GIVE YOUR CUSTOMERS A REASON TO REFER YOU

There are lots of ways businesses have uncovered to give their current customers reasons to refer new customers. Most of these techniques revolve around some kind of reward for the referring party. From discounts, to cash, to freebies to vacations and so on. Coming up with that kind of reason to motivate your customers to refer you is easy. You probably already have a referral reward systems in place. It is important to look at what you are currently using and seriously analyze if it is working. Are you really getting referrals because of your referral reward system? If not then you need a new system. That does not necessarily mean that is needs to be a bigger or better system but if it is not working you need something new.

Apart from these obvious external referral reward systems you should also give thought to an often ignored reason why people give referrals. Because it has the potential to make the referring party look and feel good. Do not underestimate the positive benefit of the ego strokes the referring party receives when they make a good referral. Think about it, why would someone make a referral in the first place. They do it because they believe they have found something really good and they want to share it with others and be recognized for being so smart. They want the praise of having their friend say to them "That painter was great. Thanks for the referral"

To play on this you need to reinforce with the potential referring party that they will get this reward if they refer you. So maybe you need to add in your script something like this:

"Mrs. Wilson, thank you for the opportunity to paint your home. The finished product looks wonderful and I know you will be pleased for years to come. One of my recent customers relayed to me a story about how she passed my name along to her friends in her reading group. While all of her friends had stories about bad painting experiences she was able to boast about the great results she had received. Are you a member of any group where I might be able to provide service to the members?"

You can fine tune this script to fit your needs and comfort levels. The key is to build in language which indicates that your customer can increase their positive strokes by making strong referrals to their friends.

Summary: We need word of mouth referrals. In order to make this work we need to do an excellent job so we deserve such a referral. Once the excellent job is complete we need to ask for the referral. We need to get over our fear of asking because we know asking is a critical marketing tool for the growth of our business. Practice the script over and over again and do not let a "No" discourage you. No one said that growing your business would be easy.

As you are learning how to ask make sure you are also giving your customers (potential referral source) a reason to refer you. It can be a standard rewards type program, which you all should have in place. More importantly consider the ego and emotional side of the equation. Use this subtle but powerful tool to further encourage people to share your name.