In this post, I’m going to give some very powerful ideas for growing your business through referrals. One of our subscribers, who’s in the insurance and financial arena, had this as a question:

How to “Double my monthly new business income, increase income 25% from existing customers each month, and create a new revenue stream of at least $5,000 a month.”

There are many ways to accomplish these three items over the next 6 months to a year. Whenever I felt a need to increase my revenue, I contacted my current customers. Now, there are many ways to increase revenue and I will be going over them in future posts, but to answer the question in this post, I want to review for you the system I had for Referrals.

If you’ve been in the Insurance or financial planning business for at least six months, or have fifty or more clients, you should be obtaining most of your new clients through referrals.

To maximize your marketing dollars, you should first set up a system to compel your existing clients to give you lots of referrals, instead of trying to get new clients through other methods, such as cold calling, direct mail, telemarketing, advertising and so on.

When you acquire new clients through referrals, you acquisition costs are only a fraction of what it would cost to get them via any other method.

I hope you noticed that I used the word COMPEL above. This is very important, because if you don’t ask the question the right way, you won’t get any referrals.

Clients, even satisfied clients, don’t give referrals when you ask them. That’s right. Why? Because it’s the way you ask for the referral that makes the difference, and it’s only your loyal clients or advocates who will provide you with referrals.

If you think about it carefully, you will realize that even though accountants. Lawyers, real estate people, or other professionals, can give you good referrals, it’s your existing clients, especially your advocates, who can provide you with the best and most qualified referrals of all.

Here’s the key. In order to compel, again the word “compel”, your clients or customers to shower you with unlimited referrals, you need to consistently give them outstanding service, astonishing them at least 5 to 6 times a year. You can do this by implementing the strategies I outlined in my books and other posts.

In fact, when you go the extra mile to serve your clients better than their greatest expectations, they will brag about you to everyone they know, giving you more referrals than you can possibly handle.

A lot of businesses are run in such a shabby way, that they don’t deserve to get referrals from their customers.

Believe me, when you constantly go the extra mile to serve your clients like kings and queens, using the outstanding and “personal touch” services I share with you throughout my books and posts, they will provide you with tons of referrals if you just ask them.

When you go the extra mile to serve your clients better than their wildest expectations, they will want to return a favor to you. And what better way to return a favor than to give you referrals.

Unfortunately, the challenge is, while some of your clients may already have been referring other people to you without your request, most of them won’t think of doing so unless you ask them.

That’s right. Just like you need to educate your clients on the importance of having enough insurance protection for themselves, their families and their assets, you also need to educate them on the value of referring their relatives, friends, neighbors, and others to you.

Super satisfied clients or customers, may tell a few people about you on their own initiative. But if you ask them for referrals, they will give you five, ten or even twenty times more.

I have found that the reason may business owners who ask for Referrals get few or no referrals, is that they make it too hard for their clients to give them referrals.

That’s correct. It’s because they ask the question in a way that requires a yes or no.

For example, instead of saying “Do you know anyone who may be able to benefit from my product or service?” say…

“Whom do you know that may be able to benefit from the same outstanding product and service that you are getting from me, such as a family member, a brother, a sister, a cousin, an uncle or a co-worker?”

When you ask your clients this question, you are making it very easy for them to come up with the names.

Here’s another example. If your target market is business owners who have between five and ten employees and annual sales of $1,000,000, instead of asking your clients, “Whom do you know that may be able to benefit from my product or service?” say…

“Whom do you know that runs a small business with five to ten employees and has yearly sales of about $1,000,000, such as an accountant, a lawyer, a dentist, a pharmacist, a doctor, a contractor, a landscaper, a consultant, a restaurant owner, and so on.”

I know it sounds simple. It is. Try it and you will accomplish the three things you asked for in your question.

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