Of course, every sales person knows referral business is vitally important. But how do you generate enough referrals to triple your sales and commissions? That’s easy, keep reading and I will share three sure fire steps to creating massive referrals for your business:
Step#1: Wow your clients
The first step to generating referral business is to go out of your way to demonstrate a high level of service to EVERYONE who comes in contact with your business – not just clients.
Everyone who comes in contact with your business is a potential customer or referral source. As a mortgage lender, I’ve had service people come into my office, see how we do business, and ask about refinancing.
But how do you “wow” your clients and others to generate referral business?
Basically, you will need to be honest, knowledgeable, friendly, professional, and deliver on your promises.
Exceed their expectations. Set yourself up to succeed. If you think a task will be completed on Wednesday, tell your client it will completed on Friday. Then, when you call them on Wednesday to report that the task has been completed you’ll look like a superstar because you exceeded their expectation. In short, deliver ahead of schedule.
Communicate proactively. Find out why your clients call and stop them from calling by answering all questions ahead of time. In the mortgage business, I found that clients and everyone else involved in the transaction would call for status updates. So I put a system in place to communicate updates to everyone automatically. Now, my phone doesn’t ring because clients get regular scheduled updates.
Give unexpected bonuses. Give your clients some kind of surprise bonus. Give them more than what they expected. Your bonus could relate to your product or it could be in the form of a gift. Here are a few gift giving ideas to help generate referral business:
Before the sale
Try to give your clients something right up front. Try giving clients a $5 gift card before they even agree to do business with you.
During the sales process
Send cookies to both spouses’ work with a thank you note and plenty of your business cards so they can give them to co-workers. This is a excellent technique for creating referral business.
After the transaction is complete
Send flowers to your clients’ home.
Step #2: Collect testimonials
Now that you have wowed your clients, get a testimonial from them.
In fact, it would be a great idea to survey your clients at the beginning, middle and end of the sales process immediately after they have received one of your gifts.
Collect your surveys in writing by using short, quick answer questionnaires – 10 questions or less. Here are sample questions for your questionnaire:
1) Why did you choose to do business with us?
2) Was your transaction closed on time? YES / NO
3) How would you rate our courtesy?
EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
4) How would you rate our efficiency and speed?
EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
5) How would you evaluate the competitiveness of the price you received on your product?
EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
6) Overall, how would you rate the service you received during this transaction?
EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
7) Have you ever purchased a similar product from a company other than Your Company Name? YES / NO
8) If you answered YES to question #7, would you say we were:
BETTER / SAME / WORSE
9) Would you recommend us to a friend or relative? YES / NO
These questionnaires will serve as testimonials for the next step in the creation of your referral business.
Step #3: Generate more referral business
Use your client’s testimonial to target everyone in their center of influence. Send your testimonial to prospective clients and referral business partners along with an approach letter.
More on the approach letter in a moment; first, here is a list of potential referral business partners that can be targeted after a mortgage transaction just to give you some ideas:
* HR manager at their work
* Listing real estate agent and that agents entire office
* Selling real estate agents and that agents entire office
* CPA
* Financial planner
* Insurance agent
* The seller of the home on a purchase transaction
* Title Company
* Real estate appraiser
* Neighbors
Now, do you need some ideas for writing your cover letter? To download three approach letter samples visit: www.Mortgage-Leads-Generator.com/a/approachletter.htm
In summary, incorporate these ideas into the way you conduct business and you will automatically deliver such a high level of service that your clients will jump at the chance to tell their family, friends, and co-workers about your service.
Please feel free to reprint this article as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.
Referral Business: 3 Steps to Generating Unlimited Referrals
Create Unlimited Cash with Your Travel Business
Travel in the United States and to other parts of the world is growing by leaps and bounds. It's easier than ever to travel by plane, cruise ship, bus, or car, and many people are taking advantage of modern-day travel conveniences.
Unfortunately, this $8.5 trillion industry is not without fault. Fuel costs and other factors have taken a toll on travel prices, but can actually benefit your business. If you're already in the travel business or thinking of starting a travel venture, now may be the best time ever to cash in on what seems to be a disadvantage to many travelers. Since everyone loves travel (even when it is expensive), you can create unlimited cash while helping others take their dream vacation for fewer dollars.
Unlimited Travel Opportunities
If you've always loved to travel and want to help others plan their vacations, there are unlimited travel opportunities to help you start a travel business. With a travel business, you not only create unlimited cash for your own income, but you can also plan unlimited vacations of your own with a tremendous discount. Then, you can use your own travel experiences to help others find the perfect vacation. You can also offer the discounts to your family and friends.
With some travel business models, you can sign on to be a travel representative (not an agent) and offer the travel packages at a discount with huge commissions paid out directly to you. And the real advantage of these types of opportunities is you can usually sign others up to sell travel packages as well. You will receive instant profits when they sign on as well as when they sell vacation packages to others. It's a great way to travel to exotic places while earning unlimited cash through your very own travel business.
How to Sell Travel Packages
There are a number of ways to realize your dreams with a travel business. You can use the Web, magazines, or classifieds to target niche markets in the travel industry. For example, target people who want to visit a certain country or city. You can target families or honeymooners. You can target business travelers. With a website, you can add unlimited travel articles to your website to attract readers who are interested in visiting certain places around the world. You can also create a travel newsletter or e-zine to capture the e-mails of your site visitors. The travel industry is broad, so the more targeted your marketing efforts, the faster your business will grow.
How to Offer the Opportunity to Others
You'd be surprised at how many people would love to start a travel business, but don't know how or where to start. Once you gain some experience in your travel business, you'll be able to offer tips and helpful resources for others who want to do the same. Also, don't ignore those who are seeking "any" business opportunity. Many people want to work from home, but aren't sure what type of business to try. You can educate them about starting a travel business, and build their confidence to try it out. Be a motivator and a helper, and you'll soon see tremendous results!
Each time you travel, write down key points and attractions of the places you visit. Offer articles about first-hand travel experiences on your website along with photos. Detail how much the total trip cost (with your company's discount) and the fun things you did while there. Putting together travel editorials such as these can become your own personal testimonial to those who are considering the opportunity.
When you sign on for a travel business opportunity, be sure to consider the amount of commission being offered, how much you will need to invest to get started, and how easy it will be to promote the business. Can you promote the business online? Does the company provide a website for you? Can you add content and photos to your website for your own marketing efforts? Does the company offer unlimited vacations at discounted prices? These are key factors in earning unlimited cash while doing something you enjoy!