Are you getting referrals from you customers? If not, you are missing a lot of sales. Think about many of
sites you visit on web. Many of them will ask you to tell your friends, families and others who might be interested about them. For doing so, they offer you an incentive, for example, free stuff, gift certificates, etc. Let’s talk about off line. How about book club or record club you belong to. When you get mailings from them, ever notice card that says if you refer a friend they’ll give you a free book or CD. This is what is called an incentive.
Any marketing expert worth their salt will tell you that there’s no business like business you get from referrals. Why? Because for most part, people who refer others know that person will be interested, and it also indicates that they are happy with your product, so word of mouth (or in this day and age, email) will be good.
Unfortunately very few individuals are going to write you and tell you how happy they are with your product or services. You NEED TO ASK FOR REFERRALS! This applies to everyone – big businesses, small businesses, home based businesses, sales representatives, independent contractors. In fact good salespeople will ask for referral between closing sale and saying goodbye to customer as part of their sales pitch. We ask for referrals from our tenant buyers and sellers in our final letters.
A good example of using this in your business is, let’s say you sell office supplies. Ask your customer for referrals and then offer to give them a discount or dollars off for so many referrals. Or you could give them a gift, like a free pen or calculator, etc. You get idea.
To decide what to give away, think about what will motivate your customer. Will they prefer cash, or gifts. You know your customer best. You need to give them something they want so they will repeatedly give you referrals. We offer cash to our sellers and tenant buyers if they refer someone to us that we do a deal with.
For those in any type of retail operation flyer that looks like cash that can be redeemed or buy one get one free, or get a percentage off, or it’s a tax free weekend, etc. can work wonders. Couldn’t you also mail a flyer to your customers that states, “Good toward your purchase, when you refer a friend”.
In all businesses, you need to get your customer to tell you what they like about your business. For example, whenever we get an email or a telephone call from a customer that praises our services or products, we ask if we can use it as a testimonial. You must get their permission (unless however you receive unsolicited mail from them). Again, ask your customer for a testimonial. For example, if you liked dinner at our establishment, please fill out this form. We appreciate your time, so by doing so, we will provide your next entrée for half price. We put incentives in our books and services for our customers to get back to us with their opinion.
