Referrals as a marketing strategy. Do you have one?

Your house pipes have broken down. Instead of reaching for the yellow pages, you instinctively pick up your phone to dial your best friend or dad, etc asking " do you know a good plumber"? How many of us have actually found ourselves in that situation?

I can sense you nodding your head. The truth is, a lot of us only want to do business with someone we know or someone we're recommended do. Its hard to sometimes just pick the yellow pages and dial the first ad you see in there.

So if we know that we only want to do business with people we trust or know, then what are we as marketeers for our business doing about building a strong referral based strategy as part of our marketing efforts? Think about it.... The first question to ask yourself, how much of my business is by referral? 20%, 50%, 80%. If 80% of your business is by referrals then you have to ask yourself, do I have a step by step process to make sure all my business translates to even more referrals?

In the next entry, I'll introduce some ways you can possibly use to develop a viable referral strategy to convert a majority of your business into more referrals for you. Till then, take care.