Getting Referrals
Chances are, a lot of your new clients come through marketing efforts that you’ve done – perhaps advertising or social media or something like that. It’s important to have new clients but these clients are, in a way, "expensive". You spent time and energy and money on the marketing to get the new client in the door. So the profit you earn from that client is determined only after you subtract the marketing spend you make. (If you spend $1000 on marketing in a specific period and you bring in 5 clients as a result, your marketing spend per new client is $200).
If you want more profitable clients, or if you want to save money and time by marketing less, you should work on generating more referrals from your existing clients.
Referral clients are great clients to have. They take very little marketing effort on your part to become clients. (That’s because they’re responding to word-of-mouth from a trusted friend, which is the most credible form of marketing that we all respond to). And, once they are clients, they are more likely to be loyal clients because they come to you fully trusting and understanding what you do (rather than clients who showed up through a marketing channel who might not totally trust you or who might not fully understand what you can do for them).
Better clients at less marketing cost? That is a great combination! Here’s how to develop more referrals:
Get into the habit of asking your current clients if they know of anyone else who they might refer. Now, a word of warning is important here: Obviously, you don’t want to hassle your clients so you need to find a tasteful way to do it, and perhaps after every meeting is too frequent. You’ll need to decide. You can invite them to refer others simply by saying, "Phil, I’m enjoying our time together. I have a space open and rather than fill it with a brand new client, you’re welcome to recommend someone who you think might benefit from my services."
Consider a group session or a luncheon in which they invite friends. This will need to be low-key (so the friend doesn’t feel that you’re going to pitch to them throughout the session) and the friend should obviously get a tremendous amount of value out of it. If you’re confident that you can deliver great value and win a client’s friend to your service, consider saying something like this: "Pam, we’ve been talking about your friend Teri for a while. I’m interested in meeting her and hearing about her business first hand. I think she can help you with your business, too. Instead of the two of us meeting in my office for our next session, why don’t you invite Teri to meet me for lunch? We’ll talk about your business plan and see if there’s a way that she can help you."
Consider creating an invitation-only webinar or teleseminar and telling your clients that they and their friends can participate. This content should be highly valuable but, at the end, can include a short pitch about your services.
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