Getting Endorsements From Others
How do you get someone externally to endorse you? One of four ways:
1. You agree to reciprocate and endorse them;
2. You offer them a rental fee for their list;
3. You offer to trade your products or service to them for the right to mail their list one time;
4. You give them a percentage of the business emanating from it.
Here are some effective, workable examples of techniques for securing referrals:
- Write satisfied customers a letter telling them you are about to make a major marketing effort for new clients, but before you go to the mass market you'd like them to have first chance to tell their friends or associates.
- Offer inducements to customers for bringing in referrals.
- Offer special incentives to their friends on their first purchase.
- Offer to perform a free service or consultation for any referral prospect.
- Give a clinic, seminar, or training session for your customers and one or two guests.
- Offer free service for one month or one quarter to anyone your satisfied customer refers to you as a "gift" from that customer. That way your customer gets the credit. But make sure they are qualified prospects.
Make certain you reconvey to your customers the essence of your Unique Selling Proposition, and explain how that USP has benefited them in the past how it will benefit them in the future, and, finally, how it can benefit the person they refer.
The purpose of referral solicitations is to secure new customers, but what if you only get a small number of referrals? After reading your referral solicitation letter, your existing customers should feel great about the USP benefits they've received and will continue to receive. That alone makes it worth doing.
Posted January 31, 2005
More Business-Building Articles By Jay Abraham:« How to Capture Customer Names
