6 Proven Tactics for Generating High-Quality Referrals

The more comfortable clients are talking about you, what you do, and how you do it, the more persuasive they will be when recommending your services to friends and family. Use this game plan to make referrals a powerful part of your business-building strategy.

Referrals are the lifeblood of any successful training business. A steady stream of high-quality referrals is the best indicator of great service and ongoing client satisfaction. By contrast, sporadic, unqualified, or lukewarm referrals are an indicator of mediocrity. It may be mediocrity in your service, or it may be mediocrity in your referral strategy—that's for you to figure out.

The best way to secure a steady stream of high-quality referrals is simply to encourage your clients and your sphere of influence to become comfortable talking about you. Word-of-mouth endorsements are powerful. Listed below are 6 tactics for getting clients and friends to sing your praises to their friends, family, and business acquaintances. All of them will help you get to the point where your clients feel naturally inclined to bring up working with you when casual conversations turn to the topic of weight loss, fitness or health.

1. First things first. Before you even think about generating referrals, you must make sure you are referable. The best way to do that is simply to deliver on your promises. Once people remember that your word actually means something—that you do what you say and you say what you mean—they will tell others about it. This sets the foundation for future referrals.


2. Just ask. Sometimes even when a trainer is providing great service, they face another stumbling block to getting referrals: They don't ask for them. Asking is the simplest and the easiest way to get referrals, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. If you feel you simply need to get more systematic about how and when you ask, keep the following points in mind:

- One of the best times to ask for a referral is the moment a prospect becomes a client. This is a moment of maximum confidence in your abilities and your character.

- Ask for referrals throughout the relationship. Clients can sometimes forget about the importance of referrals—you can remind clients how they came aboard as the result of a referral.

- Remind clients how receiving high-quality referrals means you can spend more of your time serving their needs rather than marketing your services.

- Referrals require an enriched relationship. People need to feel a strong personal connection before they're comfortable giving referrals. So be a people person. Learn about the friends and family of your clients. For all of your contacts, get to know their interests, hobbies, and where and with whom they spend their leisure or business time.


3. Ask for testimonials. One subtle referral tactic is to ask for a testimonial instead of a referral. Once clients have written a testimonial for you, they should feel more comfortable talking about you with close friends and family. In fact, since you have a copy of what they're saying about you, it becomes easy to simply ask them to repeat those words to other like-minded people they come across.


4. Create a "network hub." One excellent way to generate more referrals is to target prospects who have the power to refer others. By targeting these "hubs" of larger professional networks, you leverage your referral efforts. Niche-market business owners, directors and board members of professional associations, corporate executives, fund raisers, local celebrities—all are natural communicators and are typically plugged in to their respective communities. Build a strong relationship with them and you have a natural introduction to all the people in their respective networks.


5. Articulate your uniqueness. It's one thing for clients to tell others that you're unique. It's quite another for them to be able to explain it quickly and persuasively. You can give your clients the tools they need by articulating your USP and educating your clients about it.


6. Build top-of-mind awareness. Referrals are a by-product of communication. Frequent, high-quality contact with your clients ensures their satisfaction and keeps you at the top of their minds. This in turn makes it that much easier for clients to refer you to friends and family. How often should you communicate with your clients outside of sessions? There is no hard and fast rule, but fitness pros that make calls to clients at least once a month and send ‘thank you’ cards will see instant referral improvement. You will also notice a jump in referral activity if you implement an additional monthly communication mailer such as an e-mail newsletter, snail mail newsletter, or event invitation.

If you want to turn your business into a referral generating machine, I can help. I wasn’t going to make The Referral Manual available until February because of a couple of other projects that we have in the works – but as part of the ’12 Days of Fitness’ promotion, I’ve agreed to make it available until the promotion is over. I haven’t put any snazzy graphics in it yet – just the profit producing information. So, until the ’12 Days’ ends, it will be available for only $17 instead of the future price of $29. You can get it at:

http://www.referralmanual.com/

But remember, when the promo ends, so does the offer and you’ll have to wait until February.

Happy Holidays!