Referrals are essential to building a business that lasts. They not only build your sales, they build your reputation as well. Today sales trainer Paul McCord shares three secrets that will help you get those high-quality referrals you deserve!

Are you finding that you're just not getting the number of quality referrals you want from your clients? Chances are you said yes because that's the case with most sellers. Oh, sure, we all have some clients that will give us referrals all day long. Just ask and they'll give you name after name. Other clients, the majority, aren't nearly as generous with their referrals.

The biggest problem in both cases is so often the referral we get isn't much better than pointing at a name in the phonebook at random.

How can you guarantee that you get great referrals? Simple. Make sure the client gives you a great referral by finding the referral for them to give you, rather than relying on them coming up with a quality referral to give.

The reality is that clients really don't know who we're looking for and most of them just don't have a real incentive to invest the time and energy to come up with a great referral for us.

But we know who is a great referral for us. And certainly we're willing to invest the time and energy to find a great referral (if we're not, we have some real serious issues to deal with).

Since we're the one with the need; and we're the one with the desire; and we're the one who knows who makes a good referral for us, why would we rely on anyone else other than our self to come up with the referral?

So how can we come up with the referral for our client to give us?

Here are three steps to guaranteeing you get great referrals from your clients:

1.Get Your Client On-board to Give Referrals. Most sellers wait until after the sale has been completed before they bring up the idea of referrals. Bad idea.

Most clients need time to get comfortable with the idea of giving referrals, so bring up referrals early in the relationship. Don't ask for referrals; just let your client know that your business is built on referrals and then drop referral seeds as the sale progresses. Since your prospects and clients aren't stupid, if they hear you mention referrals often in a casual manner, they'll get the impression referrals are important to you and they will be expecting you to ask for them at some point.

2. Find Out Who Your Client Knows. We've already established that in order to get great referrals you have to do the work for your client, so do it by discovering during the course of the relationship who they know that you know you want to be referred to.

How do you find out? Through small-talk (who do they mention in conversation they know); paying attention to what's in their environment (pictures, association directories, membership plaques, and such); their background (where did they work previously); their work (what vendors and suppliers do they interact with). Your job is to be a detective and to uncover the relationships they have with people or companies that you know you want to be referred to. The more you uncover the more quality referrals you uncover.

3. Don't Ask for Referrals, Ask for THE Referral. Now when it comes time to ask for referrals, you're not going to be like every other seller and ask a weak question such as, "Donna, do you happen to know anyone else (or another company) that might be able to use my products or services (or that I can help--or any other such weak question)?"

Instead you're going to ask for a specific referral: "Donna, I've been trying to connect with David Jones for some time without success. You mentioned that you've worked with David for several years, would you be comfortable introducing me to him?" You know she knows David. You have reason to believe David is a good prospect for you. Don't waste Donna's time with that weak general referral question; ask to get connected to a person you know she knows that you know you want to connect with.

Referrals can be the foundation of your sales business if you just develop the skills necessary to be a referral-based salesperson. If Donna knows three people or companies you know you want to be referred to and you can get introductions to them from her, how much time and energy have you saved getting those three introductions through referrals instead of cold calling or sending out direct mail or hoping to bump into them at a networking event?

Forget what you've been taught about asking for referrals. Referral generation is a PROACTIVE process where you do the work, not your client. Your client doesn't have the motivation, you do. They don't have the understanding of who makes a good referral like you do. Your client doesn't have the time to invest in figuring out a good referral like you do. It's your business, not theirs. Make it easy to give quality referrals--you'll get a ton of them if you do.

Paul McCord, a leading Business Development Strategist and president of McCord Training, works with companies and sales leaders to help them increase sales and profits by finding and connecting with high quality prospects in ways prospects respect and respond to. An internationally recognized author, speaker, trainer and consultant, Paul's clients range from giants such as Chase, New York Life, Siemens, and GE, to small and mid-size firms, as well as individual sales leaders. He is the author of the popular Sales and Sales Management Blog.