Increase Your Referrals X 5

Word-of-mouth is the most productive marketing. Referrals, for the most part, are cheap and very powerful. Assuming your customers have positive and flowery things to say about your product or service, they will do all the advertising for you at essentially no cost.

However, most business owners struggle to do two things with word-of-mouth: control it and scale it. Unlike other marketing channels, a business owner has little control over what people say. And since the marketing is delivered one-to-one, it is hard to build massive scale through word-of-mouth.

Or can you? Can a business owner both control word-of-mouth and build scale? Here are five ways to do just that. Not all ways will ensure total control and scalability. Nevertheless, these are tried and true tactics that will result in increased referrals:

1) Ask for Referrals: if you don’t ask for a referral, how are you going to get one? One might drop in your lap, but only on occasion. Be sure to ask your current customers, prospects and leads for referrals frequently. Even if you weren’t able to close a sale with one prospect, don’t go away totally empty. Ask the prospect for the names of other people or businesses that could use your service. Failing that, give the prospect a stack of your business cards and ask them to give them out to their colleagues.

2) Give Incentives: money talks. Make it known that you will pay for referrals. One client of mine offers 25% of her commission for referral that she closes. 25% is very generous. If you choose to incent referrals, make sure you deliver on your promise. Failing to pay when you’ve offered to do so, will destroy your reputation quickly.

3) Stay Top of Mind: if you are the first business people think of when your product/service is needed, referrals will line up. Achieving top of mind status requires a consistent, diligent and long term marketing plan. It’s not something you do overnight. Get out in front of everything and everyone and build your brand to stay top of mind.

4) Give Value for Free: the number one way I generate prospects and leads is through workshops and presentations. I generally give them for free. Free samples go a long way to establishing a brand and generating referrals. Think about something valuable you can give away and turn that into a referral. (Quick note: you might give away something for no money, but be sure to get something in return like contact information or additional referrals).

5) Do a Good Job: perhaps too obvious, but too many of my clients focus on the short term. Think long term to ensure that the quality you deliver to a one-time client is the same you would deliver to a long-time client. Simply doing a good job will increase your referrals exponentially.

Tune in for future posts because this is just scratching the surface on how to generate more referrals. Believe it or not, you can control word-of-mouth and you can build scale.