Yesterday I did an interview with “The Blog Station” about how to get more referrals. After doing referral marketing for the past 15 years, I’ve determined that there are 5 KEY ELEMENTS to getting all the referrals you can handle.
Here they are…
ELEMENT # 1
Create a large network that knows you and knows what you do.
All things being equal, the person with the larger rolodex will ALWAYS get more referrals. But unless people know what you do, they can never refer you.
ACTION STEP: Work on meeting one new person a day and putting them into your follow up stay-in-touch system.
ELEMENT # 2
Consistently Follow up to let your client’s know you care and are there to help.
Relationships are nothing more than a continual stream of positive interactions with another person. That’s exactly what follow up is!
If you’re not following up, how can you build a relationship with a person.
ACTION STEP: Create a system for following up with people on a consistent basis.
ELEMENT # 3
Cost effectively run a long-term follow up relationship-building campaign.
By its very nature, relationships are long term. Relationships are not created in one day, or a week. Sometimes trusting relationships take months and years to create.
That means that you have to create a follow up system that is COST EFFECTIVE.
ACTION STEP: Create a follow up system that uses low cost methods such as email, greeting cards, postcards, video email etc…
ELEMENT # 4
Automate your follow-up / relationship building efforts.
Use automation in your follow up. The biggest reason that most follow up systems don’t work is because of the HUMAN behind them. Humans make terrible follow up’ers. Machines are excellent follow up’ers.
ACTION STEP: When creating your follow up system, leverage the use of automated tools while preserving the need for intimacy and personalization.
RESOURCES:
Email Autoresponder - iContact.com
Greeting Cards – ILovetoSendOutCards.com
Video Email – JiveVideoSystems.com
ELEMENT # 5
Separate yourself from competitors and competing marketing messages.
This is perhaps the most important of all the elements. People do business with people that they (1) know, (2) like, (3) trust and (4) REMEMBER!
People gotta remember you to refer you. You need to set yourself apart from everyone else. One way to do this is to pick a niche and become a specialist in that niche.
Another way to do it is to be so radically unique that you stick in people’s minds.
ACTION STEP: Use personal branding and follow ups that make people remember you. BE DIFFERENT!
Would you like to know the single most effective system for asking for referrals that get your clients to willingly open up their rolodex and begin calling their friends and making personal referral introductions for you? Good, because we did an awesome interview the “Referral Coach,” Bill Cates. You need to listen to it!
About David Frey
David Frey is the Founder, MarketingBlogger.com. He is also the author of the best selling book, "The Small Business Marketing Bible" and many other marketing courses. To find out more about this author, visit www.WhoIsDavidFrey.com.
Hey David
Getting referrals is important for all businesses. The elements you have mentioned represent the perfect way of doing it. Relation building and feedbacks play an important role in that. If you improve on the basis of the feedback of your clients, that can help you get better business. And yes, if you are unique and not a part of the crowd, yoou surely will be noticed.