Powerful Business Strategies - Referral Strategies and Campaigns

0:04 Hi, you live then too, censure wow, pray you. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. Back again for the Positively Pipeman segment with our powerful business strategies from Michael Barberita. So let's welcome Michael to the show. How are you excellent? How are you ding? Oh? I'm doing great. I'm ready for some referral strategies in campaign and that's. What we're gonna talk Hey, that just so happens. So what we're going to talk about today nice. You know, the most business owners hope for referrals. They pray that customers talk about them. But you know, as you know, hope isn't a strategy. Uh, and here's what kills revenue growth waiting for referrals instead of systematically creating them. So the truth is, and probably everybody knows this, that referrals are probably the highest converting leads you'll ever get. Yet most businesses treat them like an accident rather than a strategy, rather than a profitability strategy. So I'd like to give you an example of what a car dealership did to get referrals. So a car dealership gave a customer one half of one hundred dollars bill at delivery of their

1:36 new car. So every time they sold a new car, they also gave the customer half of a one hundred dollar bill and the customer and they would tell the customer that they would get the other half when they referred someone. That's brilliant. I know, first they were. The referrals were predictable, and the sales exploded. And business efficiency means turning satis by customers into active promoters. It's not complicated, but it's intentional. And so a lot of a lot of business owners aren't intentional with their referral strategy because referral strategy is more than just hoping for recommendations. It's creating that predictable system like what the auto dealership did to encourage and track referrals, and it involves understanding when and how to ask for the referrals and then providing incentives that motivate customers to act. You know, Unlike word of mouth, a referral strategy is proactive. It's a proactive approach and it systematically generates and manages referrals. It's you know, it's about turning satisfied customers into active promoters for your business, you.

2:46 Know, just like the car dealership did. Yeah and so, but but but business owners, for the most part, they just wait for referrals to happen instead of actually develop up being a strategy motivating people to. Refer them. And let me also in this segment being defined what a strategy is, because a lot of people don't know actually what you know, I use the word all the time, even the name of my book Powerful Business Strategies, and i've you know, I define what a strategy is in my book, but I never actually defined it on in our segments. So a strategy is a series of tactics done over and over again in the same order to get a predictable result. And so that's what a strategy is.

3:42 And so that's what So if you think about that card dealership, that's exactly what they did. It's a tactic splitting one hundred dollar bill over and over again to every customer who bought a new card from them in the same order. They do it the same way over and over again to get that predictable result, which was a referral. Because they knew that they had something like a sixty sixty percent referral rate when they performed that strategy. And I don't know the psychology of it, is like you feel like you're halfway there by having to half the one hundred dollar bill, and so I guess that motivates them to, you know, to refer somebody. So and there's a little management on the part of the car dealership because you're going to make sure that the serial numbers matched when you give them the other half. So there's there's a little, uh, there is a little organization administration there. But but that strategy worked famously for that car dealership, and it could work famously for just about any business if.

4:48 You think about it. Yeah, And what's interesting too, is that it's typical at the time of purchase or when you have a completed a successful transaction or received the positive result of some sort with a business or a customer, that that's the time to ask for referrals because. That's what the customers happiest, right. The happiest at that point, and so they're you know, they're they're you know, willing to reciprocate as best they can when that great result happens, and so, you know, making and requesting referrals is part of your sales process. UH, and being able to manage it and track it.

5:36 Is very effective. So but once again, business owners, just I mean, I can't tell you it might be an I group, It might it might be an I referral group. I. I would say one hundred percent of the people do not have a referral strategy other than saying they go to be an I. Other than that, they have no. Referral strategy to get referrals from, you know, from other participants, from other members. And there's several ways that you could put together strategies. As a matter of fact, we have a whole workbook on them. They'll talk about a little in a moment, but there are several strategies that one can employ, like what the car dealership did in order to proactively have a systematic methodology of getting referrals. What do you find, Dean with people with business owners, you know, I mean, is it mostly a prey.

6:40 Kind of Yeah, most business owners don't really have a strategy. Most businesses don't have a strategy. It's interesting you should ask me that because the whole time I was thinking about when I first started at Prudential in nineteen eighty nine and I was required required what's in a suggestion to get five referrals from each person as soon as I made the sale, like sitting at the table selling them insurance, which was how it started. And I would basically have a form with the name, phone number, relation address.

7:29 You know. It was back before email and back before internet, so address was important to mail them junk, you know, but. Instead emailing them. Junk, and you were required it was part of your job. There was no like if you can, There was no suggestion. It was you must get these fires. And you'd say, well, if they don't want to give them to me, people don't want to give out the information. And you know, part that is true, but the other part has your own mindset. I think the biggest problem with salespeople in general, and this goes back to something you have already said in previous episodes. Okay, but you know you cannot think like the customer. You're not the customer. Don't don't like people are like, well I wouldn't do that. Well just because you wouldn't do that doesn't mean ten people would, you know, and so you should get that right out of your mind. So like the people that wouldn't get those five referrals, you know, even though they were required to, would be like, oh, I would never give out that information.

8:42 I'm not asking them me. On the other hand, you know, I was doing whatever they told me to do, and I was the number one agent. I have eighty five agents. Why because I was a pain in the ass act and for asking for those five referrals every single time. So every sale became more than one sale. And you know what's amazing about that, Dean, is that if you ask ten other agents whether that strategy worked, but that's what the majority of those would probably say it did not. Well, here you are saying that it absolutely worked. It did not work because of their own attitude. That's what it comes down to. Like, listen, there's plenty of things that I would not do that clients of mind throughout my career and my life have done. And so that's why you can't think that way. You know, people A perfect example is people hate use car salespeople. They talk about it, they say all these things, yet they still buy the car, right, they still fall for the same things they know that are going on and still buy it and still believe it. So it's all about what you project in your head. Because sales as a transfer of emotion. So if emotionally you're not vested in getting those referrals and you don't believe it's gonna happen, yeah, it's not going to be successful for you.

10:13 That's right. That's a that's a great that's a great example, because there's a system that you know, this is done. You're not hoping here, you're you're directly it's it's a system that directly asks the customer for referrals. And if it and if it's done consistently, and if it's done period and with the belief that it's you're gonna make out and and get those referrals, it happens. It's amazing. That's amazing. And and you know, like I said, I I it might be an I group and some other networking groups that I'm in. The reason why they go is they hope that they can get a referral. And they don't have a strategy to get a referral. They just hope they can.

10:53 Yeah. And and many people that you know get discouraged after you know, after six months or eight months of not getting referrals, and they leave and they think networking doesn't work, when in fact it really. Does, as somebody who's a master at networking that's done it my whole life. Speaking of B and I, one of the beautiful things about B and I is all the rules. Most people that network hate BNI because of the rules, absolutely, and they're dumb because B and I gets you more business. You know, a lot of people go into these networking organizations to go to cocktail mixers, right, and like that was my least favorite thing because you know, it's like the cocktail mixers. People were going there to drink for free and to you know, meet people personally, not business wise, you know. But B and I, you know, runs it like a business and it's serious. And yeah, you may not want to follow all those rules, but if you don't follow those rules in life, you're not going to succeed, That's right.

12:02 It's the discipline that drives the referrals at B and I. It's that discipline. It's the discipline that they instill in the member. Uh. And you know what I love about B and I is my brethren and competitors hate it. Yeah, that's what I love about it because, uh, generally speaking, I'm able to visit other B and I chapters without any because my competitors, I know my competitors out there, and so I'm able to join, able to visit other chapters and be a substitute when they're when they're absent. Uh and uh. That's been a big benefit for me. There's only two types of B and I members, by the way, or and that's either the ones that totally love it and swear by it, or the ones that don't renew and think they got nothing out of it.

12:52 There's no middle, there's no middle. Yeah, no, I agree. And some of those ones that. You know that say it won't work, they stop their own and of course it, you know, falls on its face usually yeah. Yeah. And if you think something's not gonna work, it won't because you're not gonna do what it takes for it to work. No, you're right, you're right. But referrals do work. They're the easiest to close, they're the best lead you can get, and they're the easiest thing to get if you got out of your own way. Absolutely. Absolutely, So here's what I'd like to offer you, the listeners, Dean.

13:36 I have a workbook, step by step implementation workbook called Referral Strategies and Campaigns. And all someone has to do is go to NeXTSTEP CFO dot net, hit the contact button, fill out the contact form, and in the message box just simply put Referral Campaigns and Strategies workbook and I'll send it to them free of charge. And if they follow that workbook, they'll be able to generate strategies to get referrals. And it won't be the hope and pray, it would be actual strategy. Right. It's actually being strategic about getting. Referrals, right, and everything should be strategic.

14:16 It's like, I can't believe how many business people like just rely on you know, the universe. Let's put it that way, right right. You know, the fact is is every everything out there. Okay, you take Tony Robbins, people say, oh, he just pumps people up. But no, but if you went to one bit seminars, he tells you that you can show up to my seminar. If you don't put any in this into action, it will do nothing. Okay. Then there's people. Okay, even if you talk in religion, let go and let God, Let go and let God does not mean do nothing. People think that's what it means. It doesn't mean do nothing.

15:00 You must have a strategy, whether it's for your personal life, business life, no matter what it is, because otherwise it's like driving to somewhere you've never been without a GPS. That's right, So thank you for giving us as GPS. Thank you for giving them a free workbook, and thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipemin once again. Pleasure to see you next week. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipeman on w for CUI Radio.