The real magic in business begins when we learn how to proactively cultivate referrals with our happy and fulfilled customers.

This is because cultivating referrals is what leads to sustainable and dependable recurring income from our current customer base.

In other words if you get into the habit of cultivating referrals then we shouldn't have to engage in more prospecting, canvassing or demand-generation for most of our time in the business.

Although we should consider it good business practice to keep on looking for NEW customers whenever we can!

But the holy grail however should be to have LOYAL CUSTOMERS REFERRING new customers to us who will in turn refer others as well.

When we have more CUSTOMERS SELLING ON OUR BEHALF the amount of selling that we have to do ourselves on a day-to-day decreases.

We are to go about cultivating referrals by first of all learning how to ask for referrals!

Because the key thing is to ask, it doesn't mean that we should ask absolutely every single person who has done business with us in the past whether they can make a referral.

Before we ask for a referral, we have to be sure that the customer or client had a pleasant experience working with us and that the solutions we gave them in our product or service was ideal to getting the outcomes that they wanted.

In other words if you sell authentic faux leather Italian shoes, then there's no point of asking for a referral from your customer if they feel that what they received was a knock off and belittled their sense of style and sophistication.

If you ask someone for a referral in this kind of context you are asking for trouble!

Customers who feel short-changed by the experience they had with us are angry and are probably in the frame of mind to spread the news about the bad business experience, rather than refer new business to us.

That is because anyone who has had a bad business experience doesn't want to foist that kind of experience on their friends, family members, or associates.

If anything they will make sure that their loved ones don't patronize us at all so that they don't walk into the trap that they did the first time around.

Besides, when someone makes a referral to our business and we end up treating that person badly it reflects really poorly on the personal credibility of the person who made the referral in the first place.

Our customers and clients do not want to stake their personal credibility in that way at all!

So how do we go setting about to confirm that the customer had a positive and fulfilled experience with us before asking for a referral?

We will tackle that in future posts!

Nice tips Op.

A rule of thumb is not to ask the first time.

Still, some clients no matter how satisfied will never give a referral because they want their business to remain between you both.

I met a plastic surgeon once and he lamented how the women he performed face lift and breast augmentation on wouldn't tell their friends about his clinic in Ikoyi. They tell their friends they did the procedures abroad.

Thanks for reading and commenting!

I have a few questions and comments in turn though....

1. what do you mean about not asking the first time?

2. thanks for pointing out that in some industries, customers concerns over privacy and confidentiality means they won't be referring as much... that's definitely good insight!

3. how does the surgeon know that most his clients claim they did the surgery abroad?

4. could you introduce me to the surgeon? I have some ideas on how to get around the problem of no referrals...