Tweet

“Six Strategic Things To Remember When Requesting Referrals, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”

Written by: Glenn Ebersole

Article Overview: Referrals are important to most if not all businesses today. In a professional services business, such as business coaching, referrals are a major source of new clients. One of the strategic advantages of referrals is that they tend to be good quality prospects. And another strategic advantage is that they also tend to be relatively easy to convert into clients. Okay, so referrals are a major strategic method of gaining new clients. But, guess what? Only a small percentage of business people adopt referrals as a strategic approach to gaining new clients and those that do adopt the strategy will often neglect the needed commitment of time to generate referrals. There are a few strategic things to remember when requesting referrals from any of the above-mentioned sources. They are ...

“Six Strategic Things To Remember When Requesting Referrals, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”

“Six Strategic Things To Remember When Requesting Referrals, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
By: J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Chief Executive of J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group ™

Referrals are important to most if not all businesses today. In a professional services business, such as business coaching, referrals are a major source of new clients. One of the strategic advantages of referrals is that they tend to be good quality prospects. And another strategic advantage is that they also tend to be relatively easy to convert into clients.

Okay, so referrals are a major strategic method of gaining new clients. But, guess what? Only a small percentage of business people adopt referrals as a strategic approach to gaining new clients and those that do adopt the strategy will often neglect the needed commitment of time to generate referrals. It is imperative that you pay attention to the generation of referrals and the best way to do that is to ask for referrals at least two or three times a year from existing clients and professional and personal contacts.

There are a few strategic things to remember when requesting referrals from any of the above-mentioned sources. And your strategic thinking business coach offers the following to remember.
1. The existing client that you are going to approach must be very happy with the services you are providing to him or her. Review your client list and select those “A” list clients that are your most satisfied clients.

2. The former clients that you might ask must still be pleased about their experience with you and your company and very satisfied with your past work. It would be very prudent to review your list of former clients that you have not done work for within the last year or two and select the most satisfied from that list.

3. You must get reaffirmation of why your client is doing business with you and why they selected your company in the first place. Knowing this bit of strategic information will be very valuable in approaching the referrals given to you.

4. Ask for referrals in a positive and proactive manner. For example, you may ask, “Who do you know that is in business that would be interested in knowing about what we do and that could benefit, as you did, by using our services?”

5. Select a frequency of asking for referrals throughout the year and develop a system to do that. Experience indicates that asking for referrals 2 or 3 times per year would not be offensive and would be very productive for you.

6. Always show appreciation to and thank the people who provide referrals.

If you would like to learn more about using a strategic thinking approach to develop referrals for your business, and how a strategic thinking business coach can serve as your guide and facilitator to accomplish what you want to achieve, please contact Glenn Ebersole today through his website at www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at jgecoach@aol.com

Related Articles
  How Professional Service Providers Can Break Through Resistance to Requesting Referrals, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  Ten Major Reasons Why You Are Not Getting Referrals According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  “Strategic Benefits of Business Coaching, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach ”
  Strategic Business Greeting Tips From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  Seven Strategic Tips On Dealing With Referrals From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Re: Essential Leadership skills - Vision Values Mission Strategic Thinking Decision Making Communication Team Bonding People Development Coaching / Mentoring / Guiding / Grooming Presentation Thanks Robert
Different Hats - CEO Sales & Marketing & Leadership Development Company Strategic Vision 10 Alliances & Growth Strategies 10 Hiring & Managing People 8 Mentoring 8-9 Strategic Planning for Clients 10 Execution of Marketing Campaigns 9-10 (i have great people who do the nitty gritty) Financial Management 9 Bookkeeping 3 (outsourced as I really hate the fine details like GST0 Administrative Follow Up 6-7 (again have great staff) Writing & Publishing 9 (getting better all the time!) Speaking 10 (so I have been told) Self Promotion 9-10 Web development & Promotion 6-7 (learning more and have brought on players who are 10+) Babysitting Employees (1 - wont do it, that's why I work so hard to hire and motivate the people I have) Great topic Kevin!! Jude
Re: Business Women Peer Mentoring Spotlight - Hi Tami, Have you reviewed other comparable sites and coaches? I think that you will find that they have positioned themselves a bit more 'out there', and they dont focus on cheap pricing as the key benefit. I think your copy needs to be much tighter with a focus on the key features and BENEFITS that group coaching provides. Look at The Strategic Coach model etc. Your bio needs to be stronger if you are going to be pitching business development and leadership development. Also, have you put together a strategy for list building and promotions? how many subscribers do you have currently. Local networking as well as grouping some of your existing clients into the first BETA group might help. People dont like 'NEW" services because it comes off that they will be the guinea pigs. Those are my initial thoughts for now. Hope it helps. I'll try and spend some more time reviewing over the weekend and get back to you! Jude
Business Innovation - Hi Simon If you can finish off the Business Plan and think about your strategic direction or how you are going to use your product to convince people it's a great idea, it will set the foundation for your programming project. You see, when you are looking for funding you will need a Business Plan and Strategic Plan that will convince companies to invest into your new idea. Has anyone achieved this idea before using another industry besides health and fitness that you know of? You should also design some mockups as a "preview" for your programming project. This will also help reduce your programming costs as everyone will know exactly what you want if you have detailed mockups already completed including any functionality you require. Starting mockups for websites and software applications on paper is the best way if you're not a guru in graphic editing software.
Re: Business Coaching Resources - You're fortunate when you can find a Business Coach who has experience beyond where you've been and even where you are going. When your budget is slim and even after, it's good to have a mentor. Several of various backgrounds are very useful. They can be teachers, professors, pastors, business people, family members, bosses and former bosses. You have to be clear on what you want and what you desire to achieve, be able to convey it as simply as possible. Stop and listen and don't over tax their time. You should always expect results whether from a Business Coach or Mentors. If you're not gtting results, you're either not focused or you need to upgrade the quality of your mentors/coaches. Always surround yourself by people smarter than you.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

The State of the Sustainable Furniture Industry

Starting a Business with Bad Personal Credit

Tips to Take Control of Credit Card Debt

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.