We are currently sharing a series directed specifically for Holistic Health Professionals… But you’ll like them too! Here is the second episode of that series.
Scaling a business often presents challenges as entrepreneurs struggle to secure qualified prospects through various channels, such as direct messages, networking groups, social media engagement, and paid advertisements.
However, acquiring qualified prospects doesn’t have to be daunting. In this episode, Dr. Terri Levine underscores that maintaining relationships with existing clients is the easiest way to keep your calendar booked with qualified prospects. This approach helps you to attract more prospects who are similar to them.
Tune in and discover a three-step process to effectively get referrals, and understand why you should not take referrals at face value. Additionally, Dr. Terri Levine emphasizes the importance of a follow-up plan and explains why having a referral mindset is crucial for the success of your business.
Dr. Terri Levine also discusses the power of automating referral processes and highlights the significance of expressing gratitude with handwritten cards. She illustrates how this gesture demonstrates a sense of value and care for your client family members.
Key Highlights From The Episode:
[00:43] Today’s focus: The simple secret and easy way to scale your business
[02:17] The 3 steps to get referrals
[04:28] Why you should not take referrals at face value
[05:02] The importance of a follow-up plan
[05:38] Referral mindset
[06:58] Automating the process of getting referrals
[08:22] Why you should always express your gratitude with a handwritten card
[10:28] The key to success in business
[11:02] Get referrals from Dr. Terri Levine
Email: Terri@heartrepreneur.com
Golden Nuggets:
- If you want to keep your calendar booked with qualified prospects, the simplest way is to maintain relationships with your existing clients. Doing so will enable you to attract more people similar to them. [00:50]
- Having a stable income comes from building connections, which leads to an endless supply of qualified prospects. [01:22]
- You shouldn’t accept referrals at face value because not everyone will be a suitable match, and you may not be the best person to serve everyone. [04:28]
- When a client or patient recommends you, it signifies a significant amount of faith and trust in you. [08:05]
- If you are going to send gifts to your clients, don’t send generic gifts; instead, send gifts that hold deeper significance. [08:50]
- If you give more, you will receive more. [09:51]
- The key to success in business is having a large number of qualified prospects come to you. [10:28]
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Full Transcript:
Hi there, it’s Dr. Terri Levine. Thank you so much for joining me here at the podcast today. And today, I’m going to help you have no more stress. I’m going to give you the simple, secret, and easy way to scale your business. Hopefully, I’ve got your attention. Yes? Okay. So, if you want to keep your calendar booked with qualified prospects, instead of advertising for them, hunting for them, going to all this networking all over the place, the easiest way to do that is to maintain relationships with your existing clients, your existing patients, and that will allow you to attract more people just like them.
Let me ask you very honestly, are you sick of the challenge of finding new ideal clients or patients? So, having a stable income, in my experience, it comes from building connections, and connections are what lead to an endless supply of qualified prospects. Now, I’m not talking word of mouth, I’m not talking about hoping and praying you get referrals, I’m actually talking about consciously creating a system and a process that you build, and that allows you to generate referrals consciously and intentionally. Listen, I love my client family members, and I want more clients with their qualities.
More people I can help that are just like the people I’m currently helping. So, because I want more like-minded people, I’m focused on getting my current clients results, rather than spending my day all over social media hunting for new clients. So, I follow three steps to gain referrals, I’m going to share them with you right now. The first is I let my client family members know that I want referrals and why I want referrals. Second, I offer perks, sort of speak, to current clients as a way to thank them for introducing me to others that I can help. And third, I ask this question to my clients, this is a write or downer so write this down, “Do you know anyone who may be a good fit for my services?”
It’s a super simple question. “Do you know anyone who may be a good fit for my services?” I also talk to my social media communities about referrals, I let them know I’m accepting more clients. And when a client has completed a program or a service, I speak to them by phone. And I’m going to give you a sample, kind of a conversation that I might have. And you can modify this with your own personality, of course. So, it might be something like this, “Hey, Jill, working with you has been a real pleasure. Your dedication was remarkable. You did the work, you got results. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be of service to you. In particular, Jill, I really admired your accomplishment,” and I use a specific one, “Of gaining 12 new patients last month, that was a game changer.
I wanted to let you know, Jill, that I have a couple of spaces open in my X, Y, Z program. Could you perhaps recommend someone you know who’d be interested in collaborating with me?” Now that’s a writer downer, modify it for your own personality. Now, because I usually send that as a letter, sometimes an email, sometimes a snail mail, and always as a call, I kind of laid the groundwork. And so, when clients send me people and they make referrals, they’re referring people who are already open and curious about my services. They’re not cold traffic that I’ve got to educate, have got to get to know me, like me, and trust me, they already trust me because someone they trust said, “Hey, Terri’s good.”
So, the target here that you want to get is someone’s name, their contact information. Now, I am going to say this, do not take referrals at face value because not everyone’s going to be a suitable match, and you might not be the best person to serve everyone. So, the ability to identify subpar recommendations, that also saves you a lot of time in the long run and it boosts your credibility. So, we look at the recommendations, we see if we can help them. And if we can’t, we might refer them to somebody else like you, or to another product, another service, a book, a podcast, a freebie, a white paper, whatever. You should be prepared for the possibility that your referral request will be forgotten, and so you need a follow-up plan.
People forget people are busy. Just like in sales, it requires multiple touches to get referrals. Let me give you a few more bonuses here, some other ways to facilitate referrals. One, asking clients to do something simple, like, “Just forward this email to a friend, or colleague, or share my website with your friends or colleagues, or share my webinar, my podcast, my shareable article, my blog post.” Whatever it might be, even a social media post. I want you to really have a referral mindset because that is crucial for your business success. Remember, inform your clients whether you have a new blog, a new podcast, send them the link, whether you have a new tip, a new tool, whatever it is. And then use the ‘forward to a friend’ feature.
You can also put that in your CRM autoresponder to contact management system. Now you can also create an affiliate program or ‘refer a friend’ incentive. And sometimes people call that a finder’s fee, it’s not legal in every business, it’s legal in a lot of businesses, though. And that’s a way to incentivize people to keep you in their mind for referrals. So, while monetary compensation can be offered, again, there’s a lot of industries where you’re not allowed to do it, and I can tell you that it’s not necessary. You can do special things. You can give away a special product, a special service, maybe a client session.
My gosh, over the years, I’ve given away Kindles. I’ve given away computers, tablets, Timeshare, spa certificates, Amazon Gift certificates, Starbucks, I could go on and on. We give away all kinds of things. And then, of course, you want to automate the process of getting referrals the same way that you’ve automated the scheduling and the marketing of your campaigns, and perhaps your client or patient scheduling using email and other automated processes. Incorporate a monthly routine into your marketing strategy, the practice of asking for referrals, and as I said earlier, making sure you follow up on those requests.
Just imagine if after a client or a patient had a session every single time you simply said, “Could you recommend someone I can contact who can use the services I provide?” It’s a very simple question. “Can you recommend someone who needs the services I provide?” It’s subtle. And if you’re asking that regularly, and you really stay vigilant, you will get referrals. Referral marketing, by the way, for my business has become automatic, and it’s done the same for my client family members because it is a regular part of our marketing schedule, whether it’s once a week or, in my industry, it’s basically every single day in my communities.
So, always keep in mind also that when a client or a patient recommends you, they’re showing a significant amount of faith. It doesn’t matter if they’re in your most elite program or a lower investment program, they have the ability to trust you and send more people to you. So, once you get a referral, express your gratitude with a handwritten card. I said handwritten. Despite its power, this is a dying art form. So, don’t send one of those fake handwritten messages with a service like SendOutCards. I stopped using that years ago. Take a moment and write out a card, just put a stamp on it and mail it.
Why? You want your client family members to feel valued and cared about, it just takes a moment to write a card. And then, again, if you’re going to send gifts, don’t send a generic gift. Don’t send everybody chocolate. Send a gift that has deeper significance. So one of my clients, for example, she loves journaling. So, I had a beautiful leather-bound journal with her logo embossed on it made for her, and it was her favorite color. She loves purple like me. And so, we sent that to her. For another client, for him, I made a very entertaining T-shirt because he loves fun T-shirts.
And it’s fun when you get unexpected presents. One of the things I did, just today, this morning, I made a contribution to a worthy cause on behalf of one of my client family members because I know how important that cause is to her. So, I’ll say it this way, whether you call it karma, or you simply realize that what goes around comes around, the principle remains the same. Referrals seem to multiply when individuals get referrals. My philosophy is to give more. If you give more, in my experience, you will receive more. So, let’s just say that I have a client, and I do, who sells customized calendars, and I have a group consulting call the other week, and one of the clients that I have was saying, “I just lose track of time all day.”
So, my client who sells customized calendars, I made a referral and said, “This could be good for you.” I like to connect people in that way. Both of the clients are going to reap value from an ideal partnership. So, the key to having success in business, as you probably already know, is to have a large number of qualified prospects come to you — that’s reverse marketing — raise their hand and come to you, versus you DMing them, hunting for them, going to networking groups, spending hours on social media, and all this other stuff that people are doing. You don’t have to hunt for them.
Certainly, don’t spend money on meta ads, etc. Now, if you want me to refer to you, I might be able to do that, and I don’t know. So, I’m going to invite you to send me an email, terri@heartrepreneur.com, and Terri is T-E-R-R-I @, and the logos right up there, the word heart, R-E, and then preneur, P-R-E-N-E-U-R. So, it’s Terry, T-E-R-R-I@heartrepreneur.com. And, in the subject, just put ‘referrals.’ And then, in the body of the email, tell me a little bit about you and your business, and I’m going to see if I can actually refer anyone to you. We are here together. Thank you for being here.
Please be sure you subscribe to the podcast. Kindly share it, and your five-star reviews mean the world to me. Thanks for joining me here. I’ll see you next time. Bye now.
