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Five Steps To Generating Better
Business Referrals
By
Kern Lewis
Your best source of new business is referrals from
happy customers or clients. You cannot receive a better lead
than one that has been sent your way with a strong referral. You
cannot have a more motivated prospect arrive in your store or
restaurant than someone sent there by a raving fan.
The challenge is: How do you get your satisfied
customers to actively promote you to their social and professional
networks?
The answer: You have to train them to do it, remind
them constantly, and make it head-slappingly easy.
Here are the five basic steps to more and better
referrals that all businesspeople should embed in their marketing
plan:
1. Constantly ask for referrals
Too many businesspeople forget to ask. The best time to do so? In
the midst of delivering excellent service, and regularly thereafter.
When working with real estate and mortgage agents, we discovered the
best time to ask for a referral was before the loan or home purchase
closed, while the agent was still actively involved with the client
and had their full trust and attention.
Don’t be shy, either. I had a client that thought it
would threaten his client relationships if he “cravenly asked for
referrals.” He thought that doing so would make him appear
desperate, and diminish him in his clients’ eyes. That is the wrong
mindset: You deliver great value to your customers, and want more
people to benefit from your talents. You should be proud to ask
“whom else do you know that I could help?” It took me months to get
that client to try asking proactively for referrals. When he
actually tried it systematically, he quickly landed a new $15,000
consulting contract. He still hesitates, but is solving that by
developing an “ask method” that fits with his professional demeanor,
and has set specific 2012 referral goals to keep himself motivated.
Always assume your clients would be happy to refer
you. Let them tell you if they are uncomfortable doing so. (Explore
why, too: There may be some lingering dissatisfaction that they are
keeping from you.)
2. Teach your customers how to refer you
This is the biggest improvement you can make in your referral
campaigning. Many clients would be happy to refer you, but don’t
know how to succinctly present you and your service to others. Solve
that by giving them:
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Cheat sheets with your core value proposition and
a handful of client results. These could be your brochure, or
simply buckslips that answer two questions: "What do I do?" and
“Why me?”
-
A permanent box in your printed and e-mailed
newsletters that answers the same questions (and entices the
reader to your site to get the full answer.)
-
Instructions on how to go on Yelp and other
review sites to give you a review
-
A request for referrals on the back of your
business card
3. Remind them to refer you
Talk to all current and past customers regularly, and always include
a request for referrals. My long-time real estate agent hasn’t
contracted business with me in ten years, but I get a letter from
him monthly in the mail that reminds me that he appreciates my
support and would love my referrals. (He freely admits in each
letter that referrals are the lifeblood of his business. This is a
real motivator for me because I want to help!)
4. Make it really easy
Add links to your website pages (in multiple places that make sense)
for all the review sites on which you appear (Yelp, Angie’s List,
etc.).
Put links to review sites in all your communications:
In every e-mail, repeated posted on your Facebook company page, in
direct mail (with instructions, in that case)
Post the answers to "What do I do?" and "Why me?" in
downloadable pdfs on your website. Share that link through all your
communication channels
Help them figure out how to describe their
experience. Many people are afraid of looking silly in print or
while taking to peers, so you can send them other reviews people
have done as models. (Never write the reviews for them. People can
spot fakes on review sites because they are written too well! It has
to be real words describing real experiences. The rougher the text,
the more reliable to the reader.)
5. Say “thank you,” and do it often
Reward the referrer with continual gestures of thanks and
recognition. In many businesses, this is limited by law to a verbal
“thank you” and a handshake. In others you can confer financial
rewards, but try not to go too far down that road. Buying them a
nice dinner is as far as I have ever gone. Keep it simple,
inexpensive and relevant to the size and number of referrals.
Remember, most referrers are motivated to help you
because you helped them, and don’t seek a lot of reward for
themselves. Plus, keep their effort in perspective. All they do is
make the connection, which takes a few minutes of their time, and
you do the rest of the work, so it doesn’t need to be a big reward.
The best reward would be a referral back to them, if appropriate for
their line of work.
_____________________
Kern Lewis is a marketing professional with
over 25 years of experience: Strategic marketing and product
development initiatives; new product launches, multi-channel
communications programs that have generated millions of dollars in
revenue growth.
Strong at conceptualizing and implementing creative
marketing strategies; Particularly effective at integrating and
strengthening marketing and sales initiatives to maximize sales
performance. |
