If there is a foundational concept behind the SmallBizWithKids blog, “only three ways to grow your business” would be it.

But I will add two more for the sake of being different. Here they are:
1) Get more new customers (most companies focus too much on this)

2) Sell more to existing customers (most companies don’t do enough of this)

3) Increase the average transaction size\unit of sale (achieved variously through premium pricing, product and price ascension, slack adjusters) and
4) Cut costs (freeing up working capital to invest in 1, 2 and 3)
5) Firing bad customers/prospects (freeing up time and energy to focus on 1, 2 and 3)

OK, so cost cutting and firing bad customers are operations functions and not sales and marketing, but their net effect is still revenue growth.

The secret is to do these tasks so they have a multiplier effect on your business. Ramping up new customer acquisition and implement drip campaigns to sell more to your existing customers is an example of how this is done.

Recently, I was in a conversation with a CEO who claimed his team sells on value. When I asked him to describe or demonstrate his technique, meaning the approved company value script, he was unable to do so. The CEO! Unfathomable!

All selling, and all marketing for that matter, comes with a ton of psychology. You are dealing with emotions much more so than logic, and understanding which levers to pull and which buttons to push is key to sales and marketing success. Also, it must be said, how hard to push and pull and when to those buttons and levers.

Here is a great example of how to overcome a price objection using sales psychology. The example was developed for chiropractors a B2C sale, and as told to me, used by a background checking firm, a B2B sale.

When told by a prospect that they can “get it for less” or that others have quoted lower fees, quickly say:

“Well of course – but if you must choose by price, and cannot consider other factors, at least let me refer you to a couple of the most reliable firms of all those that will do it for less,”

At which point most prospects hastily retreat and say, “no, no, we want you;” then you make a quality, experience and speed case and close the sale.

The idea is that rather than retreating to questions, to lowering price, stiffen your spine and stand your ground, stay in control of the conversation and pull some sales psychology levers – hard.

Here is the translation according to how this statement is heard and felt by the prospect’s self-image, which is eager to defend itself:

“Of course you can find cheaper services. If you are poor and cheap and prohibited from having the best (if you are a pathetic loser and ball-less wimp, limping through life settling for the cheapest of everything), let me take pity on you, and direct you to the least worst of the cheap options, because you are pitiable and because I don’t give a rat’s behind if I get you as a client or not. My sympathies to your spouse.”

Ouch. If that feels like being stabbed with a dull knife, it’s supposed to. That’s the psychology at work. The attacked and humiliated prospect will respond in one of three ways: angrily; slink away, tail between legs, agreeing to the harsh assessment; or, most often, by denying the characterization the only way possible, by behavior. The backtracking, “no, no, we want you” translates as: “no, no, I am not a poor, cheap, pathetic, pitiable loser. You’ve got me all wrong. I’m a real he-man, dammit. Here’s I’ll show you…” and they buy. Sale closed, margin protected, quota achieved.

Shocked? Why? Is this approach too strong?

Here’s further psychology to back this approach. First, decision makers appreciate people who are able to go toe to toe with them. You gain respect and credibility that way. Second, you cannot pussyfoot around when you are attacked on price. In our example, lower price is strongly attacked as bad and the sale still requires a sound case including quality, experience and speed. Whatever your value drivers are, strongly positioning cheap stuff isn’t good sets the stage for your value case.

Go ahead and try it.

Attack cheap, attack the ability to buy well, make your value case and close.

One more thing, as we said, there are three responses to this manner of overcoming a price objection. One of which is to take you up on the offer of a referral. Be prepared for this to happen. If your business and its ethics permit it, establish referral arrangements with your competition. Handle the referral well and you’ll earn trust and points with the customer as well as a referral fee or other consideration from your competitor.

I’m curious about your thoughts on this example. It does strike a chord with people, indeed it’s designed to, and that’s the whole point. What do you feel about it? Please share! Dialogue about this will be very interesting.

Prospects call you. Cost of sales goes down. What a promise this inbound marketing makes! So what then, is the trouble?

Inbound Marketing, why isn't telephone in this picture?

No, I’m not talking about ROI measurement. At least not directly.

The trouble with inbound marketing is control. That is, you don’t have any control over who is contacting you. Sure they’re interested in your product, your service, your solution, but do you really want to sell to them? That is, do they fit your target customer profile?

Even if they do, is the inquiry coming from the appropriate level? Are funds budgeted? An timeline established? So many questions.

Yes, having people call you is fantastic, but getting in touch with the right people at the right time is even more fantastic.

So should you stop inbound marketing? No way!

But you should not be dedicating high value employees to making first contacts with inbound marketing prospects. I recommend creating a role designated to qualifying and following up with inbound marketing, if there is sufficient volume. Otherwise, assign the role to your sales support team. Pass along the truly right-fitting prospects and shunt the others into their own separate nurturing and if possible, sales process.

Strive always in your business to keep control over the right levers. Don’t waste time chasing bad fits or Looky Lous. The best way to do this is by specializing your sales team to focus on the different facets of your prospects, your sales process.

I’ll be writing more on this over time. If you have any ideas on a particular related issue, or topic, let me know! I’d be delighted to opine and advise!

They say one is the worst number in business. One customer, one product, one distribution method. Over reliance on one is risky.

Create a specifc message that matches your target market for sales success

The opposite is also true. All is just as bad, especially when it comes to identifying and pursuing your customers. Going too broad brings with it a whole host of challenges, especially an inability to resonate with customers. Marketing basics tell us that the more your product, service or solution gets a “This is for me!” response, the more you’ll sell and  the easier the selling will be.

I want to share an example of how a company can change it’s approach from trying to sell to everyone, to increasing success with fewer price objections by more carefully matching its marketing message to targeted sales prospects.

Not long ago I was speaking to the CEO of construction company. His firm is prosperous, but not as much as he’d like. He has three sales offices, each with their own P&L. He tries to sell on value, but the sales team is constantly fielding price objections. The CEO advertises that sales people can earn $70,000 to $100,000, uses a multi-step hiring process, including a personality\performance survey. In fact, the sales model is classic, “fog a mirror” hunter role. That is he pays a very low base plus commission and the sales team is expected to go get sales anyway, anyhow within their territory. When pressed, the CEO admits he is hiring continuously and has some reps earning $30,000 (even after completing a sales aptitude survey!). They have no marketing team or sales support team to speak of.

The company has a fantastic safety story. They also self-perform all their work, which means they control quality and other key issues by hiring and retaining their own work crews and not sub-contract which is pervasive in the industry. They proactively call customers to ascertain and maintain their satisfaction.

So how can the CEO improve sales results by matching message to market?

First we’ll handle message. What must the sales team convey to customers consistently that they aren’t? What elements of the business make them different and worth the value they claim? To me the CEO has great tools in this regard. I recommend he combining safety, self-performance and customer service to craft his value message. Once created, the entire sales team, including sales management must be trained and held accountable to using the story.

Now, market. Here again, it’s fog a mirror. The sales people have to targets and call on everyone in an effort to make a buck. Extreme inefficiency. Period. Further, company’s using this model most often use a generic message,  an inconsistent message, or no message at all. In each case hamstringing their ability to grab anyone’s buying attention. Sure, it can work, but why not work smarter, not harder?

In our example the CEO wants to sell on value. Allowing the sales team to call on just anybody is a surefire way to run into price sensitive customers. Why not avoid them altogether?

I recommend deploying a marketing resource to identify customers that are premium price providers to their marketplaces. Organizations that sell on value are culturally more likely to buy on value. Organizations that are low cost providers must be avoided like the plague. Sales are certain to devolve into price discussions with those companies.

By targeting other value-selling companies, the CEO will enable his sales team to position their story compellingly. Especially against price objections.

Customer: “You are $20,000 higher than your competitor for this project.”

Sales rep: “Yes, I gave you quite a deal, didn’t I?”

Customer: “What do you mean? I’m saying you’re much higher!”

Sales rep: “Both your company and mine strive to lead our marketplace by delivering top notch service. All that comes with overhead. Let me share where ours comes from and why it matters, OK?”

Customer: “Go on.”

Sales rep: ” First off, all our construction crews are our employees. We use no sub-contractors. We hire the best, train them, and keep them. No drugs, no delinquency, years of experience.  We also live, breathe and sleep safety, so our really good people can do really good work all the time.  Most companies use sub-contractors and with subs, you never know what you’re gonna get.

But I can tell you what you’re gonna get. We never are short crew, so we get done on time. We tarp over all your landscaping to do as little damage as possible and to make clean up  go faster. We are designed to get it done right the first time and be fast, to minimize any disruptions.

We also pro-actively call you to see how our work is holding up. You ever get a call after a storm from anyone else? Well, we do. We never want a call back, and work to that goal, but if you every have a warranty or other issue, bang! we’re back. With just about everyone else, and certainly with people who skinny their estimates, you’ll have to chase to get things fixed. Not so with us.

Customer: “I’ve been there before.”

Sales Rep: “Everyone has. It’s not fun. It’s distracting. You know, we’ve talked about how our company’s operate with very similar values and market positioning. Right?

Customer: “We have.”

Sales Rep: “So you have a cost structure that supports your value statement, just like we do.  Have I been clear in explaining how we support that value in the project estimate?”

<<OK, I could go on, but I think that’s a decent illustration of how to match the message to the market. I’d love feedback from salespeople and sales management on how to improve this conversation. I’ll gladly make updates to the post using your feedback. >>

You must understand that lacking a good story to connect the dots, all consumers (all people) default to a very basic, very simplistic set of decision making tools. Very few people are educated about much of what they buy, so buying criteria and decision making criteria are not rational. The one sure fire thing people will question is price because that’s what we all learn from birth.

Absent a reason, absent the value message, most often the first places buyers go is price. A great example is the maxim “Good stuff isn’t cheap and cheap stuff isn’t good.” A great value story, if a simplistic one.

I know of a stroy about a gift shop owner who desired to clearance some poor selling turquoise jewelry. The staff misread the owner’s instructions and doubled the price (2x rather than 1/2x as desired). The jewelry sold out quickly. The consumers had no decision making ability related to jewelry, so price strongly influenced their sense of  “good” and the jewelry sold quickly.

So craft and use a value message to steer the conversation away from price whenever possible, and when you can’t do that, use price to position yourself differently.

What other points can you share about matching message to market to sell more, sell faster and sell easier? I’d love your feedback!

Not long ago I was having a conversation with the gentleman accountable for his company’s client success team. Having been in sales and account management and having some strong opinions about sales process and sales team design, I was impressed by this man and his firm, until he made one comment which made me cringe.

Strive to be a welcomed guest in every sales situation.

What did he say and why did it have me cringing?

I had been in a sales situation where after 18 months of prospecting I was invited to the table by an international retailer. I was complimented for being patiently persistent. At the face to face meeting, I had a champion complimenting me and my company due to the relationship we had formed. After the group meeting, I was invited back to my champion’s desk for a full hour where we spent firing questions and answers at each other.

In contrast, my competition was invited to the table grudgingly. The customer told me my competition had irritated the selection committee by going over their heads and prospecting their boss. When told to back off and not call on them, he ignored them. He had no champion on the selection committee and the boss instructed his invitation. The selection committee didn’t like this guy, he was a real pain in the ass, I was told. But still, he was at the table.

So after sharing this story, I asked this sales manager which company he’d rather be. His reply, “The one that gets the business.”

This is an alarming answer.

It is also the correct answer. But there is so much wrong with it. Let me explain.

I doubt that anyone will challenge that being invited to a sales opportunity as a welcome guest is the preferred positioning. How you do this comes from cultivating respect, patient persistence, thought leadership, referrals and smart use of Web 2.0 technology (some call it Sales 2.0).

But what about when you’re invited to the table and you’re a pain in the ass, a truly unwelcome guest? Sure you’re at the table, but will you actually get careful consideration? Unless you win the business you will never, ever know. No way, no how.

Many companies and certainly, most Fortune 5000 companies have multiple bid sourcing requirements. In these cases, by being the squeaky wheel, are you being invited in just to take up a spot in order to satisfy this requirement? Are you being used?

Will the time and resources spent in responding to the RFQ, RFP, the T&E, be a foregone conclusion and a colossal waste of time of money?

As a business leader, if you are willing to gamble that you’ll get a fair look, there is much to be done to ensure that your product, service or solution is so much better than the competition that it can overcome the welcome guest’s head start.

As the unwelcome guest, it’s not unreasonable to expect your RFP’s score to unofficially start at -10 or -20. While the welcomed guest’s score is very likely to include bonus points and is certain to include what I call the “universal tie breaker.” That is, that all other things being equal, people will do business with people that they like.

Related to the universal tie breaker point that is wise to keep in mind that buyers of anything are extremely concerned about what happens after the sale, the service, the account management, the ongoing support. How your sales people conduct their business, whether they like it or not, paint the picture of what that after sales relationship is going to be like.

Yes, being the company that gets the business is the best answer, but one that can come with an awful lot of awfully expensive baggage.

When a salesperson is gets invited to the dance, but doesn’t often close, smart sales managers will take action to determine if they are too often the unwelcome guest and take corrective steps.

If your company espouses getting to the table any which way you can, then be prepared for increased cost of sales, lengthier sales cycles and more garbage in your pipeline forecasts because you never can tell if you’ll get fair consideration from the customer.

On the other hand, being the welcomed guest gets you a champion and the universal tie breaker. I hold fast to my goal of being a welcomed guest, what about you?

I’d love comments and insights from other sales professional, sales managers and executives on this topic.

Without fail, every time I ask these questions, I get one response that truly irritates me. Thing is, this response is also a key indicator that my services are needed.

What’s the response? It’s, “I tried X and it doesn’t work.” Poppycock.

Lo and behold, what shows up in my email box this morning? An excellent article by a long time marketer, Dan Kenndey. I first heard of Dan Kennedy in the early 90s and began studying him, seriously studying his methods, back in 2006. And to pat my own back, I won a contest that same year having to do with identifying the single most important element impacting the response rate of a marketing piece. So apparently I’m a good student. The prize was a one on one consult with Dan Kennedy’s business partner, President of his GKIC, Inc company, and marketing guru in his own right, Bill Glazer.

So excerpted with permission is the answer to “I tried that and it doesn’t work.” The answer given is wrapped in a nice, polite story, but the answer itself is brutally frank and honest. So be prepared. Sometimes the truth has to hurt. I’ve highlighted the key points for you.

Read on!

Fifteen Years of Insight & Observation about the Speaking Business

by Dan Kennedy

In 15 years in this business, I’ve made virtually hundreds of mistakes, many repetitively, and I’ve observed speakers making hundreds of mistakes, and all that’s just part of the entrepreneurial lifestyle. But I see just a few really big mistakes made over and over and over again, in some cases, made STUBBORNLY over and over again.

My friend Herb True asked me in a recent phone conversation what the one, single, predominate value was that I brought to people in the speaking business. His, for example, is a profound focus on our responsibility to each member of every audience to be congruent, to have integrity and to deliver value. After a visit with Herb, you come away inspired to be a better human being, in and out of business. My answer to Herb was that my #1 contribution is forcing speakers to be businesspeople, so they avoid going broke while they’re getting rich and famous or saving the planet or all three.

Yesterday, I had a telephone conversation with a lady about her speaking business, and it summed up a lot of what my personal frustrations with speakers are all about. She was asking about ways to increase her income, and I asked how she handled the audience members who did not immediately buy from her; did she send them a sales letter, a series of letters or whatever. ‘Oh, I tried that kind of direct-mail,’ she said, ‘and it doesn’t work.‘ And that response tells you why far too many speakers work very hard, deliver fine material and value, and still never get anywhere financially. It is called: ignorance.

A truer response would be: I tried that kind of direct-mail and it didn’t work for me. A perfectly accurate response would be: I tried that kind of direct-mail and I failed to make it work. A smart response would be: I tried that kind of direct-mail and I failed to make it work – do you know how to make it pay off?

But she has made the incredible leap from her failing to the marketing method itself being a failure. She is not alone. Many speakers do it with many different issues. Just another example, I had one speaker tell me; and you’ll hear it repeated as dogma; that no one can sell products from the platform at IBM. While she was patiently explaining this “law” to me, a speaker-client of mine was, that very day, was hard at work putting on a seminar for 150 IBM sales executives at full fee PLUS selling product in the seminar. He did over $20,000.00 in product sales that day. I’ve also been told by speakers that their big-corporate clients won’t give testimonials – three different speakers have told me that about Xerox, yet Lee Milteer has a glowing testimonial letter from Xerox.

Please, if it’s cloudy in your home town tomorrow, don’t assume it’s cloudy everywhere, all the time. And when someone tells you something very dogmatically, “this is the way it is,” don’t buy into their foolishness. That doesn’t translate to some giant, universal truth anymore than it being cloudy in Boston, Detroit AND Seattle translates into it being a cloudy world. They are, at best, telling you of a conclusion they’ve reached based only on their own experience, possibly reinforced by what a few other people in their circle of peers have also experienced.

In fifteen years in this business, I think the #1 mistake I see speakers make over and over again is too easily and quickly buying into these kinds of Laws and Truths that severely limit their incomes and opportunities…..and the #2 mistake: trying something once themselves then too easily and quickly concluding “it” doesn’t work.

You have to be smart enough to know what you don’t know. I’m all for doing it yourself; marketing would be the last thing on earth I’d delegate; but I’m certainly NOT doing it blindly and ignorantly. For just about any aspect of the business of marketing information, the businesses of mail-order, direct-marketing, direct-mail, and direct-response advertising, there ARE legitimate experts with current successful experience who make their know-how readily available through books, tapes, newsletters, seminars, conferences, and consulting. Some also speak at association conventions, ranging from NSA to DMA, and at specialized conferences, like my multi-speaker, $3,495.00-per-person Direct Marketing Conferences. Of course, you have to sort out the pretend experts, the flash-in-the-pan one-time-only successes, and the real ones, and you need your BS Detector on full alert to do so.

But why anyone would charge ahead into any aspect of business new to them without doing some homework and availing themselves of all possible information, I just do not understand.

As an example, let’s go back to the lady in need of more income, who has concluded that mailing to non-buyers doesn’t work. She spoke 40 times last year and had over 8,000 non-buyers she could have mailed to. Handled properly, she’d have sold no fewer than 160 to as many as 800 units at least, at $100 package – $16,000.00 to $80,000 of income left on the table. But she tried it once and it didn’t work. Well, knowing that “it” very definitely does work, the correct conclusions from her attempt are: either (a) her direct-mail piece was ineffective, which is very likely because she knows diddedly-squat about direct-mail and didn’t bother to even go get a book, or any book on the subject to help her understand it; or (b) her products lack sales appeal, especially if divorced from her emotional presentation, so they need to bestrengthened in terms of actual and perceived value – which would be of benefit to her and her audiences and her clients; or (c) the offer made in the sales letter was a poor one; or (d) a combination of all of these things. Then, with this understanding, she could and should dig in and figure out how to make “it” work.

There are two characteristics demonstrated by all of this, that I think are exhibited by very successful entrepreneurs. One, a very open mind and aggressive curiosity about everything that might work for them, so that they learn what DOES work, so that even if it doesn’t work right for them right out of the gate, they know it works, so they stay at it until they figure out how to apply it. Call this what you will – persistence, I suppose. Two, seeing themselves as entrepreneurs. In this instance, entrepreneurs first, speakers second. But the idea applies to every field. The person very willing to lock into a very narrow definition of his business will always earn small money.

In creativity training, this is often referred to as being in the box or getting outside the box. Many speakers live inside very confining boxes. Putting yourself inside a small box is a big mistake.

The Big Marketing Lesson

So the big, hard truth? Just because a marketing tactic didn’t work for you once, or twice, or even six times, doesn’t mean that the tactic isn’t effective. All you’ve learned is that you haven’t gotten it right…yet. As Kennedy illustrates, there are often several variables that need to be tweaked. Many small business owners do not have the marketing knowledge to even know what they are, much less where to start tweaking.

You can hardly blame them. It’s probably safe to say, most small business owners are not marketers. Their expertise in delivering their chosen products and\or services, rather than promoting and\or selling them. A truly important distinction. But you can be the best technician in the world, but if you can’t get any sales, you can’t help people, much less earn a living. And that’s a crying shame. And that’s where people like me come in. We are strong where you are weak – weak in knowledge, interest, time, whatever the case may be.

Got a tough marketing nut to crack? Just don’t have the time? Does marketing frustrate you? Call me, I’m here to help.

*******

Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, owned and operated by internationally known marketing personalities Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer, is THE place where truly smart, progressive, aggressive entrepreneurs with a love of marketing, a sincere desire to get rich and richer (with no apologies for doing so), and an optimistic, forward-looking attitude, gather to exchange and share timely information and “what’s working today” strategies and examples. Get Bill Glazer’s #1 Bestselling Book, “Outrageous Advertising” for FREE. Click here.

SmallBizWithKids readers know I’m all about low hanging fruit and leverage so when I saw that Inc. Magazine published a very nice list of 10 Ways to Get More Sales From Existing Customers, I just had to share it.

Which one of the 10 is a grabber for you? For me, it’s number four, Stay in Touch, because I recently gave a talk to a group of local business people in Madison. The topic was Marketing (what else?). Specifically the only three ways to grow your business and how to get started putting the three ways to work.

I framed the talk around Woody Allen’s famous quote, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” To me, showing up and staying in touch are the same. Stay in front of your customers with phone calls, newsletters, give them referrals, make them offers, hold an annual customer appreciation event, and so on.

Leave a comment as to which technique one is your grabber and why!

Then print this article and and pin it up on your wall. Begin to tackle it any which way you can. If you do, your business will grow!

In the talk I used two familiar quotes from pop culture icons to make a point about getting started with the right blend of offline and online marketing.

The pop culture icons? Woody Allen and The Beatles.

Woody famously said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

Paul McCartney of The Beatles said, “Let’s write us a swimming pool.”

I’ll cover Wood first.

Eighty percent of success is showing up. Showing up is the key phrase.

You see, there are only three ways to grow a business:

1. More customers
2. More transactions
3. More margin

By “showing up” you cover them all! Let me explain.

More customers – show up where your customers are with an offer. Go out and get them using whatever means you can, don’t just wait. Once you get a system for getting a customer up and running well, then and only then do you move on and build another means of customer acquisition.

For one Madison restaurant client, we do a new customer direct mailing every month that pulls over 22%. Like clockwork. They absolutely love the predictability of 60 to 80 new customers each and every month. Wouldn’t you?

More transactions – once you’ve got a customer, sell them more. The number one customer that is most likely to buy from you is your existing customer. That’s worth rereading. Most businesses make the mistake of focusing only on new customers.

Smart businesses find ways to up sell, down sell, and cross sell. Smart businesses have systems to get referrals from existing customers. Systems. Not just happenstance referrals.

More margin. Smart businesses command premium pricing. Every business must find a way to add high(er) ticket products and services to their mix. Product companies certainly need to find ways to increase their margin or add services with low cost of goods sold.

That’s just the basics.

As for McCartney’s swimming pool; The Beatles attitude was let’s write a hit and make money. Businesses are well served by creating offers and generating sales. This ties directly into the only three ways to grow a business.

The Number One business asset is its customer list. Get good at creating offers to your list and you to can create revenue on demand, just like The Beatles.

So that was the highlights of the talk. The pop culture references gave the talk some flair and the evaluations showed the audience was engaged.

If you’d like to talk to a group you’re involved in, just let me know! I’ve got a couple more scheduled already!

Many business owners in lots of categories either never start or simply give up on marketing, advertising, customer acquisition and customer retention.

This is great news for those of us who are committed to keeping the customers we have and getting new ones who previously shopped at now failed competitors. Below are two fundamental business rules and using them, a proven, very cost effective technique to stimulate sales. Try it out and let me know how it goes!

Rule #1) The customer most likely to buy from you is one who has already bought from you.

Technique #1) Ask your past customers to do business with you again.

Inactive customers, past customers, lost customers, whatever name you call them by, are a goldmine of income.

Customers most often move on and stop doing business with you for reasons even they can’t say. This is good news. Most often something in life just happens. All they need from you is a reminder of why they chose you in the past. That and a special offer to do it again.

If you’re in retail, contact your lost customers with a special item or offer you don’t normally carry. If you own a service business, why not ring up past customers and invite them to complete their service package or ask if they need your service since it’s been long since they last used it? Many businesses can offer an annual or semi-annual check up of some sort.

Customer Reactivation Tips

Treat past customers as preferred customers.

Offer special pricing and\or offers on items they previously purchased.

Offer their regular purchase to them at a  special price or as part of a special bundle.

Invite past customers to a special in store event. Service businesses can hold workshops with special guest speakers.

Rule #2) Nothing Beats Word Of Mouth

Technique #2) Ask your current customers and prospects, to refer business

People today are business, but they generally like to help. So the secret to getting referrals is not to count on word of mouth, but to help make it easy for your customers to refer business to you. Smart businesses are prepared with systems including brochures, emails, referral cards and the like that can be prefilled and sent to the referral on behalf of your customer or passed along to the referral by your customer.

Referral Tips

The best way to ask for referrals is by immediately following up on positive customer comments and experiences. Your referral materials should have specific offers on them for first time customers and clients. A big hint is to make a specific request. This actually encourages customers to take action, where simply asking them to mention you to “someone they know” may not create an obligation or to-do item in their mind.

The most powerful referral strategy is to ask for a testimonial letter and three names you can send it to. Sometimes when you ask for this, they send the letters themselves which is absolutely mind-blowing to the referral, because this so rarely happens. When it does, you just have to take notice. The key is ask after you’ve over-delivered on the customer’s results.

What customer reactivation and referral strategies have you used successfully? I’d love to hear about them!