This is one of my core principles of doing business: if you are going to be my client, I have every right to ask you for referrals, and I should be open and transparent about that from the very beginning. I teach this to all my coaching clients, I teach it to all my Fit Body Boot Camp franchisees, and I practice it myself with all my businesses.
Now I understand for some people that sounds a little scary. Some people might think, “I’m already asking my clients for their money, isn’t it a little too much to ask for their contacts as well?”
Well, the only way that could be a problem is if you’re delivering an inferior product or service and you’re overselling it. Otherwise, if you have a good product or service and your clients are happy with their results, you have every right to ask for referrals.
In fact, you might find that your clients actually want to give you referrals, or testimonials, or positive reviews, and the only reason why they haven’t done so already is that you haven’t asked.
Some people are afraid of feeling awkward when they ask for referrals, which is understandable. Personally, I’m more afraid of leaving money on the table and missing out on client relationships that could be rewarding for both of us.
Now there are some ways you can stimulate extra referrals, and I’ll explain those in a moment, but the first step is to just be up front about it as soon as you and your client sign the agreement.
To help you out with that, I’ve got a little script for you.
However…
Nothing I’m about to share with you is going to work if you don’t have one thing…
Your Clients are Family
This is another core principle of how I do business, and it connects perfectly with the first one: my clients are family.
I don’t care what industry you’re in or what kind of business you run—if your clients don’t feel like you are as close as family, you have a weak spot.
Yeah sure, you can maybe sell hard to drive the numbers up, and maybe your market has such a need that they’ll buy from you no matter how you treat them (for now), but you still have a weak spot.
If you want a massively profitable, highly scalable, competition-proof, recession-proof business, you need to treat your clients like family.
You need to keep close contact with your clients, give them all your best advice, and send them gifts and cards for special events in their lives to show that you recognize them on a personal level.
I’m being dead serious here: if you don’t have this family-type connection with your clients right now, there’s nothing I can do to help you grow your business. Consider this step one if you haven’t got it dialed in already.
Of course, there are plenty of ways you can streamline this. You can have your staff take care of the details like picking out cards and mailing things out, but you need to take the initiative and make it a top priority throughout your business to love up your clients constantly.
Now, let’s assume you’ve got that dialed in and dive into the specifics of how you’re going to get more referrals.
The Script
This is a powerful referral-generating script, and frankly, just good business sense in my book. Here’s how it goes:
Hey Mr. Jones, one last thing here: I’m really passionate about helping people in this industry, and I want to spend as much of my time and money as I can doing just that. In fact, I try to keep my marketing budget very small so I can pass on the savings to you and use my resources to give you even better results.
Of course, I do still need to reach new clients, and that’s where I’d like your help. When I get you the results I just promised you, I want you to bring me at least two more people who could use my help.
You should modify that slightly to make it more specific to your industry and business, but that’s the basic idea. Now here’s why that script works so well:
First, you’ve already built trust with your client and promised them a result. Second, you’re establishing that they only need to give you the referral AFTER they get their desired result.
Most importantly, you’re emphasizing how this way of doing business benefits them as clients, because you can pass on the savings to them and give them better results.
Once you’ve got the family-level connection to your clients and put them in the right mindset with your script, you’ll get a steady trickle of referrals organically, which is wonderful.
If you’re like me, though, you want to be more proactive and grow your business faster, which means you need to set up systems to stimulate referrals.
Referral Systems
This is where your strategy might be a lot different than mine, depending on your industry and your business, but I’ll explain a couple systems I’ve used that you can probably adapt.
In the fitness world, I’ve had great success with referral contests. For a referral contest, you let your clients now that you’ll be giving a cool prize, like a new iPad or a flat screen TV, to whoever gives you the most referrals by the end of the contest.
Of course, I always explain that the referral only counts if the person referred does become a client.
Also, you can mix in the referral point system with a different type of contest if you want more variety. For example, I’ll have Fit Body Boot Camp owners run 6 week challenges where their clients primarily earn points by losing weight, but they can win extra points through referrals.
Another great system is to recruit mavens from your client base to become dedicated referral sources. A maven is anyone in your community who has a lot of connections to people who fit your client avatar.
For example, for Fit Body Boot Camp locations, hair and nail salon owners make great mavens because they are constantly interacting with women in the area and building relationships with them.
A good maven effectively lets you borrow the trust they have with their contacts so you can quickly and easily convert them into your clients as well.
The best way to get mavens on your side is to approach them directly and offer your products or services either for free or at a steep discount in return for them giving you, say, two new referrals every month.
Unlike most of your clients, where referrals are more of a bonus, you want to hold mavens accountable to your agreement. If their referral rate falls below what you agreed upon, politely offer them the chance to switch to full payments or stop working with you.
There are plenty of other strategies you can use here, but those two are a great place to start. Best of luck with those referrals!
