Referral Marketing: Part 1

[Music playing]

Hi, I am Bill West.

Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to receive and benefit from some pretty good referrals that turned in to some of my easiest sales to some of my largest invests clients. Recently, while I was listening to some marketing CDs by Dan Kennedy, one of the country’s top marketing gurus. I was reminded that most sales people and professionals know that referrals work better for finding and closing there ideal customers, but only about 20% have ever really focused on getting referrals and only about 5% of those implement a written action plan that incorporates referral goals into their marketing strategy and eventually, turns them into super stars.

Okay, you are saying to yourself “Hey, Bill I get referrals.” Let me ask you a question, when was the last time you looked at your weekly or monthly sales goals and said, “Here is how many qualified referrals I am going to get in order to reach my sales goals and then in an actual written plan for getting targeted qualified referral introductions.” What I have just said? A qualified referral introduction that means someone with influence has pre-introduced to you to an ideal prospect as defined by you with the understanding that this prospect would like to meet with you.

This person who has referred you through their trust and relationship with a prospect has changed this meeting from a sales meeting to a service meeting. They have established your credibility include the way for you to get down to providing solutions for the prospect. And, in my experience, it really increased your odds of closing not just a sale, but an ideal sale.

All right, I said a couple of things that needs further explaining. Let us start with the client’s descriptions and where are prospects come from. As a rule, clients were customers fallen to four categories: ideal customers, bread and butter customers, marginal, and undesirable customers.

Why do we need to define our customers and prospects, because it is important to understand that ideal customers usually represent 10% of our customer mixed, but 50% of our profits. Bread and butter represents 50% to 70% of our customers and 30% of our profits, and marginally profitable and undesirable customers are 20 to 40% of our customer-based and only represent 20% or less of our profits.

You got to be careful what you ask for. I once coached a professional, who told me that he received all of his business.

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Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services