5 Strategies to Attract New Clients Part 3 Referrals
When it comes to a successful, growing business, referrals are the holy grail. Referrals come to you already trusting you since someone they trusted sent them. Referrals are typically your ideal clients since they are coming from your current clients, and people have a tendency to hang out with like-minded people. The marketing for referrals is typically close to nothing, which means the more referrals the less overhead.
And the best part of referrals… it tells you that you are doing something right!
Seriously no one is going to send a friend, co-worker, or family member to you if they don’t think you are going to make them look good.
So if we all agree that word of mouth business is the best, and we all want constant and never ending referrals, how do we help the process along?
The first thing is to make sure that you are providing a world class service/product. Make sure there is something that your business does that differentiates you from all of your competitors. Make sure that you are providing one step bigger and better than what the customer expects. If you are doing all of this, then your customers want to refer. Now you just have to help them along in the process.
Here is how:
1) Ask! I’ll never forget my first coach telling me to do this and I so did not want to. It felt strange to ask for a referral, I figured if they wanted to refer someone they would. My coach responded, “you don’t have to ask… just fail.” I started asking. Simply taking the opportunity when a client says something nice about your business to give them a card and say it would mean a lot to me if you passed that card onto someone else that you think could benefit from us.
2) Send a letter. When anyone starts with your business send them a welcome letter. Establish expectations let them know how genuinely excited you are to work with them. If at this point they think they made a good purchase then they would love to share your business with others. Send the letter and include some certificates or cards for them to pass on.
3) Run a contest. These are simply fun and always boost referrals. Every June we enter everyone that refers a patient into a drawing to win a grill for the 4th of July weekend. Our referrals that month always take off.
4) Share testimonials. Testimonials remind people of how good you are and sometimes open your client’s eyes to different things that you do. If they see a testimonial posted in your office, mailed as part of a newsletter, or posted on Facebook, they might think to themselves, hey I know someone just like that, that I could refer.
The point is… Referrals are the absolute best source of customers. You need to make sure you have some systems in place to help keep a steady flow.
If you want to get next month’s Blog, make sure to register.
Next Week: 5 Strategies to grow your business Part 4: Direct Marketing
