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Show Notes
When we’re thinking about what we want to buy or do or get a service, what’s the first thing we do?
We go and ask somebody else. Now that could be a friend, a family member, a work colleague, or it could be just a random person on Google. We can ask chat these days or we go to Facebook groups and we say, where do we find that local? Insert the blank. So referrals are really important and you need to make sure that you have a plan to do it.
Referrals generally don’t cost a lot of money. In fact, most times they don’t cost anything, but they are absolute gold because it’s a transfer of trust.
Add Value
Referrals don’t just happen organically. You think if you do a good job, your customers will refer you. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Quite often they don’t think about referring you unless somebody point blank says, do you know a great business coach? And then they might, but they are not going to just bring it up in a conversation.
So you really do need to have a plan. So the first thing you need to do is think about how you are adding value to your customers. Check out Episode 194: Are You Adding Value? And then think about the way people buy. Check out Small Business Talk For Coaches Episode 238: How People Decide to Buy.
Find Your Niche
So you need to match plan and execute. Because if you don’t know who you’re talking to then they’re not going to refer you, are they? And if you are not very clear about your niche, it’s really hard to refer you to everybody.
You ask somebody who they can work with and they get everybody. Now everybody spring to mind. But if you ask them who they work with and they say, business coach, I’m a business coach and I work with newly certified coaches that are wanting to create a thriving business out of their coaching certificate and stop it being an expensive hobby and turn it into a great business.
Then you can say, yeah, I know a newly certified coach, or I know a coach that’s just struggling a bit and not getting to where they need to be. Or you can say, no, I don’t. It becomes much clearer and easier when you understand what it is that people are looking for. So you need to be really specific about your niche.
Get Reviews
How are you going to talk to? So what you’re doing is you’re getting people to sign up for you because you can stand there until the cows come home and you can say, yeah, I’m fantastic. I can do this amazing thing. And all it needs is one person to say, hi, be my business coach. Go and see Cathy because we trust other people’s opinion so much more.
And especially when they don’t seem to have any buying or any need to do that. How often have you recommended somebody or book or something like that, and you’ve just done it because you thought it was a great book or a great service? You are not necessarily getting anything from it. Now, that’s another strategy that we will talk about a bit later on, but right now we’re just talking about just organic referrals.
And people believe them. They read the reviews. They check out what’s going on. So what kind of reviews can you have on your social media, on your websites and your emails, that sort of thing. Do you have some great case studies? If you’ve done some really great work with somebody, is there an opportunity to maybe get them on a video testimonial?
Just do it on zoom and have a chat. Hey, I’ve got five questions to ask you. Would you be okay to do that? Most people, if you make it simple, they will. If you’ve got to be really difficult and complicated, not a chance. So referrals. It’s all about trust. It’s about building credibility. It’s about making sure that you are in front of the right people at the right time.
Showcase your Clients
Create a service that is referral worthy. Have those personal touch points. How can you celebrate your customer’s wins? How can you showcase them if it’s appropriate? And making sure that you are making the customer, the client, the hero? Don’t make stories all about you but about your clients. That’s what you want the customer to think. You want them to be involved in your stories and making sure that, yeah, it could be them and it might be them.
Use Affilate Programs for Rewards
Consider having a reward system. You might have an affiliate program where people are actually actively promoting you. And that’s a great way to get referrals too, because you will be using that person’s credibility. Because if you are on a webinar, for instance, and somebody says, oh yeah, Cathy’s great. And here you’ve got a 15-minute spot, then those people there are already liking the host.
They’ve already part of the host community. Nine times out of ten, and now you are being put in front of new people with that credibility and that trust. So affiliate programs can be a really wonderful way to do it. It can be going out through a mass generally affiliates. Then you need to give them a reason. So whether it’s exclusive content for their audience, whether it’s some sort of reward, it might be a basically a finder’s fee from your program
Links
Contacts
How to Get More Clients Through Word of Mouth
So remember you need to niche. You need to plan. And then you need to execute. So testimonials, referrals and case studies can be such a great way to increase your marketing, to get some exposure and some credibility so that you can get more clients through word of mouth.
Listen to the full episode of Small Business Talk episode 282.
You can also find the video versions of the Small Business Talk Episodes on YouTube.
