It’s Referral Monday and every Monday, I write about Referral Marketing.  In order to be a Referable Business, you have to deserve referrals.  A referable business is one that makes business memorable and exciting so its clients will start talking about it. 

A key ingredient to becoming a referable business is to create an awesome experience.  People don’t talk about boring businesses.  When a client has an awesome experience, they’re happy to share the details and they’ll shout it from the rooftop. 

If you've created a WOW experience, your clients will shout it from the rooftops.

A referable business is one that has created a memorable experience and makes clients feel compelled to share their thoughts and spread the good word about the business.  They’ll essentially do the selling for you—and that’s the whole point of referral marketing. 

In order to continue to deserve referrals though, you need to keep that level of experience going—from the first interaction with a prospect through the first sale and into every subsequent sale and service inquiry thereafter.

Regardless of what tools your clients use to talk about you, you still have to ensure that you deliver that WOW factor on a consistent basis.  Figuring it out takes some work and some dedication and it’s an ongoing process.  But once you’ve got the right mindset, you’ll always be on the lookout for making every part of your business a smash hit.

Do you do business with an organization that delivers WOW?  I’d love to hear about it.  Next week, I’ll share some ways to create that WOW factor.

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It’s Referral Monday and every Monday, I write a post on building your path to more referrals.  In order to get more referrals, you really have to be very focused on it and build yourself a system to follow.  Dedicating time and effort to the process is the secret to success.

Earlier this week, I was talking with a client about developing a referral system for his business.  We’ve spent time examining and determining the target client and we’ve determined the key differentiator from the competition, now comes the hard part—actually working on developing the relationships with the strategic partners.

Send a hand-written note after your first meeting.

Developing quality business relationships takes time and a decent amount of effort if you’re hoping for any amount of success.  After all, the end result that you’re hoping for is that this key strategic partner will become comfortable enough and trust you enough to lend you his or her trust and credibility with their own clients and professional and personal network.  And that doesn’t happen overnight.

Here are 7 steps to use in developing a new strategic partner.

1. If it’s there’s a partner you’d like to add to your network, but don’t yet actually know, send them a letter of introduction.  Like it says, introduce yourself, who you are and what you do and why you are contacting them.  Indicate that you are looking for a new strategic partner and that you think they might be a good fit for these reasons.  Add in a blank sheet asking for some details on their ideal client, what makes them unique, and how you might introduce them to your network, what trigger statements to listen for from prospects and include a few testimonials if possible.  Also ask what their process is when they receive a referral.  Then include a copy of the same sheet filled in by you.  This will serve as an example for them to follow.
2. Follow this letter up with a phone call and set a up a face-to-face meeting.
3. During the face-to-face meeting, talk about why you sent the letter and what you’re looking for.  It’s always better if you can indicate that you are looking for a new partner that does such and such to refer to.  Discuss what you can give and then they will likely want to find out how they can help you.
4. Send a thank you note for meeting.  Hand-written is best.  Then agree to stay in touch.
5. Keep in touch once a month.  Either via email or a phone call.  A phone call is best, however, you could alternate between the two.  Report on any referrals they have sent to you and ask about any that you have provided.
6. When you get a great referral who becomes a client, send a hand-written thank you note.  A small token might be appropriate depending on the value of the business transaction.
7. See each other face-to-face at least once a quarter.

Developing loyal clients takes time.  Developing loyal referral sources takes just as much time and effort, but the rewards are well worth it.

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It’s Referral Monday.  Every Monday, my blog post is about some aspect of referral marketing.  This week, I’m talking about using testimonials to build your referability.

Testimonials in various formats are extremely valuable for those contemplating buying your products or services.  First, they show other people that someone else has already done business with you.  Second, people will talk about the results that they received so it helps prospect understand that these are the same results that they could expect as well.  Third, people will talk about the experience and that’s important as well for many of us.  For example, if a business doesn’t accept credit cards, that’s a huge issue for many. 

Testimonial Time

As I mentioned, there are many formats the testimonial can take and here are 5 ways to collect testimonials.

1.  Emailed Testimonials—Written testimonials are the tried and true form of borrowing trust from one of your existing clients.  Sometimes the challenge is actually getting your client to sit down and write you a testimonial for you.  In terms of process, I suggest you ask for the testimonial first.  As soon after you’ve delivered your excellent product or service so it’s fresh in memory for the client.  If after a week, you don’t hear from them, drop them an email with some suggested text and encourage them to modify it however they see fit.  This should produce a result.

2.  Website Feedback Form—CMS websites now have the ability to add a plug-in that will bring up a comment box for your clients to simply go in on line and provide a testimonial real-time for your website.    Collect feedback from clients using a simple survey or interview and post their written comments directly on your web site.  I am going to suggest that you implement this in such a fashion where the comment has to go to you first for approval.  I know WordPress has a plug-in for FAQs and I’ve seen it modified to collect testimonials and then the message goes to the administrator for approval before it gets published.  (For questions about this, you can talk to Jarrett Gucci, the WordPress Warrior.

3.  On-line Directories—Directories like Yelp, City Search, Merchant Circle, and Yahoo Local/Yahoo Directory allow you to collect on-line testimonials.  The pro is that these can be very powerful, the con is that these can be very powerful.  You need to be perfect everytime.  More than 1 bad review can be detrimental to your business, especially if you don’t have very many reviews.

4.  Audio Testimonials—These are useful to post directly on your web site and aren’t that difficult to obtain.  You can have them call a number in your office that’s specifically for voicemails.  Most office phone systems today have the ability to turn that phone message into a MP3 file so you post it to your website.  If you don’t have that capability, you can always use a service like FreeConferencecall.com—have them call in and give them the directions to record the call.  Later, you’ll get an email with a link to the recording. 

5.  Video Testimonials—Again you can post these directly on your website or maybe you have someone who is so thrilled they go ahead and post it on Facebook for all to see.  Obviously we aren’t going to post negative feedback on our websites, so getting someone to post feedback like this in other places on-line can be incredibility powerful for you.  A great way to collect video testimonials is to have a customer appreciation event and have a videographer there to collect your testimonials.  A nice offer to encourage your clients to come out is to offer to have them record a brief interview for their own business.

What other tools have you used to collect testimonials?

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