Customer References: Your Sales Force is your Recruiting Team

This guest blog is by Kelley Lynn Kassa, an award-winning marketing and public relations professional. Kelley's current role is Director of marketing communications for High Start Group.

“We need customer references.” This statement can strike fear and confusion in the heart of a sales person. Or, it can motivate them to deliver the references marketing needs.
My experience in working with sales teams to develop customer references range from creating reference programs from scratch for startups to participating in formalized, cross-division reference programs in large, blue-chip businesses. Based on this experience, I’ve developed some general guidelines that will help the marketer to entice the sales team to recruit valuable customer references.

Remove the fear
Being a customer reference can mean many things to many people. It can range from being featured in a video to allowing an industry analyst or third party to examine how a product is being used by a customer. Whether you are asking a sales rep to find a customer reference or a customer to be a reference, you need to realize they may not understand what you are asking.
If the person doesn’t understand what being a reference is to your company, they are likely to simply say no.

Educate, educate, educate
Your sales force is likely your best ally in developing customer references. Cultivate them. Educate them on what you need, what your process is and why it is beneficial for the customer and the sales rep. Ask for a speaking slot at your company’s annual sales event. Build trust and understanding by being transparent with the sales force.

Incentives for the sales force
The average sales person is most focused on sales. Everything else is peripheral. As a result, you need to motive reps to provide you with customer references. The best way to do this is to understand your corporate culture and what would work. Some examples include:

Cash. One company I worked with paid sales reps $200 per qualified customer reference.
Prizes. If you don’t want to offer cash, you can offer non-cash rewards. These can range from company shirts to gift certificates.
Contests. Short on references? Hold a contest – get the sales force competing for most qualified references; highest-value reference, etc. Just remember to factor in the sales cycle; if Q3 is your busiest quarter, don’t try to have a reference contest during that quarter. Look for a slower, nurturing quarter.
Kudos. Don’t discount the value of a thank you. Determine what kind of public thank you will work for your company and your sales team. A profile on a bulletin board might work; a feature in a company newsletter might work. Praising the reference stars can also help to motivate others to participate.
Perks such as Presidents Club. Some sales teams have perks such as Presidents Clubs – earning a trip based on exceeding quota. Qualified references could earn points to help them get that trip to Bermuda.
Annual reviews. Personally, I’ve found this is not the best way to motivate the sales team, but it does work for some companies. Reps are required to generate a certain number of customer references per year, and this is factored into their annual reviews.

In a way, customer references are like annual health checkups: everyone agrees they are good, but few want to go to the “trouble” of getting them. As a marketer, if you want and need customer references, you need to get the sales team excited, interested, and invested in providing you with references for qualification.