How to Implement Offline Referrals into your Business.

Once you realize the power of people promoting your company for free, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start doing it before.

When clients refer you or your business to friends and family, it’s kind of like an invisible seal of approval. People like to use trusted contractors and shops rather than doing their own market research and taking a risk.

Ask for Recommendations and referals

The best time to ask is immediately after they have used your service or purchased your product. Simply “ASK”. If you’re selling a product in a store, ask the client if you can have either their mobile number or email because you would like to check to see if they were happy with the product. You would think that they would get a lot of objections, wouldn’t you? They didn’t…

Out of every 100 people asked, only 20 people declined. That's an 80% conversion.

Follow up with existing clients

• Design a quick “Yes” / “No” survey using Survey Monkey and email the questionnaire out to your clients.

• Follow up with every single person who handed over their email address.

• Each client agreed for their first name and initial of the last name to be used so that we could post the results on the client’s website. It was a massive hit and of course, we advise to do this every month.

Your TO-Do list to Manage your Time Efficiently

This resulted in posting the results on the clients website by way of Testimonials, customers were now telling their friends about the company and service theyd received.

Follow this up with slotting all the email addresses into a spread sheet, and build a nice little data base you can follow up with. All the clients on this data base would then be mailed a voucher/coupon with "money" off deals and regular news letters.

Even if you get a 20% response, that’s still an extra 20% of traffic through the door who already “like, know and trust you”.

Send your business network partners lots of referrals

• If you are a member of a business network, use local suppliers or just friends in the similar trade, get into the habit of referring and recommending them on a regular basis.

• Don’t forget to tell the client that they should mention your name when either booking or purchasing.

• If you do this regularly, your business network will start automatically referring you and your business to their clients too.

Hand out a leaflet/broucher to potential clients

No matter what industry or niche you are in, always make sure there is some form of information about your company: What you do, your name, number, email and web address.

Start handing these out along with business cards like confetti – I’ll be honest, you won’t immediately see results but you start getting a small trickle of referrals within a few months.

Build a “Life Network” vs Just a “Business Network”

You can either have a small promotion on the leaflet on another product or service you offer. This will then entice your client to revisit or give it to a member of their friends or family. Try it, it works!

Creating a business marketing referral network

Start asking your clients what business they are in and grab a business card. Keep a small Rolodex in the office of all the cards you have collected.

This will be your little business network.

Now, if someone asks if you “know someone who can xxxxxxxxxx.” You should have a nice selection of cards with previous clients’ details. Don’t hand over the card, though. Simply write the details down on a piece of paper and suggest that they mention your name if they call.

Summary

• Always ask for a referral. If you don’t, they simply don’t give one, or they forget.

• Ask the client if you can have either their mobile number or email because you would like to check to see if they were happy with the product.

• Design a quick “Yes” / “No” survey using Survey Monkey and email the questionnaire out to clients.

• Post the results of the surveys on the website by way of a testimonial

• Slot each of the email addresses into a spreadsheet and start to build a nice little database of clients to follow up with.

• Use local suppliers or just friends in the similar trade - get into the habit of referring and recommending them on a regular basis.

• Start asking your clients what business they are in and grab a business card.

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We recommend you also read: Why Big Companies still use Outbound Marketing.