service you offer is. It's not about you and what you did or didn't do. Its about their personality. They view making a referral as risky. What happens if you have a bad experience, don't like their broker, stuff up your relationship relationship with them (because the referred person wastes your time, and so on). Referrals are just too risky.

Whereas a gold mine is someone that loves to give referrals. They don't see it as risky. They see it purely as helping their friends. If they don't like their broker, then its their fault. They realise they aren't responsible for the results.

Often, we have been trained to treat all clients the same. If we haven't received a referral, ask for one. Or work harder to earn one. Use cheesing lines like "can you give me the names of 3 people that I can help in the same way I have helped you" and so on. If you say that to a land mine, you'll make them feel uncomfortable and probably burn your relationship!

You must look at your clients as land mines and gold mines. There will be some clients in the middle. For now, just focus on the gold mines.

•List the clients that you would hate to lose but love to clone

•Think about the ones that have given you referrals versus the ones that have not - is there any commonality in personalities?

•keep this list as we will work on these clients more in the second part of this podcast. Until then, stop treating all your clients that same.