When you consider that the easiest sales can be made to people that are referred to your business it makes sense that you should get as many referrals as you possibly can.

You should instil in your company the culture of continually asking for referrals from satisfied customer contacts. Initially, it can be a little daunting having to ask somebody supply you with a contacts name and telephone number. It is probably on par with having to start telemarketing the first time.

However, if you deal with 100 satisfied customers every year and ask each of them to refer you to 5 people similar to themselves, it would not be unusual for you to get at the very least one from each. If, as I suggest, you incentivise these people, and they were given either a discount on future sales or a night out at the cinema it will generally give you two or three referrals per client.

Let’s just say that you only get one referral per client, If each one of the referrals were to purchase from you you would have instantly doubled your turnover for the year. When I have setup referral systems for my clients, I can almost guarantee to double turnover of the client company.

So, it is vitally important, especially with these tough economic times that you not only look after clients that you teach them to start giving you their friends and family and colleagues. It really is a use sour company can make to a referral of satisfied clients,

1. You will need to train your staff to ask for referrals at every possible opportunity. Ask straight after the client purchases from you, make sure you ask for referrals in all correspondence that goes out to your clients.
2. Try to set up a cross selling system with local businesses to your own, if you’re a beauty salon speak to a local hairdresser, a dental surgery, fashion clothes stores or whatever is similar to your line of work and help by referring clients to each other.
3. Each time your client purchases make sure that you send them a thank you note with some discount vouchers or some cinema tickets and client referral form. This was one of the biggest ways we generated thousands of new referrals to our businesses every year.

If you need more advice on setting up a referral system for your company give us a call will be only too happy to help you.

Tags: 3 killer ways, get referrals to your local business, local business