How To Utilize Referrals To Your Advantage

Have you ever tried a product or service based on the word of a friend, colleague or family member? Many of us have, because we trust that person and are more likely to take their recommendation over someone we don’t know. This is the power of referrals. Ask your current customers if they have friends, family, or people they know that they think would love your service.  Then contact those people on behalf of them, offering your services/products.

This is a great way to get access to potential new customers, while also having a warm introduction – you’re not cold-calling (or emailing!) them, as you’re essentially being introduced by their trusted friend/family member (your current client).

For example, say you have an ecommerce business where you sell natural beauty products. You could email out to your customers, asking them if they know anyone that would love your products as much as they do.

 If so, ask them to pass on the email address of those people and explain you’ll not only offer their friend a free sample of your most popular product, but that they too will receive a bonus 15% off their next purchase online as a thank-you. When you email the new lead with your free sample offer, mention that their friend thought they’d like your products, which is why you’re emailing and would love to offer them this free sample as a gift.

So put the power of referrals to work for you and piggy-back on the trust that your customers have already built with their friends and family.

Ask your customers if they know people they think would love your product/service, and if they’d be willing to pass their contact info on to you. Contact those people on their behalf and make them a special offer!

Are you after other great ways to reach new leads? Check out a demo of this software, which can help you find new leads already interested in your niche, and grab a special deal!  Web Fire

Everybody loves a freebie! What do you currently sell, that is of value, that you could offer for free? And how can you monetize the back end of that? This works especially well if you can offer something that other businesses would normally charge for.

For example, if you have a corporate cleaning business, you could offer your first clean free, and follow up with your customer to see if they were happy with your service and would like you to continue. This is a great way to get new clients to try your service, as you’re taking all the risk out of it for them and, if you do a great job, chances are they’ll want to keep you on. The principle of reciprocity comes into play here too – you’ve given something of value to them and chances are they’ll feel the urge to do the same back.

A twist on this model is our “free plus shipping & handling” funnels, where we offer something for free on the front-end as long as the customer covers a small s&h fee (usually under $5). As long as they think the value is $20+, they’ll consider this a steal and be inclined to jump on it, even if they normally wouldn’t buy it right then and there. However, a necessity with this model is to make sure that you have a great set of upsells and a good backend to really monetize it. We typically have a continuity offer (like a membership or something along those lines), a low to medium priced offer, and ideally a high-end offer in the upsell path. The real money is made in the upsell path, as it’s hard to make a lot off a free plus s&h offer. As an added bonus with this model, you also get a lot of quality buyer leads (worth far more than non-buyer leads), without often having to pay a lot in advertising costs to acquire them. This allows you to market more offers to them in the future and make even more money off these buyer leads.

Think about something you can give away, that has value, and then look at how you can monetize the back end. Whether it is a sample of your service or a physical product, this works especially well if it something that other people usually charge for.

For more insights on how to create a sales funnel that maximizes your profit potential, check out this tool here: BizFire’s Free Funnel Maker & Analyzer

So you’re looking to build a list? This strategy is a great way to build a list of people that are interested in your niche. First, find relevant Facebook groups in your niche, join them, and take the time to see what people are complaining about.

 

 

What are the common complaints that keep coming up again and again?  What product or service could you come up with to provide a solution to these complaints? Once you’ve come up with a solution, sell it or give it away for free to build a list or following.

For example, if you run a wedding planning business, join Facebook groups in that niche and see what the common complaints among brides-to-be are. Perhaps they find that it’s very overwhelming, trying to remember everything to organize and knowing when to do what. You could create a timeline checklist, of what to organize when in the countdown to the big day, and offer it free to build a list of potential clients.So join Facebook groups within your niche and see what the most common complaints are, then find a solution to these complaints and either sell it or use it to build a list or following by giving it away free.

For help with finding leads and building your list, you can check out a demo of WebFire’s tools here and grab a special deal!  Web Fire

Instead of waiting for leads to come to you, go to them! Many people just build an opt-in page or a squeeze page and wait for leads to sign-up or reach out to them – so instead of waiting for people to find your store and buy from you – actively go out and find prospects.

Look for questions that are being asked, which are relevant to what your business provides, on forums, Q&A sites (like Yahoo Answers or Quora) and social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Now take a couple of minutes to answer those questions, making sure you provide value first and foremost. This will help you gain extra exposure for your business, help build you up as an authority in your niche, start to build trust between you and possible customers and potentially land you some sales.

For example, if you have an SEO service, look for questions on the best ways to optimize websites. Then you could leave an answer such as, “Here are 3 tips I find work well…(insert your tips here). If you’re after more information, I help people with their SEO, through information and doing it all for them, and here’s a link to an article I wrote listing 17 tested ways to improve your search engine optimization.” You’ve already given great information and value in your answer, making people more likely to click through to your site.

Another example would be if you were a chiropractor, you can find people complaining about back pain and offer a couple tips that you think might help them, followed by an offer to stop by your clinic for a free initial adjustment or consultation.

Or if you were in the weight loss niche, you could find people asking questions on the best ways to lose weight, give them a few tips, and then link to a longer video or blog post of yours mentioning even more tips perhaps with an offer to sign-up for a free newsletter, which can be used to try to drive them into your main offer.

One last example, of an awesome way to go to leads instead of waiting for them to come to you, was when I first started out online, I decided to just be an affiliate for some diamond sites (where I’d earn 5% to 15% per sale through my link). I would search the internet for leads of people asking questions on diamonds, trying to see if they found a good deal, etc., and then offer to do a free analysis for them. I would often times end up finding better deals through one of the sites I was an affiliate for (sometimes I’d even have a coupon or discount through the site), pass on my affiliate link to the specific diamond, and make a nice commission when they bought it. All this was done while coming off as being a super nice guy helping them out (even if I mentioned that it was an affiliate link).

Don’t underestimate the power of going to leads instead of waiting for them to come to you! In fact, it’s important to note that this doesn’t just have to be done with consumer leads. You can apply the same methods to finding other businesses to partner with, for instance, and proactively reaching out to them to try to land a deal. Or even proactively going out to leads in the media to see if they’d want to run an article or story on something that you’re an expert in related to your niche. Even taking just an hour or two a week doing this can have huge benefits for your business.

Although you can manually search for leads out on the internet, if you get serious enough about this technique, there are tools out there like WebFire.com that can help you do this and more.

Go looking for leads, instead of waiting for them to come to you. Look on forums, Q&A sites (like Yahoo Answers) and social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to find questions being asked that are relevant to your offer. Answer those questions, providing good value, to increase your exposure and potentially make sales.

For help with finding leads after what you offer, you can check out a demo of WebFire’s tools here and grab a special deal!  Web Fire