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.
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Referral Business: 3 Steps to Generating Unlimited Referrals
Business Networking Referrals When You're New To Town
Business networking referrals are the life-blood of any computer consulting business. It's a who you know type of marketplace. This makes tapping into a source of referrals absolutely critical.
The problem is, what happens when you don't know your next door neighbor let alone any other business networking referral sources?
Business Networking Referrals An A New City
Many people who start a computer consulting business are going to be moving, or have moved, somewhere new. This move is often what precipitated the business in the first place.
If this is you, you might think you don't know anyone. You are also probably overwhelmed by the thought of getting business networking referrals before you've got a sense of what's what in your new community. The fact is, you DO know a lot of people and these people know a lot about the community.
Get out your checkbook and credit card statements and look at how many people you have met through your purchases - these are all potential business networking referrals:
Many of the vendors will be small business owners and managers. This is your target market. They might become clients, and they surely know others who could be clients.
The Real Estate agents are plugged into who who's and what's what in the community. Tell them about your business and use them as a source of business networking referrals.
Attorneys, mortgage specialists, title officers, etc... again, these business networking referral sources are priceless.
You will be amazed by the number and type of businesses you have been in contact with already.. Get the word out to these businesses and start right away with setting up a rich source of business networking referrals.
The Bottom Line on Business Networking Referrals
Even when you move to a new town your business networking referral pipeline is still strong. Look at your credit card statements to figure out what business you have spent money with in the local area. From movers to real estate agents and landscapers to decorators, you have already been in contact with business networking referrals. Make sure you use every opportunity you have with these people to market your new business and begin to build a strong business network.
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