“Referral Power – Reach Further. Spend Less” Introduction

Introduction

A salesperson gives you the perfect pitch – it hits all your pain points, it makes you excited for their product, it even makes you emotional, and at the end of it you say, “Well… maybe.”

On the other hand your friend mentions in an off-handed way that there’s a t.v. show that you might like… so you watch it. They say there’s a new restaurant in town that you’ll love, so you go. Activities, events, past-times, doctors, lawyers… the list of things we’ll try based on the slightest nod from our friends goes on and on.

Why do we trust our friends’ opinions? Because we’ve organically tested them over time. We’ve encountered enough situations so that we now know that our friend Mike has the same taste in movies as we do, but we don’t share Christina’s taste in art.

Nielsen.com (a consumer study group) did a poll that discovered that 84% of people across 58 countries held word-of-mouth recommendations as being the most trustworthy form of all advertising.

Word-of-mouth recommendations are far more likely to get us to try out a service or product than regular advertising. While advertising might add a sense of legitimacy (they can afford ad space on a popular television show, so they must be doing something right), we know it’s advertising so of course it’s going to tell us that we want or need something. That doesn’t make it true.

We trust referrals from our friends and acquaintances as being far more likely to connect us with a service or product that can truly benefit our lives. That makes referrals an extremely powerful form of marketing, and they are at the heart of what this book is about.

Why are referrals so powerful?

Aside from the power of the trusted source as mentioned above, there are two other big factors that make pursuing referrals so worthwhile.

The first is that this form of marketing is aimed at exactly the right kinds of people. The marketing message is targeted instead of the shotgun approach that is taken by most paid forms of advertising.

Someone writes on their Facebook wall that they’re looking for a good carpenter. One of your ongoing clients puts your name up in response and gives you a great big thumbs up. That’s advertising directed at someone extremely likely to convert into a paying customer, instead of expensive advertising that spreads itself thin trying to appeal to everybody.

The second additional factor is that referrals can reach just about everybody online. Paid advertising in traditional forms (television, radio, magazines, newspapers) have a limited range.

Referrals on the other hand can reach everybody who is friends of your customer or client on social media, and then those friends can pass your name on to their friends, and so on.

Not only is the reach of clients or customers wide, it’s also extremely fast, extolling your virtues to friends and acquaintances at digital-age speeds.

Referrals are exponential, while the reach of traditional paid advertising is limited at best.