I recently ran across a referral tool that will boost word-of-mouth for your business.

As everyone knows, there is no better way to grow your business than by word of mouth.

So instead of writing my normal instructional blog post, I want to tell you about this tool.

At first glance, I didn’t see its full potential.  But as I talked with its inventor, I realized it was a valuable innovation I should share with you.  It’s low tech, but effective.

It’s called the RipCard.  It ingeniously doubles as a business card and a referral card at the same time.

If you are new to this blog, I should tell you that I rarely promote products here.

However, because I believe this patent-pending innovation can make a huge difference for you in acquiring new customers, I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t talk with you about it.

Here is how it works…

The RipCard (Referral Incentive Program) is a business and referral card combination that allows you to customize your offer to both the person giving the referral and also to the referee.

To be able to customize your offer on the fly and keep track of it…no matter where you are…gives you a huge advantage. You can have your offers printed up ahead of time on the cards.  Or, you can write them on the card to fit the situation.

When you write them in, this allows you to make offers that will motivate the referrer and the referee to act.

In other words, you can ask the referrer: “Out of these 3 options, which would you like as a reward for referring a friend?”  Or you can design an offer on the fly, based on the conversation you just had with the referrer.  Or…give a discount based on the next appointment coming up.

For example, say you are a dentist, and your client has another appointment set to get a tooth facial, a crown, or whatever.  You could say to the client: “If you refer someone to us between now and the next appointment, I’ll take X% off the cost of your upcoming procedure.”

Since this offer is directly related to a real, tangible event in the client’s life, her motivation to find someone to refer goes way up.  I really like this feature about the RipCard.

You can also ask the client/referrer: “Do you have a particular person in mind that you would want to refer?  Which of these options do you think she’ll love?”  Then state some options.

By customizing the card, you increase the motivation for action by the referrer and by the referee.

Once you write in what you want to offer to both parties, you rip the card down the perforated line, keep one half for yourself and give the other half to the referrer.

Here are two other things I like about the RipCard…

You can collect the personal email address of the referrers instead of their work email address that’s printed on their business cards.  This way you will increase your access to them.

You get to see and track exactly who’s sending you business.  It’s great for creating and tracking offline joint venture activity, with no fuss, no muss.

I highly recommend that you find out more about using the RipCard by watching a short 4-minute video here: See The RipCard In Action Here 

If you have any questions about what you see, or wonder how you can easily get these RipCards made for yourself, you can send an email to Alf Marcussen at alf@ripcard.com . 

Alf will be happy to answer any questions you have.  Alf knows the product inside and out because he invented it…actually, he said you could even call him if you like at 415-673-6464. 

After checking it out, let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags: get referrals, Getting Referrals, Referrals

Whenever I go to a Chamber meeting or a networking function, I’m always astonished at the way individuals meet.  When I’ve gathered the business cards that were handed to me, they all looked alike and none of them jumped out at me.

The reason I’m writing about this, is that I just came back from a Chamber Networking meeting that was designed to put everyone in front of each other over an hour period of time.  You should have seen the “off to the races” scenario.  A bell rang every 30 seconds, so you only had 30 seconds to give your card and say something.

Everyone who gave me their business card told me their name and the company they worked for or owned.  None of them prepared an “Elevator Speech” to fit into 30 seconds. And, most importantly, none of them had their USP or Elevator Speech on the back of their business cards.

Look at your card and the cards you’ve gathering over the years.  Are any of them unique?  Do any of them motivate you to call them or to do business with them?

Within the hundreds I have accumulated over the years, they are all the same size.  Nothing is different about them.

Why not be creative. 

Let’s assume that you want your business perceived as being on the cutting edge.  What could you do? 

How about a business card that looks like a razor blade with your information on it and also your USP and/or Elevator Speech on the reverse side.

What could you do if you owned a restaurant?  How about an irregular card that looks like someone took a bite out of the corner?

For insurance agents, or really for anyone, create a free report.  You can get the facts on how to do this by reading a copy of ”How to Print Money Legally”.  You received a free copy if you recently bought my book, “How To Get Customers To Call, Buy & Beg For More”.  

Have the front of your card say the following:

FREE Report Reveals How You Can Protect
Your Family’s Dreams and Future.
(See back of card for details)
         Your Name
“Your Dream Protector”
ABC Insurance Agency
Address
Phone #

The back of the card could read something like this:

Dear Friend,
For many families, an unfortunate event, such as a fire,
earthquake, flood, hurricane accident, can wipe out
everything they now own…overnight!
Imagine losing your home, your car, your savings, your
business and having to start all over from scratch.
To help you protect yourself, your family’s dreams and
future against any unexpected disastrous event, ask for your FREE special report called “How to Protect Your Family’s Dreams and Future from Unfortunate Events.”

Call the 24 Hour Recorded Consumer
Awareness Hotline at 222-2222 Today.

Now, let me give you some more examples.

Here’s a message I created for an Accountant to put on the back of this business card. 

“How Much Money Would You Take Out of Your Business
If you Didn’t have to pay Tax on it?”

Or this one I created for my Loan Officers in the Banks I helped start.

“In the business of Friendly and Superior Banking Services
And Giving you Ideas on how you can Grow your Business
And Get more Customers.”

What do you think of that one?

With the next printing of my business card, here is what will be on the reverse side:

…helping businesses increase customer acquisition by up to 32.7% in as little as 3 to 6 months, and increase customer retention by up to 90%.

I’m sure that if you brainstorm long enough, you can come up with a unique design, for your business card, and make sure that your USP and/or elevator speech is included on the reverse side. 

And one more thing…make sure that when you hand the card to someone, it’s reversed where the back side is what they see immediately.

Technorati Tags: business card design, Business card marketing, designing a business card, marketing with business card