Adding this one little phrase to your script will help you get referrals. “So that I can better serve you, I need to ask for your help.”

Why does that make sense in any business? If you’re spending a lot of time marketing your business, it takes away from time you could be spending servicing your clients. Your billable time is decreased by how much time you have to spend in marketing.

If you ask people who know you, like you and trust you, are they likely to want to help you? Since know, like and trust are foundational to doing business with someone, shouldn’t that describe all of your clients? Of course! So, here’s what you say next: “One of the keys to my being able to serve my clients exceptionally well is that I spend very little time, money or staff to market my services. This is because I work primarily on a referral basis.”

That statement is very powerful if you have earned the right. If you ask for referrals and you have not earned the right, will you get referrals? Does it matter what you say? No. So, you must earn the right to get referrals and help them connect the dots in their brain that of course they should help you increase clients by connecting you with leads and recommendations.

Here’s another issue to consider: do people even know that you want to increase clients? If you’ve ever been to my office, you know that I’m meeting with a client and another one’s on the way. There’s always somebody waiting. When you are coming out, someone is coming in. This was also true back when I was just doing financial planning. I had a financial planning client who after seven years of working together without ever sending me a referral, gave me over 100 quality referrals, when I finally asked the right questions. So, trying to learn from my experiences, I asked them, “why didn’t you refer me to all these people sooner?” He said, “Well, you never asked like you did this time, and I just thought you were too busy and didn’t need any more clients.”

Some of you may assume that people will refer people to you just because you’re good. You may the best in the business, but don’t overlook this step. Let your clients know frequently, “We are expanding our business and we are looking for other businesses or individuals who might benefit from our products and services.” (Be sure to be specific in stating what the unique benefit of your product or service is). It was a really important learning for me that day. I can’t just assume that everyone should just know that I’d like to increase clients and get more business. That’s pretty important to know, isn’t it?

Because every time they came in they saw people leaving, and when they were leaving they saw people coming in, they assumed that I was too busy and didn’t need or want to get more business. If you are successful with time management, and keep and tight schedule, this might be the impression that you’re giving people. You can’t just let people assume that you have more than enough business. Be sure people know that you would like to have more customers, clients, patients or guests. Using the script about “expanding your business” is a good way to do it.

Now, don’t forget what I said earlier: you must earn the right. When you are going through this script with a customer or client (people that are currently doing business with you), you want to use language that allows you to easily demonstrate how you’ve earned the right to get referrals. To accomplish this, say, “If after having proven that I have either met or even exceeded your expectations in the professionalism in which I do business, with your permission I would like to ask you for referrals.” And then, soften it with this question: “Would that be fair enough?”

If you’ve done right by them, exceeded their expectations and in fact earned the right to ask for referrals, they will say “Yes” every time.

Earl Kemper, two-time global coach of the year in the world’s largest business coaching organization, ActionCOACH Business Coaching is the authority on getting referrals. Over the past 28 years, he has successfully coached more than 1,100 individuals who on average, double their business in less than nine months. To learn more about how to get referrals, increase clients, get more business and make your business profitable, contact Earl Kemper at http://www.actioncoachempowerment.com.

Have you ever been in a relationship, either personal or professional, that has left you feeling totally exhausted? Everyone has someone like this in their life. Have you ever been in a purchasing situation and the person selling you something zapped your energy? Once you got out that door as fast as you could, did you go back? Of course not! If you’ve never felt this way, or don’t know anyone like this, be careful, it may be you!

In every relationship, you have an emotional bank account with that person and you’re making deposits and withdrawals into their account. As you’re interacting with your clients, train yourself to think: “Am I adding to their emotional bank account or am I making a withdrawal?” Think about ways that you can routinely make deposits into the emotional bank account of your customers. This can have a huge impact on whether or not you get referrals and if you’re able to make your business profitable.

Since your number one customer is you (a business has to serve the owner first and foremost), you have to include yourself in this list. How do you make a deposit into your own emotional bank account? Do you need a day of rest? Do you need a massage? Do you need some extra help? You always want your additions to the account to outweigh the withdrawals.

Think for a moment about your ideal clients. How does it feel when you work with them? How do they treat you? How easy is it to go above and beyond for them? Now, think about your actual clients and rank them in your mind as an A,B,C or D. Your A clients are your awesome clients. Your B customers are your basic clients, or your bread and butter clients. If you are like most business owners, 20% of your customers bring in about 80% of your revenue. These are the ones that make your business profitable and where you are most likely to get referrals. Your A and B clients likely make up about 20% of your list.

In contrast, about 80% of your problems come from the lower 20% of your clients. This means that it takes just as much time to deal with the lower 20% as it does to deal with the upper 20%. Your C customers are your “can’t deal with” customers and D stands for dead. Not literally dead, but you know they are not likely to become an awesome or even basic client no matter how you bend over backwards for them. If you want to increase your energy and make your business profitable, I want you to think about divorcing the D’s and even some of the C’s.

Your deposits into your personal emotional bank account are much greater if you’re dealing with your A’s and your B’s. You get more joy from dealing with them. They get more value from you because you love working with them. Your best referrals are going to come from these clients. So, if you have more energy to nurture your best relationships and get referrals, it will help you to make your business profitable. So, make room for more A and B clients in your life. Break up with your least profitable clients!

Business Coach Joni Inman was Rookie of the Year Americas in the world’s largest business coaching organization, ActionCOACH Business Coaching. She has 30 years of experience in business and leadership. To learn more about how to get referrals, increase clients, get more business and make your business profitable, contact Joni Inman at http://www.actioncoachempowerment.com.

If you want to increase clients and get more business, you need to think about four different kinds of customers. There are four different kinds of customers in every business. The first customer is you, the business owner. You are actually the most important customer in your business. In every customer relationship there is value that is exchanged for a good, or product, or service. First and foremost, your business has to serve you. And if you’re not a raving fan of your own business you really can’t expect anyone else to be a raving fan and help you get more business. You must be the first raving fan in your business, since you’re exchanging your time and your energy for profit. So you are your first customer.

The second customer in your business is your team. Your team has to believe in what your selling. Depending on the size of your business, your team members could be directly responsible for 30-40 end users or more in your business. If your team isn’t happy, they are not good extensions of you. If you haven’t chosen your team members well, the end user won’t have a good experience. You must serve your team by injecting energy, commitment, education and gratitude into those relationships. If you want to get more business and increase clients, choose your team right, invest in them, and show appreciation.

The third customer of your business is the supplier. You are their customer, right? You buy the medical supplies from them, you buy the office supplies from them, and you buy the toilet paper from them. But truthfully they are one of your customers. They expect you to pay them on time, and you must service them. If your suppliers are happy they’re going to end up being raving fans of yours. There’s nothing more powerful than having businesses that are dependent upon you being your advocates out in the world. They’re dealing with other businesses; they’re talking about you just as everybody else is. It’s in their best interest to help you increase clients, because when you get more business, so do they!

Finally we have the end users: your customers, clients, patients or guests. You have a product that we’re selling, a service that you’re providing and you know what to do with them. You have something they want, they pay you money and you give it to them. That’s the easy one right? Not always. But you may not be the only provider of your service. You might not be the only game in town that has legal services, or the only veterinarian, or medical doctor. You might not be the only business in the world that sells shoes. So why do they come to you? Customers (end users) primarily buy experience. They come to you because of their experience with you.

When you find a potential customer or client, you must discover what it is that they want. And then sell them what they need. They come to you because they think they need something. They need a new pair of shoes. They need to have a will written. They need vaccinations for their cat. They need things. We know what they need, and a lot of people can provide what they need. But through asking the questioning you can figure out what they want. People buy based on an emotional response. If you ask enough questions you’ll know that they probably want less stress or more feelings of satisfaction. They might not just need a pair of shoes, they might want comfort or they might want a new image. Understanding what they want that is key to your ability to increase clients and get more business. If you can fulfill the need and the want, you have made them happy in one transaction. If you can fulfill an emotional need and want, you can create a relationship that will last forever.

Business Coach Joni Inman was Rookie of the Year Americas in the world’s largest business coaching organization, ActionCOACH Business Coaching. She has 30 years of experience in business and leadership. To learn more about how to get referrals, increase clients, get more business and make your business profitable, contact Joni Inman at http://www.actioncoachempowerment.com.

If you believe that you can or you believe that you can’t, either way you’re right.

You can do everything, but not all at once.

With the right attitude and the right understanding, you can do everything you take action to do, but not all at once. You can get referrals, train your team, increase clients, cast vision in your organization and make your business profitable, but not all at once. You can do strategic planning and do all the right things to get more business, but not all at once. My acronym for focus is: Follow One Course Until Successful. Do one thing at a time and do it right.

You can do everything, if it’s important enough for you to do.

Have you ever noticed that when you get ready to go on a trip that you get more done in the week before you leave than you ever get done in the weeks you don’t have a trip coming up? You can make a hundred phone calls, finish a big project and get more business than you did in the last three weeks combined. What does that tell you about yourself? It should tell you that you can do anything and everything if it’s important enough. So what’s important to you? Is it to increase clients, or to do what’s necessary to make your business profitable? One of the things I ask my clients all the time when they identify something important is, “so, is this a good idea, a great idea or a must?” If it’s a must for you to do, you’ll get it done.

You can do everything, but you may not be the best at everything.

Just because you can do everything, doesn’t mean that you’re the best at everything. How do you determine each day what’s most important for you personally to do? Do what you are best at. This is why teamwork is so important, so you can delegate the stuff you are not best at doing. You must understand that you are not the best in the world at everything and find team members who are better than you at the stuff that isn’t your greatest talent or skill.

If you spent 90% of your time doing just the two things that you are best at, how much better would your business be? Maybe you’re better at preparing proposals and making sales pitches to increase clients than you are at making calls to get referrals, setting up sales meetings or providing the services afterwards. What if you had a team who was better than you at the other stuff and you could spend 90% of your time preparing proposals and making sales pitches to get more business? Would that change your ability to make your business profitable? Do more of what you’re best at, and soon you’ll be able to afford top-talent to do the rest.

You can do everything, but there will be limitations.

How many of us go through times when we believe we can push ourselves to do anything as long as it takes?  Accountants know exactly what I’m talking about. There’s a certain time of year when working over 80 hours per week is something you can do for a period of time to make your business profitable for the whole year. But, what happens if you keep pushing yourself past your limitations? You crash and you burn. You can do everything, but you do have limitations.

You can do everything, but you’ll need help.

The more you invest in developing relationships, the more help that you will have in growing your business. The more help that you have, the more success you will have to get referrals and increase clients. When you work with others, you get more ideas and more resources. You get more business by getting connected to more people. Even if you’re a solopreneur, you need relationships to make your business successful. So most importantly, you can do everything, but you’ll need help.

Earl Kemper, is two-time global coach of the year in the world’s largest business coaching organization, ActionCOACH Business Coaching. Over the past 28 years, he has successfully coached more than 1,100 individuals who on average, double their business in less than nine months. To learn more about how to get referrals, increase clients, get more business and make your business profitable, contact Earl Kemper at http://www.actioncoachempowerment.com.
 

To increase clients while keeping your business profitable, learn to connect with people but always set a time limit. I learned this from an insurance agent named W. Clement Stone. This man sold 122 policies in one day. I can’t even imagine how you even visit with 122 people a day, but he sold 122 policies. In his first year he averaged 44 policies sold in a day. He started out in his career selling a lot less. He identified that he wasn’t selling as much as he could be because he spent too much time with any one person. So he determined that to get more business, he would reduce the amount of time he spent connecting with each person and connect with more people. That’s simple math, right?

Have you have ever sat down with a person who is willing to take two hours of your time, and when you get through that two hours you think, “Wow that was not a good use of my time?” This is not how to increase clients efficiently. Put a time limit on connecting with the people that you want to connect with and you’ll get more business in less time.

Take a big picture approach to time management. What do you desire to achieve in your life? Focus your attention, time and efforts toward things that enable you to gain knowledge and education and become more focused as an expert in your field. What do you need to focus on to become better in your life? Do you need to focus on learning how to get referrals, increase clients or on how to really make your business profitable? Write down one thing you know that if you were to focus on it that it would make you a greater expert in what you desire to achieve.

Now, think about the one thing you need to improve in your life that if you improved it, it would make a substantial return in your life. What W. Clement Stone realized is that if he wanted to get more business in a short amount of time, he had to perfect his presentations. Anything at all that he was going to present, he wanted it to be prepared and rehearsed to a science. He knew what he was going to say and if somebody else said something to him in the form of an objection he would be able to answer it without skipping a beat.

Do you need to work on your presentation? What about a script to get referrals? Determine what you need to improve and then go for it. Go all out. One of my favorite statements that a coach of mine used to say to me is, “Go big or go home”. When you focus and take action, spending your time on the things that allow you to be better at what you do, in a short amount of time you’ll increase clients and make your business profitable.

Earl Kemper, two-time global coach of the year in the world’s largest business coaching organization, ActionCOACH Business Coaching (2006 & 2009) is the authority on how to get referrals. Over the past 28 years, he has successfully coached more than 1,100 individuals who on average, double their business in less than nine months. To learn more about how to get referrals, increase clients, get more business and make your business profitable, contact Earl Kemper at http://www.actioncoachempowerment.com.

Do you have the right mental attitude to make your business profitable? Do you have the right mindset to get referrals, increase clients and get more business? Does mindset matter all that much? How can you know if you have the right attitude for success?

Take Action

When thoughts do not neutralize your undesirable emotion, action will. Sometimes you can use your own thoughts to change your emotions, but taking action will always change how you feel. Undesirable emotions like fear and pain cause us to not take actions to get more business. To quickly neutralize these negative feelings, you must take immediate action. If you struggle with fear about making a sale or about how to get referrals, what do you think is the fastest way to overcome that fear? Take action! Create a sales process, make a sales call, or set up a meeting to get referrals! Change your behavior and you change your attitude.

Unseen Walls

What is holding you back from taking action in your life? There are unseen things in our life that hold us back. In fact, very seldom are the things that hold us back physical or seen things. In other words we put up walls of false expectations appearing real. That’s the acronym for fear: a False Expectation Appearing Real. Don’t let the future stay behind you, because of the unseen wall that you have built so strongly within you that it prevents enlightened ideas from breaking through into action. This is one of the worst culprits of stealing success that I see in new clients in my business coaching practice who have been trying for years to get referrals or get more business. We have had some huge unseen walls to break down!

You must break through anything that holds you back from taking action to make your business profitable. So today I’m asking you to get out of your comfort zone. Why is this so important to your ability to get more business?  For some, it is a little uncomfortable to connect and interact with people on a one to one basis you’ve never met. If that’s you, you’re going to need to get stronger on that.

Inspirational Dissatisfaction

A really powerful thing that you can use to get stronger, get out of your comfort zone and get more business is something we call inspirational dissatisfaction. When you’re dissatisfied, what do you use to inspire yourself to push away what you don’t want and move towards what you really want in your life? What are some things you say to yourself? What disciplines in your life enable you to push through that dissatisfaction?

Something incredible happens is when you push yourself through. Your desires to make your business profitable, get referrals, increase clients and get more business can become reality versus getting locked in and doing nothing. Inspirational dissatisfaction fuels the fire that converts the magic of desire into reality. Have you ever gotten stuck in a challenge for too long looking back on it? And when you acted upon what you were challenged about it wasn’t as hard as you thought it was. The real key is recognizing yourself what you can do to inspire yourself when you’re dissatisfied.  If you can really get clear about your dissatisfaction and push yourself through it, then great things will happen.

For more information on how to get referrals, increase clients, get more business and make your business profitable, contact Earl Kemper at http://www.actioncoachempowerment.com.

During a recession, I coached a construction company from two million in annual revenue to $22 million in $18 months utilizing my referral system. In the previous 18 months they were a $4 million dollar company. They were losing ground. They ran several expensive marketing campaigns and weren’t getting any business from them. Their greatest challenge was getting enough opportunities to do business that generated enough profit for them to grow.

I asked if they had any strong relationships that could refer business to them. They assumed that if someone wanted to refer business to them they would have done it by now. At one time, they had been trying to get referrals by saying, “Who do you know that is about to do some new construction that you could refer us to?” This got no results, so they quit asking.

Through the process that I’m going to share with you, we were able to get 279 names of people that could refer them to opportunities to get more business. We focused our attention on the top 16 most influential relationships and asked them to connect us with people who could benefit from their service. In just 6 months, they grew from $2 Million to $10 Million. And in 18 months, they had grown to $22 million annual revenue. But before I tell you how we did that, I’d like to tell you a little about my journey of learning how to get a massive amount of referrals to make my own business profitable.

Finding Common Ground
The greatest challenge for many businesses is they don’t know the right way to ask for referrals. My first five years in business as a financial advisor, I had the same challenge. Just like the construction company, I would ask my clients, “Who do you know…?” This was met with many blank looks. It was such a broad question that no one knew how to answer it. They had a difficult time coming up with names.

The few times I was able to get referrals, the person who referred me to their friends did so because they had something in common those people. So, instead of “Who do you know,” I began to ask these kinds of questions: “Where did you grow up? What kinds of organizations do you belong to? What are your favorite things to do for fun?” I found that if I asked questions in four categories, it always led to common ground. Those categories are hobbies, interests, lifestyle and values (family and community).

Harold and Clara Jane Johnson were a couple in their seventies and one of my favorite clients. When I asked, “What are your favorite things to do for fun?” They said, “We LOVE square dancing!” They told me how much fun they have when they go dancing and how they love the people in the group. I asked how many members there were in the square dancing club. He said, “311. Would you like to come to one of our square dance nights? Most of our members will be there.” Knowing I would likely feel foolish at a square dance, I said, “Absolutely!”

Getting a Personal Introduction
At a break in the music at the dance, Harold took the microphone and from stage said, “I want to take just a minute and introduce you all to my amazing financial advisor. He’s the reason why we’re retired and we never have to worry about money. If you get a chance, you ought to sit down and see what he has to say.” I couldn’t have asked for a better endorsement!

During our next meeting, I asked Harold and Clara Jane what people I should work with from their square dance club. Harold took out the directory and marked 156 names that he would be happy to refer to me in person, either through a phone call or meeting. And that is when it really clicked. People will refer you to people that they have something in common with that many times has absolutely nothing to do with business. I asked Harold why he hadn’t referred me to these people previously. He said, “I thought you were too busy to take on any more clients!”

Thinking in Categories
Building on what I learned about the power of finding common ground with individuals, I created a process to get referrals from businesses. I call this exercise the “Wheel, Hub and Spokes.” You can use this to get referrals from other businesses, whether they are your clients or not. And, you can use this exercise to show other business owners how to get referrals and get referrals yourself while doing it.

I want you to imagine for a minute that you were sitting down with a financial advisor and you are going to show them how to get referrals. Take a blank piece of paper and draw a big circle, like a wheel. In that circle, about a third of the size of the original circle in the middle, draw another circle. It should look like a doughnut. We’re going to call this the hub. In the center of the hub, you’ll write the type of business you want to get referrals for. So in this example, in the hub we’ll write “financial advisor.”

A financial advisor has many categories that they connect to on a pretty consistent basis. We want to think about some of the primary connections that a financial advisor has. For example, they might have a relationship with an estate attorney. So, between your hub and the wheel, draw a straight line that looks like a spoke. On that line, write the words “estate attorney.” Then, draw another spoke and write CPA and another spoke, write a property and casualty insurance agency. We can continue around the wheel adding several spokes with many categories.

If this financial advisor works with business owners a lot, add spokes for business categories. For example, a business broker could be a good person for a financial advisor to work with. You could also add companies who specialize in staffing, web, technology, payroll, and property management.

Then we might switch gears a little bit. What are some associations they might be connected with? Are they connected to any chambers of commerce? Next, you might add a spoke for clients. Or add multiple spokes for clients, where you could write what type(s) of business clients that they work with, focusing on the categories where they’d like to increase clients.

Getting Names from Categories
If you were teaching a financial advisor how to get referrals and get more business, you first help them to think about possible categories where referrals might come from. As they’re looking at various categories and you get clear about those, then you can dig into names. As an example, there’s probably more than one insurance agent. They probably belong to more than one association. Work with them to write down the names of people representing the categories you wrote on the spokes.

This was the exercise I used when I was working with the construction company. We used “general contractor” in the middle and started thinking of subcontractors, advisors, various outsources and vendors. As a result of all those relationships, we came up with 81 categories for our spokes. We came up with 279 possible names for those spokes. If you started out with that many names, how many referrals do you think you could get? Do you think you could get more business doing this?

Now do this exercise using your own company as the hub. You can use relationships that you work with as spokes, then go to each of those relationships and show them how to do this using their companies as the hub. As you help other business owners come up with sources for referrals, you can combine your lists of categories and names with other business owners and start working together. And when you help each other find common ground with people on your lists, imagine how many referrals that you could get!

Earl Kemper, two-time global coach of the year in the world’s largest business coaching organization, ActionCOACH (2006 & 2009) is the authority on developing strategic alliances and getting referrals. Over the past 28 years, he has successfully coached more than 1,100 individuals who on average, double their business in less than nine months using techniques he developed. Referrals and teaching others how to get referrals continues to be his number one source of new business for his company, ActionCOACH Empowerment. http://actioncoachempowerment.com