In holistic, natural medicine and massage practices, clients referring are important.   However, when I ask the professionals that I work with how many of their new clients are coming from referrals from their existing happy clients, they usually tell me less than half. 

It’s good that your happy clients are telling other people but you could be generating twice as many referrals if you did one simple thing.

You know what it is?

Ask for them.

Ask happy clients and customers for a referral. It’s the one thing most people don’t do and I’ll explain why in just a second.

Everybody knows that asking for a referral is key, but like most professionals, they don’t do it because they don’t want to impose on their delighted clients and customers. Which is a big mistake!

In reality, your clients want to give you a referral; you’d actually be doing them a favor if you asked.

How is that?

Think about it…every time you or anyone else makes a purchase that they are happy with, they want to validate their decision by having friends and family do the same. It happens every time anyone I know buys a car, or when they go to a great restaurant, find a great therapist or hairdresser, start a new diet, go to see a great movie, etc.

We all want validation of our ideas, our purchasing decisions.  We don’t want to be alone.

Secondly, are brains are literally programmed to want to help other people.

Here’s the referral secret you should know: when you ask a delighted client if they can do you a favor, they are going to say YES.  And when you ask them who they know that could also benefit from your service, they’ll more than likely be pleased you asked and more than willing to share the name of a friend or colleague. 

In sum, it just takes two steps to generate a flood of referrals:

  •     Understand that in asking, you are doing your clients a favor, giving them the chance to validate their purchase plus help someone else.
  •     Ask. If you’ve got 10 happy clients, you can get 10 referrals. If you have 100 happy clients, you can get 100 referrals.

When you do this, you’ll see your business grow in leaps and bounds. I’ve seen it happen time and time again with clients I’ve coached. They use the referral/ask sequence and Boom! their business takes off.

If you don’t quite know what to say, how to say it and when to say it, check out our mini training on Double Your Client Referrals.  We walk you through all of the details including what to do and what to say before during and after.