Straight From The Horses Mouth

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Referrals are the best business you can ever get. A person that has been referred has had the best possible sales message delivered, straight from the horse’s mouth…a trusted friend.

There are a couple of advantages to gaining referrals in your business, perhaps the most obvious is the fact that it didn’t cost you anything in advertising to get a business lead that comes through a referral.

Business expenses can be divided into two main categories;

1. Fixed expenses

2. Non-fixed

The fixed expenses are the things such as Internet connection, office space rental, phone connection etc. These expenses are reliably the same month in and month out. The non-fixed expenses are the ones that can vary depending on your activities. These are usually the expenses that are directly related to your profit margins.

Once you have covered your fixed expenses, it is a matter of how much you spend in getting and keeping customers that is going to effect your profits. The more effective you are in this area, the better your profits.

This is the reason why referrals are the best business leads you can ever have. Iit doesn’t cost you a single cent to get these customers and so on a individual basis, the value of these customers is extremely high.

Pre-Sold Customers

The wonderful thing about gaining referrals is that they are have already been sold on your product or service by the best possible salesperson on earth…a trusted friend! They have heard it straight from the horses mouth and so there is little or no doubt in their mind that they need, want, and can afford your product by the time they get to you.

I run an acupuncture clinic and I have never advertised, ever! When I moved to town, my very first patient was a referring machine. I have had more referrals from her than any single person.

People who call my clinic for an appointment don’t even ask any questions, they simply make an appointment. Their friends have already told them where I am, how much it will cost, and how long a treatment will take. Quite often the patient also has been educated that it will take a number of treatments to get the required results.

I remember when an acupuncture teacher of mine did a T.V show as a promo for his clinic, it was the worst possible publicity. We were spending a lot more time on the phone talking with people; they wanted to know, how long, how much, how do I get there, when will I be cured etc. It was an absolute nightmare!

How to Get Referrals

It is actually easier than you think. I do nothing except offer an excellent service, that is it. I never even solicit referrals but, I am always sure to thank people when they do refer someone. The 80/20 rule that is spoken of in business is absolutely true. I find that out of all of my patients, there would be at the most, only 20% that are consistant referrers. I know exactly who these people are and so I make an extra effort to fit these people in if they are in a pinch and I do the same for the people that they refer. This is an unspoken rule but there is a tacit understanding between me and my patients in regard to this.

One way I thank people is by sending them a card and thanking them for the referral. Just sending regular cards to clients is a powerful strategy on it’s own. One of the most successful salesman of all time, Tom Hopkins, used this method with phenomenal success. He was a realestate salesman and he would send personal thank you notes to customers every single day (not the same ones obviously).

If you are in realestate for example, sending a greeting card to a client every month or few months will keep you in the forefront of your clients mind. This way, when a friend of your clients mentions to them that they are in the market to buy a house, you are the first person that comes into their mind.

The other powerful thing that happens when you send a greeting card with your and or your clients photo on the inside of it is, a reluctance to throw it away. More often than not, it will become a topic of discussion when it is seen on the kitchen bench or on the refrigerator door.

Many realestate agents are using this method and finding it very powerful indeed. My advice for them is to take pictures of the client in front of their house with your sold sign on it. Perhaps take some pictures of them in the new house that you helped them find. It would then take you about 15 minutes to upload them to the card server, add a catchy slogan and preset the cards to go out every few months for the next year or even 2.

There is no doubt that this will increase you referrals…

Popularity: 89% [?]

A Little Bit of Appreciation Goes a Long Way

What is the top ingredient in any successful business? Happy, returning customers.

It is a pretty simple statement but when we stop and consider it, without our customers, we don’t have a business at all. With the speed at which information is exchanged on the Internet these days, acquiring customers is as hard as it has ever been.

Some businesses seem to spend most of their time, effort, and money on continually acquiring new customers and pay little or no attention to their existing customers.

One very powerful way of following up with your customers is sending them a personal thank you card for their business. The card should not make any extra offers just a plain and simple thank you card.

If your product is a repeat use product, then following up just before the customer is due to run out of that product is an excellent idea. There is no need to tell them that they need to order again, simply give them a helpful snippet of information about the product or some good advice about the use of the product will suffice.

Let’s take a nutritional product for example, in my experience perhaps the biggest problem is, people just stop taking things; they get busy and put it to the back of the pantry and forget about it. Sending a follow-up card in the mail a few weeks after the person has purchased from you can be very effective.

Remind the person why they purchased your product in the first place and give them some helpful tips to remind them about correct use of the product. At the end of the card, thank them for their business and let them know you are available should they have any questions.

When you sit down and figure out how much time, effort, and money goes into getting new customers, you will most likely be quite shocked. A greeting card with your own handwriting font, your logo, and a personal picture on the inside will cost you $1.34. If you wanted to do it on an even smaller budget, you could send a card for $0.72. This would be more basic but would still have your signature in it. These are high quality cards, in an envelope, and with a first class stamp.

How much do you think it would cost to get a business lead? This is a person that has not even committed to buying your product, a prospective customer. It is a lot more than $1.34, that is for sure!

Having a system in place where you send out a card to your existing customers once a month every month will make a huge difference to your customer relations and ultimately your bottom line.

There have been studies done on where most business spend their money and time, it is quite surprising. Just knowing this could give you a very handy edge over your competitors, you can read more about that here…

Popularity: 87% [?]