Saturday, August 14, 2010

Generate Qualified Referrals Systematically

Whether you join a networking group like BNI or you're trying to get your clients to refer others to you, one thing is certain, when the referrals show up, you want them to be qualified referrals.

Let's face it, it's wonderful when most people show up to do business with us, but it's also disappointing when you receive people who are not your ideal prospect.

So let's talk about a great strategy for generating qualified referrals so that when they arrive on your door step, you're both thrilled to have found each other, and the referral is eager to do business with you.

There are several ways to generate referrals for your business and there's one method to obtaining qualified referrals consistently. That is make it sytematic. Making it systematic means creating a process in your business flow that is linked to generating referrals. There can be more than one system as well, depending on the ways your clients come through your business.

So, for instance a home-cleaning company can send a thank you greeting card to their clients and the card can also suggest or ask for a referral. It's systematic because it happens reliably upon completion of a service or, say, every 3 months. And you can even add an incentive such as a $20 referral bonus or discount for each referral received. Or you can send the same referral coupon out each time you invoice a client - again making it systematic. I like myself the greeting card approach, because people tend to hold on to the 5 X 7 card longer than any other correspondence they will receive in the mail and you can make it STAND OUT as being something distinctive in a positive way for your client to make them feel special and most importantly appreciated.

No comments:

Post a Comment