> If you are discounting, then don’t muck around.
>
> Get your profits back by getting this blueprint video here:
> http://www.wordofmouthmagic.com/resources/blueprinttoprofits/
> ….

Well, it created a flood.

That link had more than triple the clicks of anything I’ve sent out in the past 12 months!

And now there is MORE.

This material comes from small business marketer, Paul Lemberg.

Back in 2007 I introduced Paul’s “lunch referral card” on my Word of Mouth Teleseminar series, and he has just gotten better and better.

Paul knows what businesses in this economy are crying out for – and I’m almost certain you need this…

—> More past customers coming back, more often!

Paul’s video not only shows you how to get them back, he GIVES you the blueprint.

He has a ‘done-for-you’ letter you can download, tweak and post or email out tomorrow.

Remember, referrals are your SECOND best word of mouth client.

The absolute best, easiest, and most profitable customer of all is the REPEAT customer.

So if you have been in business long enough to have ‘dead’ customers, sign-up for Paul’s ‘done-for-you’ blueprint:

http://www.wordofmouthmagic.com/resources/blueprinttoprofits/

And yes, the SOS video on “5 alternatives so you never need to discount again” is still there inside.

My sneak preview of this material last month lasted only 3 days before it was taken down. It’s back up now, and I don’t control how long this will be around this time, at least not for free.

-Martin Russell

As for whether this is useful for your particular business, here is my tip. You can pick up and respond to trends if you “become your customer”.

THEY, and they alone, are the ultimate marketing expert – and they are the source of your word of mouth.

So, is this how people are talking about you?

And to save you a step, here is the link to the SocialNomics blog which has the written version – as well as arguments over the accuracy of the information.

Want to Social Media tango with me?

I deliberately don’t Tweet, and I barely Facebook, but I do hide out on a few networking sites.

LinkedIn

Ecademy

PerfectNetworker

Oh, and thanks to Aaron Brandon who reconnected with me on LinkedIn and pointed me to this video

- Martin Russell

Mostly, I’d have to say no.

However I’ve come across one exception.

A company called ThinkBigWorkSmall.com puts out small videos that have consistently built their viewer numbers, and their sales…

Think our spending might be just a little bit out of control?

But that wasn’t the impressive stuff, because these guys are professionals. They do video full-time. Of course you’d hope they get results, but can they help anyone else?

Well here’s another example that got a great response this Christmas…

Merry Christmas!

But I phoned and spoke to the guy, Joey Sampaga, and it turns out that he has a double team going where he does the marketing and his mortgage partner concentrates on writing the loans.

Still not a model for the average small business person.

But finally I did find the evidence I was looking for.

If you ever send out a mass of emails you will know that a very small fraction of people ever even open the email, let alone read it and act upon it.

Often can be as little as 10% or less.

So when this business owner told me he sends out about 100 emails, and gets an average of 200 views on his video – that’s viral small business!

Would you like to take a list of emails, double that number, and have your face and contact details in front of all those people in a way they remember and can act on immediately.

You just have to ask yourself the question, is this guy better at presenting himself than you are?

The Government Bailout for Main St is Finally Here!

Call these people on these videos if you want to check out if this is real. I did.

Viral video for small business may just have arrived – with the results, and the ThinkBigWorkSmall.com training to make it actually happen (I’ve had a look inside and yes they train you properly.)

WOW!

-Martin Russell

Call it Rule Zero. No other marketing rules apply until this one is in place.

Here it is…

You can’t get ANY word of mouth, until people know you exist.

Seems too simple doesn’t it, but as a marketer I notice how many businesses just ignore this.

Do people know you exist?

And by ‘know you exist’ I mean have people…

1. Met you,
2. Know your details enough to direct others to you, and
3. Know what you do for people?

Here is a starting list:

• Family – hopefully only 3. is an issue here.
• Friends / acquaintances – and by the way if you really look into this category even the most isolated of us probably have 100 people. Think of everyone in your email address book or in your mobile phone. Got 1000 yet?
• Your own staff – do they really know what you offer? Don’t take this one for granted.
• Vendors / suppliers / advisers – if they are any good you may well recommend them, and this can build-up goodwill for them to return the compliment
• Businesses in your building / street / area – if you don’t know enough about them to send them referrals, then they probably don’t know enough about you either.)
• Homes in the area – ever thought of having a ‘housewarming’ for a business. Why the heck not?

And this is before we get anywhere near most standard sources for business referrals and word of mouth.

So here is a zero-cost marketing tip.

If you find yourself in a quiet time, take a walk and wander into another nearby business, introduce yourself, and ask them about their business.

You might be surprised what comes of it.

-Martin Russell

When your chat with your hairdresser ends up as a discussion about the latest ‘fab’ movie they have seen… that’s tipster marketing.

When a travel agent has been to the place you are travelling to and suggests a spot you have to check out while you’re there, that too is tipster marketing.

Ever thought how amazing a piece of word of mouth this is?

Each of those tip-offs will be more powerful than any advertising could ever be.

It’s brilliant!

It’s from a (supposedly) unbiased / unrelated source. It’s immediately got influence because it’s delivered by a local expert. Even better it happens exactly when the person has the need for the information.

Powerful, powerful word of mouth marketing.

Yet I have never seen anyone talk specifically about this form of word of mouth for small business.

More to the point I had a past customer of “Word of Mouth Magic” – someone who was so pleased about it she gave me a testimonial – specifically say that she wished I had a ‘how-to’ on this type of marketing.

She was in Las Vegas, where most of the business is from tourists who are always asking the local hotel staff, cabbies, waitresses etc for tips. To really succeed she needed to break into that word of mouth circle.

But my bag of tricks had nothing specific at that time.

Three weeks ago I came across retail marketer John Stanley – for the second time.

The first time I came across John was in my local library. I saw a book titled “Just About Everything a Retail Manager Needs to Know“.

That’s a pretty arrogant title for a book, so I took a look.

Now I’m no retail expert, but I was actually impressed, and ever since, this book has been in my mind for the times when have a retail business needing a make-over.

Anyway, while researching a bakery marketer (don’t ask) I found myself clicking across to www.JohnStanley.cc and rediscovering John.

When I searched for “word of mouth” I found John’s info on what he calls ‘tipster marketing’.

[John thinks he read the term in a book many years ago, but neither he nor I can find the source. If you know the name or know this technique under a different name, then I'd love to hear it.]

Anyway think about this for your business…

1. When are customers naturally asking for recommendations about your product or service? [Hint: it's often BEFORE they get to the point of looking at ads or the yellow pages.]

2. Who are they getting their answers from – aka who are the tipsters?

3. How can you get those tipsters to know your points of difference so they can appropriately recommend you?

Remember, even though Las Vegas might be awash with tipsters who are paid referral fees (disclosed or otherwise), in most other places people won’t need payment because giving out information is all part of the process.

If  you simply make an effort to build a relationship with a potential tipster, then they may well talk about you for free!

Got your own ‘tipster marketing’ experiences?

Visit John’s newest blog www.TipsterMarketing.com where he has some stories of his own, and add your story as a comment there.

Just to up the ante, I’m offering a small prize to the person who leaves the best comment there. [Oh, and best means most helpful to other readers - at my sole discretion.]

www.TipsterMarketing.com

-Martin Russell

“Swap & Drop” is a little known, face-to-face networking method that actually works.

How do I know?

Because Jordan Adler, entrepreneur, trainer, author, networker, and the originator of the term “Swap & Drop”, used this exact method to make a connection with someone who knew someone, who knew someone, who connected with me.

That’s how I came to know Jordan in the first place.

But that single Swap and the subsequent Drop didn’t just lead Jordan to me. It also made him more than a million dollars in the past 3 years alone – from one connection! That’s the leverage power of networking.

In general Jordan’s networking skills are earning him well over a million dollars a year. He is still Swapping and Dropping, and he is still growing his business and income.

He is also openly generous in sharing what he does.

“Swap & Drop” is as simple as they come, and yet it encapsulates the entire networking mindset.

On the audio below you will hear Jordan say, “My objective is to start a life-long process.”

I managed to find time with Jordan Alder to get you inside the mind of this networking million-maker.

Download and save this audio, and listen over and over again. It may seem too simple, yet it is all you need for networking success, and it’s a mere 10 minutes long…

Swap And Drop – Jordan Adler Interview

-Martin Russell

Would you be just a little bit pleased with that advice?

Well I absolutely would.

This adviser would have steered me away from a huge chunk of the biggest stockmarket meltdown in most people’s lifetimes.

In fact, while everyone else was watching their hard-earned assets evaporate I would have been earning a trickle of money, and now be cashed up to pick and choose.

Now…

What if I told you that there is an adviser who did just that for his clients…

…but he has had to leave the company!?!

Incredible, but true!

By advising his clients to get into cash he lost all the income from commissions he was making by having people in the stockmarket. Therefore, to make ends meet he has gone off to get a job at a bank!

This guy is in Canada where the stock market has fallen around 30% in the quarter.

This means he saved all the clients who followed his advice a whopping 30% of their savings (and remember that if you have suffered a 33% fall, the maths sayd you need a 50% rise just to get back to where you started!)

His clients are now in a position where their cash can buy up stocks that are 30% or more cheaper than they used to be. A double advantage!

And yet in a couple of weeks time he will begin a new job with a bank to get back the income he has been losing.

This a cautionary tale of what can happen when someone doesn’t know how to apply Word of Mouth and referral marketing.

So when I heard of his plight I arranged to give him a call.

Do you think he is pleased to have lost an income because he gave good advice?

No, certainly not.

Do you think his client’s want to lose him as a financial adviser?

Not if they have any interest in their financial future they don’t, but they don’t know this is happening. He hadn’t told them a thing!

Do you think this is an fantastic dinner-table conversation starter that would have word of mouth recommendations flocking to him, if only this story was out there?

I absolutely do!

The tragedy is that this adviser had no idea how to turn this situation into an event that MAKES his career, rather than ends it.

Heck, this would be worthy of a page in a local newspaper…

“Elderly Widow’s Home Saved From Stockmarket Crash”

“My friend’s are all worried about how they are going to survive with bills increasing and their savings way down, let alone whether there will be anything to pass on to the kids.”

“But my financial adviser steered me clear of this and I sleep so much easier at night. I am not having to cut back on prescription medicines, or buying my dog his favorite treats!”

[Okay, so I never wrote for newspapers. Radio was more my thing.]

Let me get personal for a moment.

What are you saying about YOUR financial advisers at the moment?

Where do you think their real interests lie, and what word of mouth are you giving them?

Finally, what would it have been worth to you to have had THIS adviser looking after your money?

What’s your opinion?

Enter a comment on this post, and I will make sure to pass it on to the adviser himself for his learning.

-Martin Russell

Often this is the make or break time of year when earnings have finally passed overheads and taxes, and they are relieved to at last be making money for their own pocket.

Yet perhaps because it is so busy, this is exactly the time most businesses will stumble and drop the ball.

They will get so caught up in servicing customers that they will forget to think about their marketing – and in particular how they will go about following-up.

It happens in one of two ways…

1. You focus on the immediate customers, and forget about building relationships with the past ones who have done business with you throughout the year.

Or even worse…

2. You let all these new customers buy, and then leave – without collecting their contact details and permission to follow-up with them in future!

I was reminded of this just this week when doing a consulting session for a clever businessman about Christmas sales.

I knew he was doing alot of things right because most of the people in his industry have been driven out of business by changes in technology over the past 20 years. Yet he had kept upgrading his marketing and he was kicking along nicely.

He was certainly clever enough to be collecting contact details for his customers.

Much more impressively he had been using those details year-in year-out to recontact people. He was producing excellent repeat holiday business just like clockwork.

But when I asked him how regularly he was contacting these people DURING the year to offer them the rest of his product range, he paused.

“Never”, he said. “I hadn’t considered it.”

Hmmm.

As I say at the top of this blog, there are 3 keys to word of mouth.

By far the easiest to implement is ‘Follow-Up’. Personal, frequent, long-term follow-up.

The easiest sale you will ever make is a repeat sale.

The second easiest sale is a referral.

Both of these are far more likely when you follow-up.

If your follow-up is not bringing you all the results you want (or if it’s just been all too hard) then help is at hand.

Next week I’ll be doing a special-offer webinar specifically on follow-up and Word of Mouth – and demonstrating what I regard as the Ultimate Service to put your follow-up on autopilot. You will also discover…

• A three step seasonal message that eases people into the next level of the buying relationship with you.
• Follow-up that is personal, powerful AND, best of all, automatic.
• How to make your follow-up marketing a profit-centre, not an expense.

Never risk the follow-up mistake again. Click on this link to sign-up and I’ll see you on the webinar Wednesday November 12.

-Martin Russell

Too bad this is actually an ad by, of all things, an Irish online bank.

Sure, understand your customers needs. But do realize that one of their needs might be not to reveal their real needs.

Saving face is an important need too.

-Martin Russell

With newspapers, articles, books, TV, radio etc the media offers word of mouth opportunities that cost you nothing but your time.

Even better, you instantly become the expert rather than the advertiser. This means people will trust you and respond to you.So even though word of mouth in the media is incredibly powerful, it’s a tricky area.

But who knows how to put together a Media Release? Find a newsworthy angle? Word it so as to catch a journalist’s attention? Format it correctly? Include all your contacts details? Set aside time to be available? Then work out who to send it to en mass, in the hope that it does something?

Not most people in small business that’s for sure!

But…

What if you had a particular area of expertise, and you could just stick up your hand whenever someone in the media needed to interview someone on that topic?

Wouldn’t that be cool?

Especially if it was free!

Well it is free, and first I told those people who connected up with me when I advised readers about the start-up social network www.PerfectNetworker.com, and now I’ve told all my readers via email how to get access to it.

Ryan Coleman of www.TheNextForce.com told me his experience with this service…

Just in the past month… i picked up a radio show, been interviewed for 2 book interviews and sourced 9 hiring managers to interview on my book that I am working on!

Go figure!

I also have heard of people passing on these media opportunities to their clients. What a WOW! of a customer value-add strategy is that!

This media link-up service is so powerful I am including the details for anyone who subscribes to this blog.

Go up to the top right side of the home page of this blog, in the boxes enter your name, your email address, and click the subscribe button.

Then go to your inbox, find the confirmation email from me, and click the link in it. With your subscription you will be sent details on how to access the FREE media link-ups, and future blog goodies too.

-Martin Russell

He already had my mailing address, but I was curious so I sent my details in anyway.

A couple of days later I get a small package in the mail.

Inside was a disc with the company name across it, Boost Business Results.

I’m in a rush so I take it with me and stick it in the car as I drive. But it’s not a CD, it’s a DVD. I hadn’t see that on the label.

When I get to the office again I stick it in my computer and watch a seminar room with people sitting at tables and no presenter, just a testimonial video playing  at the front of the room.

I fast forward through and about 8 minutes in the business coaching seminar begins. The video is 6 hours long and is unedited footage.

When I realize this I immediately give up ever finding that much time, and eliminate the problem by throwing the DVD in the bin. Step 1 of Time Management. Elimination.

Question…

Was this bad marketing?

Let’s take the story further.

A week later I phoned Don and he mentioned they had already had 2 big coaching sales from people who HAD watched the DVD all the way through.

This is the power of filtering.

Giving away a whole coaching seminar, unedited, meant that only the really keen were going to respond. But a whole $597 seminar for FREE! That’s a WOW for the right prospect.

So, was it bad marketing?

Answer…

Not based on results. And actual results are the only way to decide. Opinions from non-buyers are simply dangerous.

Maybe however this approach was just a fluke.

Another example…

A few months ago a UK business coach, Eric Sutherland, set up a 7-week series of complete Business Coaching pdfs – once again for free.

He was asking busy business people to set aside consistent time every week to implement the information. Who has that sort of time?

Well, when I spoke to him he told me not only had he already gotten some big coaching contracts from the quality of the information he presented there, but he had also had ZERO unsubscribes.

[If you want to check out this quality of his coaching program go here.]

Rather than go for the big sale, you can use the classic funnel effect as shown in this video here from Ed Rivis where his free course on improving a sales website drew in 1035 subscribers in 35 days and Ed then built the relationship from small sales up medium sales and then to bigger consulting ones.

But if you truly give away quality, the method matters much less.

Getting known is more important than getting it right. Your ideal customer will love you and rave about you, but can NEVER buy from you until they know you exist.

NOTE:-

All 3 of these expert marketers, Don, Eric, and Ed made sure they got contact details up front.

Not all marketing works. That’s not good or bad, it’s just a fact. Even these experts could have produced a dud campaign.

However with contact details they could always try something else instead, let alone go for future sales as well.

Where is your list of people who have already been attracted to you?

Bad marketing is when you don’t capture the list so you can’t try again.

-Martin Russell

“Ever had ‘success’ be a problem?”

Growing a small business into a bigger business means you hope for success, but sometimes it will be like having a tiger by the tail.

Perhaps the success will be when a marketing campaign finally hits the mark, a big order comes in, a media outlet picks up your story by chance.

What you do in this situation is critical for your word of mouth.

People are talking about you, the good and any bad, and with your credibility on the line you need to live up to everything you have said before and yet keep flexible to stay focussed on the original goal – to deliver the value that your customers came to you for in the first place.

This is what has happened to PerfectNetworker when they blew past the 300 members number that I mentioned in my previous post.

The word of mouth lesson is to keep everyone informed as you go.

So I got on to one of the founders, Glenn Garnes, who replied back immediately…

Frankly, we were overwhelmed by the quick response from people who it was shared with and we got to 300 so quickly that we are considering extended the free membership to give more of our friends the ability to invite their closest networking contacts to join in.

We have a board meeting this coming week to determine what we are going to do, so for now you can continue to invite your contacts until we sort this all out. I’ll report back when we have a final decision, but in the meantime I’d say take advantage of the opportunity to continue inviting your contacts if you like.

Well I do like.

So too have many readers of this blog that have already joined. [I think I've connected up with most of you, but send me a request if I missed you in the rush, and also pass this link below on to others you know.]

Here is the place to sign-up while the initial period of full-membership is free…

http://www.perfectnetworker.com/network/signup.php

-Martin Russell

My latest two reads are by a formidable Australian “retiree”, Kirsty Dunphey.

It might seem strange when I add that she is 29 years of age, but her entrepreneurial results put most of us, and definitely me, to shame.

Kirsty’s first book was “Advance To Go – Collect $1 Million: Broke at 19, Self-Made Millionaire at 23. A True Story.”

Besides being very open, and readable, it also shows that she has a great understanding of word of mouth marketing…

“I can tell potential clients what a great negotiator and marketer I am and what great service I give, but will they believe me? I am up against all these other competitors saying the same thing. The only person who can credibly sell my service is someone who has already received it. That is why word of mouth is the best form of advertising there is.”

From there I moved onto her second book, “Retired At 27 – If I Can Do It, Anyone Can: Broke At 19, Self-Made Multi-millionaire at 25, Retired at 27. A True Story.”

Yes really.

Kirsty moves it up a gear, calling word of mouth a “Strategic Weapon of Mass Persuasion”…

“…by enhancing every interaction you have with a client, complaint or otherwise, you have the opportunity to create an advocate who is a “Strategic Weapon of Mass Persuasion”. If you can impact on that one client to a great enough degree, they’ll go out there and persuade others for you! Word of mouth marketing is so powerful… and free! Could you ask for more?

I like the idea of word of mouth as a Strategic Weapon of Mass Persuasion that SWoMPs the competition.

And get this…

“I challenge you the next time you get a complaint to give yourself an imaginary :”High Five”. Here is someone saying to you: “I care enough to tell you I’m not happy” and “I care enough to give you an opportunity to fix this problem”. They’re screaming at you to make them into a more loyal client. The alternative is the client who doesn’t give you the opportunity and immediately starts working as a Strategic Weapon of Mass Persuasion to the public in a negative way! I certainly know which I’d prefer.”

Now there is an open challenge for the next complaining customer you meet.
Kirsty really gets the WOW! of outstanding service delivery, and she does her Follow-Up and ‘Call To Action’ very strongly, appropriately and consistently too.

The complete WoM package!

I usually get pretty jaded by websites these days but Kirsty’s kept me exploring for over an hour on two separate visits each!

Just as one small example, her use of words would make Tony Robbins very proud. Other people would have such pages as ‘Free Resources’, ‘Enquiries’, and ‘Articles’, but not Kirsty. Instead she has ‘Download Me’, ‘Ask Away…’, and ‘Use Me Baby…’

Remember WOW! doesn’t have to be complicated.

It can be something as simple as changing jargon into real language.

Let me open Kirsty Dunphey’s Pandora’s box of marketing for you. The marketing nouse crammed into this one page alone demonstrates why I call this woman formidable. Enjoy the fun education…

http://www.kirstydunphey.com/features.html

-Martin Russell

Don’t like it? That’s your problem not mine.

But it’s here for YOU.

I’m going to bring you the best value I can no matter what it takes.

Want to deeply ‘get’ referral marketing, and the incredible profits at very little cost that it can bring?

Then this post is for you.

Ever since I heard Paul McCord crack-the-whip on a poorly attended teleseminar I was solidly impressed.

I’ve been watching out for something that really demonstrates this guy’s credentials, and this is it. An excerpt from his first book, an Amazon and Barnes & Noble bestseller, “Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success Through Client Referrals”.

Every paragraph is dangerously necessary…

Asking For Referrals–Don’t Be Mislead by Misguided Trainers

By Paul McCord

Take a look at some of the current literature and training on referrals and you’re bound to walk away confused and frustrated. One trainer tells you not to ask for referrals because it signals to your client that you’re weak and can’t find business on your own. Another tells you that referrals are your ‘right’ and your clients have no right to withhold them from you. Another says that when you ask for referrals you’re offending your client and that instead of asking clients for referrals, you should be exchanging referrals with other salespeople like trading cards. Another one tells you that in order to get referrals you must give the client a reward, the bigger, the better. Many others say the ‘secret’ to getting referrals is just to ask.

So, who’s right? Are referrals a sign of weakness? Are your relationships with your clients commodities to be traded on the open market? Are referrals your God given right? Do you really have to bribe a client to get referrals? Or is simply asking the magic formula?

Misguided Referral Training

In a sense they’re all right. If one doesn’t know how to initiate and develop a relationship with clients that result in the client willingly giving a large number of high quality referrals then maybe you are offending the client when you ask; maybe you do have to bribe them in order to get referrals; maybe your relationship is nothing but a commodity; maybe you do feel you have to go in with the attitude that it’s “my right and by gosh you’re going to give me referrals.”

According to one trainer, asking for referrals can kill your credibility by making you “just like every other salesperson.” Instead of asking for referrals, one should be different and professional, giving great service and waiting for your clients to spread the word for you. Talk about having no clue as to how to generate referrals.

First, this trainer has left the realm of referrals and has gone into the realm of word of mouth marketing — a not uncommon confusion of the two very different marketing formats. [Editor:- Okay, I think of referrals as a sub-category of word of mouth, but enough of semantic quibbles.] Secondly, no matter how great you are at providing superior service, how often have you gotten unsolicited referrals? The dozens and dozens of top producers I’ve worked with believe they can reasonably rely on maybe a half dozen unsolicited referrals a year. Now that puts a real dent in their production.

According to another training company, you should be asking for referrals virtually every time you speak with your prospects and clients–and you should be asking because referrals are your right. They advise you begin asking for referrals from your first meeting with the prospect and ask for them before you make any presentation. You have a right to ask for referrals and your prospect has no right to withhold them, so ask for them right up front, ask forcefully–and insist they give them. As with the advice above, they seem have no clue as to the psychology of referrals. They appear to believe that salespeople are God’s gift to consumers and therefore have extraordinary rights simply because they have a business card that says they’re a salesperson.

Referrals are NOT a right.

Referrals are EARNED and you cannot earn a referral the second you meet a prospect. The client has the right to give or not give referrals; you have no right to expect them.

Referrals are earned by doing exactly what you have promised your client, not by demanding them, not by expecting them, not by simply existing and standing in front of a prospect or client.

Many advocate using incentives to get referrals, but often the incentives they speak of aren’t really incentives but are instead bribes. The theory is that people ‘love to give referrals’ and that giving an incentive simply makes giving referrals that much easier and ‘fun.’ Some advocate gift cards of anywhere from $25 to $100 or more, others a percentage of the sales price, and others free merchandise and/or service, often the incentive is outlandish–and the bigger the incentive, the more referrals you’ll get and if you get enough referrals, the incentive will have been worth it.

The first problem with this advice is that people don’t ‘love giving referrals.’ Most clients hate giving referrals–unless they fully understand why they are giving the referral, why giving referrals are in their own best interest, and that the person they give the referral to has objectively earned the referral. Clients don’t give referrals because they like you, respect you, or even because you did a good job. They give referrals because giving referrals is in their best interest–and if you have to bribe them to give referrals, you haven’t earned them. And if you haven’t earned them, no matter the size of the bribe you give, you won’t get high quality referrals.

Secondly, clients may well question your professionalism and your ethics if you must result to bribing them for referrals. Clients make a number of assumptions about salespeople. One is that a successful salesperson doesn’t have to bribe people for business. If they believe that is what you are trying to do, you lose their respect and once you lose their respect, they won’t be referring you to the best prospects they know.

If you use an incentive, it must be small in price, highly personal in the sense that it is something just for them, and it must not appear in any way, shape, or form to be a bribe.

There are sites on the internet that try to turn referrals into trading commodities between salespeople. These of course aren’t referrals; they’re simply exchanging information between salespeople about who to contact within a company. These commodity trades can certainly be valuable, but they are a far cry from a referral. According to the blog on one company’s website, customers don’t have the proper ‘DNA’ to give referrals. A client’s only value is in being a reference, not in giving referrals.

As with the others, it simply demonstrates a lack of understanding of what a referral is and how to generate a quality referral. Again, I think the service these companies provide is valuable for the right salespeople, but confusing a referral with a name trade is a disservice to the salespeople engaging in their service. Salespeople can use both quite successfully. No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot get referred into every company that I would like to speak to. A service such as this can help me do that–but having a direct referral into the company is a far better alternative, if I can get it.

Finally, there are the hundreds of sales trainers giving the worn out advice to simply “do a good job and ask for referrals.” This is the way referral generation has been taught for decades simply because the trainers didn’t know a better way of referral generation. Unfortunately, it has been demonstrated that just doing a good job and asking doesn’t work. Thousands upon thousands of salespeople have tried the do a good job and ask for referrals method and have met with dismal results–very often to the point they simply give up asking. In fact, the failure of this method is a major contributor to the misunderstanding of referrals that has resulted in the unfortunate advice given by the trainers above.

Why These Training Methods Fail

To understand how to get referrals, you must first understand why the typical referral training doesn’t work. Understanding what doesn’t work will lead you to understand what does work.

Most referral training is nothing more than a variation of ‘do a good job and ask for referrals.’ Referrals are still an afterthought, a last second question often asked as the salesperson is literally walking out the door. There may be a little twist to it such as offer an ‘incentive’ (read bribe), or ask every time you see a prospect or client because they owe you referrals, or help your client by defining for them who a good
prospect is.

The standard referral training creates more problems than it solves. It does solve one problem–it has you ask for referrals. But it creates these problems:

• Asking without first introducing the topic of referrals and allowing the client to become comfortable with the concept takes the client by surprise–it’s an unexpected and unwelcome request.
• It puts your client on the spot. The client is expected to come up with quality referrals in the course of 10 or 15 seconds–an unreasonable expectation.
• It doesn’t define for the client who a good referral is (although as we’ve seen, at least a few trainers understand this is an issue.)
• It ignores the psychology of the client–that client’s are human and humans typically do things because they see doing them to be in their best interests, and simply asking for referrals doesn’t give the client a reason to give them.
• It further ignores the psychology of referrals by ignoring the fact that when a client gives a referral they are putting their credibility on the line with the prospect they refer. Consequently, they won’t give quality referrals unless they KNOW they will not be embarrassed in front of the prospect. They must have an objective way to determine if you’ve earned the referrals.
• It doesn’t make giving referrals easy for the client–it makes them do all the work.

Is it any wonder most salespeople don’t get many quality referrals? The process they’ve been taught actually discourages clients and prospects from giving referrals. If one wanted to develop a system designed to NOT get referrals, they couldn’t come up with a better system than the one most salespeople have been taught.

Almost every one of the training mistakes above can be traced to the standard referral selling process’ failures:

• Losing credibility? Of course, asking unexpected and unwelcome questions that put your client on the spot doesn’t do you any favors with your client.
• Needing a bribe? Certainly, what other reason does the process give for the client to give referrals? None.
• Clients are only good as references? Naturally, when you can’t get a decent referral from them, what else are they good for other than a reference?
• Demand they give referrals because referrals are your right? When the process fails, browbeat your client into giving referrals. That sounds like a winning attitude.

Turn Referrals into a Real Process

If the above advice is wrong, which it is, then how do you get referrals?

If you want to turn your business into a referral-based business, or even if you just want to significantly increase the number and quality of referrals you get from your clients and your prospects, you have to make referrals a real part of your sales process, not just a last second question, a bribe, or a hope for word of mouth marketing. [Editor:- definitely avoid the 'hope for' type.]

You have to have a process that:

• Lets your client get comfortable with idea of giving referrals
• Gives the client ample time to think of quality referrals to give
• Defines for the client exactly who a quality prospect for you is
• Gives the client a real reason as to why giving you referrals is in their own best interests
• Gives the client an objective way to determine if you’ve really earned the referrals
• Makes giving a large number of high quality referrals easy

Referrals are not a last minute, off the cuff question to ambush your client with as you’re walking out the door. Instead, true referral selling involves taking the time to work with your client to get them comfortable, to get them educated, to show them why giving referrals is in their best interests, and to allow them to objectively determine if you have earned their trust and their referrals–and then to make it so easy for the them that they freely give 5, 6, 7 or more high quality referrals.

A referral process introduces you to the client as a referral-based salesperson. It leads them though the process, step-by-step to prepare them to give high quality referrals. It gets their verbal agreement to give you a large number of high quality referrals. It defines for them exactly how you will earn their referrals. And then you do the work for them, making it easy for them to give you a large number of high quality referrals.

Like anything else in sales, learning to generate a large number of high quality referrals isn’t magic; it’s learning and perfecting a real process. It takes time, energy, and honing of skills.

——-

Paul asked me for feedback ahead of the publication on his second book, “SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar” which was released earlier this year, and just as I had discovered in his teleseminar, he has much more to teach.

Along with some more specific comments and something for his publisher to bash into a proper “testimonial” I also said this…

“Realism is a scary thing to put in a book Paul.”

Paul’s sales training website is at www.powerreferralselling.com, and he runs two blogs at http://salesandmanagementblog.com and http://themanagementcurve.com

If you are a salesman or managing sales people, and you haven’t at least got something of Paul’s in your collection then you’re missing out big time.

If the excerpt above hasn’t proven this to you then I don’t know what will.

I don’t ever dedicate so much of my blog to one item lightly.

-Martin Russell

Most of this information is simply a distraction to small business.

If you want an introduction to the basics of big business word of mouth aka viral marketing, buzz marketing and a bunch of other names, then I still recommend the original IdeaVirus by Seth Godin.

For the most part I don’t look into much more of big business styles.

But when Seth Godin himself announced a word of mouth publication I thought it was worth a look.

It is “The Word of Mouth Manual – Volume II” by Dave Balter, Founder and CEO of BzzAgent, and co-founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), the peak body for big business WoM.

Here are the most relevant excerpts for small businesses…

“[The period immediately after buying something]… is a unique and incredible moment in a product’s life cycle. One in which consumers feel absolutely compelled to make believers of the people around them. Word of mouth skills go into overdrive. We practice our most persuasive techniques. We extol our knowledge to accelerate the decisions of others.”

And this one gets to the heart of a topic I have covered before on this blog…

“.In an experiment described in a scientific paper, “Effort of Payment”, researchers explored how people’s behavior is affected by various forms of payment. A research subject asked a series of friends to help him load a sofa into a van and promised each one a different kind of reward. The researchers found that people were much more likely to help if they were offered a simple, non-cash reward like a bag of jellybeans or a pizza. The offer of cash immediately caused people to evaluate the task differently – not as a favor for a friend but as a work for hire. (Likely, they’ll want more moolah ’cause your couch is so heavy, dammit.) A pizza is seen as a thank you among equals. A cash payment completely changes your relationship.

What does this have to do with word of mouth? The research shows that people often expend more effort if they’re getting no payment at all than they would for a low cash payment. This is why I hate shlll marketing so much. People are paid to act like they’re enjoying a product, even if they’re not. Suppose the sample guy at the supermarket offered you $5 to tell your friends you dug the gouda cube? You’ll likely say, “No thanks.”

So rewards don’t pollute the process. Cash does. That’s why paying [people], whether in dollars or Krugerands, is never going to generate the same authenticity of just letting them try a product on their own.”

Oh, and nothing to do with small business, but I hadn’t come across this one before…

“Sometime around the beginning of time, Eve offered Adam an apple, and so word of mouth began.”

Hmm. Not exactly a positive spin on word of mouth I would have thought.

Anyway, this book is fairly good read, a solid argument for word of mouth marketing methods, and also a nice behind the scenes look at the author’s BzzAgent company. Did anyone say plug-fest, or is that meant to be ‘word of mouth’?

Oh and it’s free as an e-book by clicking here, and you can buy the paper copy for yourself if you like it for trophy value.

Otherwise I hope I’ve given you the important bits. Happy marketing!

-Martin Russell