Referral Marketing

I was just reading a really great article over at the More Than We Know blog about ways to increase in customer referrals, which is key to any entrepreneurs business.

Having been involved in the work at home/Network Marketing industry for over 7 years now, I have had the chance to meet many different women (and men) entrepreneurs, all whom have different talents or services & products to be offered, that I personally do not. This is great because when I speak with someone who is seriously looking for something to do from home, or they might be looking for a particular item, or maybe even need some website design services done, whatever it may be. I know that I can help point them in the direction of someone who I know will be able to help them, even if I can't personally.

This also pertains to family and friends. I know personally that I feel safer and more confident about "things" when someone else has referred me to them. Rather than going on a whim, with no idea of who or what I may be dealing with, having someone share their experience with something that they were pleased with makes it a whole lot easier to do business.

I think we all tend to be skeptical of people and situations that we have no prior contact or knowledge of. But when someone else has ate at the new restaurant in town and raves as to how good the food & service was, I am more likely to go eat there as well. Or it could be a new movie that was just released and you're trying to decide if spending $20 at the theatre to go see it is even worth it or not? Then you start over hearing other people talk about how it is the best thing since "Dirty Dancing"(not sure if that's the best choice of movie or not...) Either way, you decide to go see it because if all those people thought it was good it must be.

Now, those people were not compensated in any way for sharing their opinions, which in turn led you to the theatre. We as entrepreneurs have the ability to do this however. You may want to run a promotion of sorts, or set up a system that compensates those who refer others to you. For example, when I have a member that I have enrolled into one of our benefits plans, and they tell their family and friends about it, and they in return call me and enroll into a plan as well, I give the initial member who referred them to me $5 or $10 for doing so. I do this for each and every person that they personally refer that enrolls. So if they refer 10 people to me, they now have $50-100 bucks in their pocket. All for just doing something that we all do everyday, telling others about our experiences with certain products or services.



Source: Work at Home Facts