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Accelerating Referrals

Guest post by: Dale Furtwengler

Article Overview: If you want better referrals, stop talking demographics and start talking about the values that drive your and your customers success.

Accelerating Referrals





Over the years I’ve stumbled upon a lot of good ideas. My most recent foot fault is bringing in referrals at a rate that I haven’t seen in the previous 17 years I’ve been in business. What’s changed?

I’ve stopped defining my ideal customer in terms of demographics and begun identifying them by their values. My first experience in using values to identify ideal customers came from my involvement in a referral group, The Mastermind Network of St. Louis.

During the early stage of my membership, our members would be asked to recruit an estate attorney, plumber, photographer or some other profession. I noticed that we rarely found those people. At the same time I noticed that all of our members possessed the same values – integrity, dependability, genuine concern for others and a strong commitment to quality.

I suggested to the leadership that we might be better served by recruiting based on these values than on the type of business. When we began recruiting based on values our membership grew from 10 to 27 in a year. More importantly, the group took on more of a family feel because we all shared the same values.

Since then I’ve begun using the values approach with my business. I’ve identified my ideal customer as someone who possesses the following values/characteristics, which assure success for both my clients and me. Those values are:

• Integrity – in particular, they are honest with themselves about their strengths and weaknesses

• Confidence – people who lack confidence find it hard to make decisions which limits their ability to improve results

• Results Oriented – I care less about the magnitude of the result than the fact that they’ve been able to get results

• Action Oriented – when they hear a good idea, they run with it

When asked “Who is your ideal customer?” I respond with these four values.

What I’ve discovered is that these values resonate with the listener. They get excited about these qualities, which improves their memory of who my ideal customer is. When the listener subsequently communicates these values to others, they do it with a passion that demographics never achieve.

Interestingly, I find that the referrals I’m getting are exactly the type of customer that I’m seeking. Those, who don’t share these values, no longer approach me and I don’t waste their time or mine trying to establish a relationship that won’t work.

This values-based approach to identifying my ideal customer has worked so well that I’ve been coaching my clients on this system. The values differ from business to business, but once identified, produce the same type of result – accelerating referrals – for my clients.

If you want to accelerate the rate of referrals coming to you, define your ideal customer in terms of the values that exist in your most successful customer relationships.





Copyright 2009, Dale Furtwengler, all rights reserved

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Article Tags: 17 years, concern for others, demographics, first experience, foot fault, genuine concern, integrity, leadership, mastermind, nbsp, photographer, plumber, profession, referral group, referrals, rsquo, strong commitment, times new roman



Related Forum Posts
Re: How do you get your clients? - I think staying away from gathering clients strictly online when first starting out is probably a good idea. Your first few clients could maybe be people you know, or know through somebody that may require some of your services. Another good way of gaining new clientel is offering your first few clients completely free service in exchange for placing your business card or promotional material in their business if you're doing b2b sales. Referrals are the lifeblood of many small businesses.
Re: How do you get your clients? - [quote="brata":2qa58hl5]I think staying away from gathering clients strictly online when first starting out is probably a good idea. Your first few clients could maybe be people you know, or know through somebody that may require some of your services. Another good way of gaining new clientel is offering your first few clients completely free service in exchange for placing your business card or promotional material in their business if you're doing b2b sales. Referrals are the lifeblood of many small businesses.[/quote:2qa58hl5] Ive been in business for a few years and my best way to get clients is door to door so far. However as my marketing budget grows I have stopped door to door business to business sales and shifted to mailers, billboards, radio, and just a tiny bit online.


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