Grow Your Home Based Business from Referrals
People buy from those they like and trust. Same goes for businesses that consumers refer to their friends and family.
Word of mouth advertising has always been one of the most powerful and effective ways to grow your business and we so frequently forget to include our existing customers in our marketing plan.
Think about it:
If your roof needs to be repaired would you be more inclined to open the yellow pages (actually use Google) or would you call a neighbor that you know had roof work done in the not too distant past?
When you go to make a purchase on e-Bay or Amazon or Best Buy – do the customer reviews have an impact on your purchasing decision?
Say you want to try a new restaurant in town – if there aren't any cars in the parking lot do you move on past? What about if the parking lot is packed?
So how are you using referrals to grow your business?
In an article by John Jantsch (actually in 2008, but still valuable today) that appeared in Entrepreneur Magazine, John talks about Referral Madness and provides 7 steps for building trust with your customers so that they refer your products and services.
He says this for us to think about:
The key is to think far beyond your core products and services and start developing ways you can gain trust with prospects by offering valuable, informational products. Only then should you start to pick apart your actual product or service to make sure you're delivering on the promise you built before the sales process began.
Finally, you must intentionally build systems and processes that allow you to deliver such a wonderful experience that your customers have little choice but to rave about your company and its services to their friends, neighbors and colleagues at all stages of the life cycle.
Check out the complete article for the detailed seven steps.
Think information from 2008 is too old? Why not check out this review of John's latest book The Referral Engine. I think you'll find it valuable!