Referral Marketing-The Stealth Way To Grow Your Business

We all have these grandiose expectations of having a multi-million dollar service based business.

We think if we just learn one more strategy or pay for one more program then that will be the key to blowing the doors off of our business.

It’s not your fault, we’re all wired to think that the latest and greatest marketing strategies will be the gold ticket to the income we want.

I won’t discount that many marketing strategies work wonders and I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I recommend and often use a minimum of 6 methods to market a business. Especially if someone has a service based business I always recommend the tried and true method that has worked for centuries—good ole referrals.

You’re probably grumbling right now and thinking that referral marketing isn’t necessarily the fastest path to more clients and do you know what? I agree with you, but it is the fastest way to higher paying clients and if you’re just starting out then you’ll want to rethink using this method in your business.

Here are some of the benefits you’ll find using referral marketing:

An unpaid sales force works the field for you*

+Prospects are prescreened

+ Smoother Sales Process

+ Higher Client Conversion

=More Clients and More Money

Yes they take some time to develop but I can tell you that if you’re doing a good job of marketing your business, attending networking events and specifically looking for finding strategic partners who compliment your services then referral marketing will be an extension of what you’re already doing.

Assignment: To get your referral marketing process going start by making a list of all of the other business owners that you already know who may compliment your services. I recommend that you send them an email letting them know you’re interested in talking further about how you may both learn more about one another’s business. Set up a date to talk and discover all the ways that you can support each other.

I can tell you that one of the main reasons my business has grown so rapidly is because I was strategic about referral marketing. I refer to certain experts and they refer to me.

Now I’m just beginning my first affiliate program to compensate referrals. So although there are many people who will gladly refer to you without any compensation, a referral fee* is an added bonus.

Don’t worry if you don’t have this in place right away, in time you’ll decide if affiliate marketing is a strategy to include in your business. Right now I’d just focus on creating relationships.

Your Turn: Do you prefer to meet people you refer to or do you refer clients to others even if you’ve only met them virtually? What do you look for when you refer to other service professionals?