Referral Systems and Why You Need One

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Getting new clients is honestly the number one task of any consultant.   We can easily get comfortable after getting a few that we often forget you have to keep going.  The current ones you have will end at some point, and then you’re back to getting more.  How do you almost guarantee (I said almost) getting more business without having to actively spend your time seeking those new clients?  How would you like clients who are pre-disposed to giving you referrals and paying you more money?

As a consultant, I want to find as many different methods as possible to bring in new business, and there are a lot of reasons WHY I want referrals.  I’m not talking about referrals just from previous clients, but referrals from connections I’ve made, people I’ve met, etc.

Referral Expert

In order to advance my game and increase my referral business, I reached out to an expert in the field of referrals.  Alex Makarski, who runs a number of different websites, is that expert.   He runs referral workshops all over North America to raving crowds.  He provides real actionable information for all types of businesses owners to implement and to get more referrals.

You can check out some of his information at www.referralformual.com and www.referralu.com.  I’ve been speaking to Alex for a little while now, and I got him on the phone to do an interview in order to share some killer referral tips, talk about why you need a referral system, and methods you can use to nurture those referrals.

Reasons You Want Referrals

Beyond the obvious reason (more business), there are a number of positives that come with getting referrals.  Alex has a list of the 7 reasons why we love referrals:

1. Referrals Are Cost-effective

   In most cases, referrals are much more cost-effective than any other form of marketing. They cost very little if anything at all!  In the world of skyrocketing advertising costs and a sluggish economy, this is a very nice thing to have.

2. Referrals Are Better Clients
   

   New clients that you have acquired by the way of referrals tend to be much better clients. They are less demanding, more appreciative of your work, and they tend to be nicer people to be around.  By focusing on referral marketing, you can “engineer” the type of people you want to attract to your business.

3. Referrals Are Predisposed To Buy
   

   If someone was referred to you, chances are they have already been looking for your product or service. They are in the market.  They need and want your product or service, right now.

4. Referrals Are Less Skeptical
   

   When someone refers business to you, they provide an endorsement (either explicit or implicit) of you as a professional. This is the critical element of social proof that makes the selling process so much easier. When you focus on building your business via referrals, you don’t have to overcome as many objections and your closing ratio goes up.

5. Referrals Pay More
   

   The people that have been referred to you by another client are not as price-sensitive as the other types of prospects. The price someone is willing to pay is in direct proportion to the amount of risk they see in the deal.

6. Referrals Are More Loyal
   

   Clients who have been referred to you will tend to keep buying your product, or doing business with you as a professional, for a longer time than the clients you acquire through advertising.

7. Referrals Are More Likely To Give Referrals
   

   This is something that most business owners never think about ,yet it is possibly the most important item on this list. When someone gets referred to you and becomes a client, he or she will think that giving you a referral is “normal”.  As a result, they will be a lot more likely to give you referrals than the rest of your clients would.

I’ve talked about using Video as a lead generation tool and obviously believe very highly in it, as it’s very effective (Local Video Method), but I’ve yet to really incorporate other methods of attracting new customers and referrals.  Alex has put me on to a new method.

Greeting Cards

How many of you, when you check your mail, open cards before bills?   EVERYONE does, and we do that because everyone loves getting a card (it’s a 7.5 billion dollar industry for a reason).  Your prospects would love a card; people you network with and meet would love a card.  Alex talks about all the reasons why greeting cards work and how they work.   Did you catch his story about the networking event where he got 45% of the people he met to CALL HIM (first) afterwards?

I personally don’t send out many cards.  My reasons – it ’s time consuming and quite frankly, it can be expensive.   Expensive of my time and expensive in material.  Travelling; buying a card and picking one out; then writing in it, mailing it, etc, way too costly.  But Alex turned me onto a service called SendOutCards!

SendOutCards is an awesome service that makes it easy to send out hundreds to thousands of cards to prospects, previous clients, people you meet at networking events, you name it.  You can manage your contacts and have it remind you of important dates; and with the click of a mouse you can send out 100 cards all personalized.

• Create your own cards with your own pictures
• Create templates to use with a list
• Scan your own hand writing to make it that much more personalized (they do this for you)
• A chance to earn some additional income by showing others how great SendOutCards is.

I recently ran a webinar for my Local Video Method clients.   I just learned about this service and mentioned it on the call.  I found out some of my clients are already using SendOutCards in their business.

Sending a card

Try It Yourself!

I have personally signed up for the service. I love it! And it’s so easy (not only for business, but also in my personal life) that I’ve provided credits out of my own account (which I paid for) in order for my readers to try it themselves.   Head over to SendOutCards. You’ll see my name in the top right corner and you can create an account for yourself and use the credits I have provided.   You can send out 2-5 free cards (depends how much you customize the card) on me…I love it that much.

So try it right now.  You must know someone who’d love to get a card,; you must have a business prospect or previous client that would really appreciate receiving a card.   You can literally send a “Hallmark” card to someone in less than 2 minutes.

Have you already tried SendOutCards, or do you plan on trying it?   Comment below and share your story.

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Filed Under: Marketing

Tags: alex makarski, lead generation, local video method, referrals, send out cards