10 Strategies For Adding 10+ Referrals A Month (2 of 2)

Welcome back to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. Today we're talking about part 2 of 10 strategies for adding 10+ referrals a month into your existing business. Now, part 1, we discussed the 4 reasons for untapped potential, and we discussed 3 strategies from creating a culture, creating a custom newsletter done right, and frequent customer communication. Today we're going to pick up and cover 4 through 10. So if you missed the episode prior to this, definitely check that out. Come back. Listen in, and this is going to be extremely beneficial. Let's start taking notes and enjoy.

I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy.

The legend of Dan Kennedy should be ignored at your own peril.

They're not really lessons, they're kind of laws that you live by.

Dan opened my eyes to what small business marketing looks like. Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless.

His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy.

Well, hello, all of our Diamond members. This is Bill Glazer, and I'm being joined again this month by Dan Kennedy. This is part 2 of last month's call on How to add at least 10 more referrals per month to your business. Last month we talked about half of the call. We first started talking about the 4 reasons for untapped referral potential in any business. We identified those 4 as number 1, taken for granted. Number 2 is erroneous belief that satisfaction equals referrals. Number 3 is the fear that you are too busy— so that your business will suffer if you get more customers. Then number 4 was out of sight, out of mind. If you missed last month's call, you should have the CD that has arrived at your door and you can listen to all the in-depth discussion of that. Then we moved into the discussion of the 10 strategies to add 10 referrals a month. Of those 10, we went through the first 3. The first 3 were creating a referral culture. Patient newsletter that's done correctly— not a patient, a customer newsletter done correctly. And the last one is other frequent customer communication. And again, review last month's CD and you will find all our in-depth discussion of that. So this month we want to cover the next 7. And the first of the next 7, so it's number 4 on our list of the top 10, is pass along resources likely to pass along to other prospects for your business. So Dan, would you describe what you mean by that?

Well, it comes out of an idea that— it actually comes out of working with professional practices where the— The doctor will be told by patients that they love them and they're telling everybody about them and month after month after month after month there's no referrals and ultimately you have to wonder if they are telling everybody about you, what exactly are they saying? And often they're not very effective at what they are saying. I explain that to people that many of your customers are good enough to be a referral source, but they're not skilled enough to be your sales force. And so we have to take the— we either have to take the referral function out of their hands entirely and merely collect contact information and do the work ourselves and/or we need to equip them with tools that can do the heavy lifting for them so they don't have to actually learn a sales script and learn an elevator speech and learn a sales presentation and so forth. And of course, the Internet has provided a whole new way to do that because it's easy to, you have your customers direct people to a website where they can see a virtual tour of the business if that's appropriate. They can see product demonstrations if that's appropriate, etc. But still, you want to think about pass-along in almost everything that you do. So when you do your customer newsletter, you want to think about what's in this month's customer newsletter that's so cool, that's so interesting, that's so funny that people might pass it along, at least verbally, but preferably by handing it to a friend, family member, taking it to the office, showing it to a coworker, etc. And then there's the issue of more formal tools. If you're going to give them 4 of your business cards, They ought not be just ordinary business cards. They ought to be cards specifically designed for use in referring. Are you going to give them DVDs to give away? Are you going to give them audio CDs to give away? If you design a brochure, you really want to think in terms of it being passed from one person to the next. And so something that looks like an informative booklet or a white paper in B2B, a special report is more useful perhaps than the usual trifold piece. And so the real game here is to equip people who are motivated to refer either on an ongoing basis or by periodic stimulus, something coming up in conversation. With a friend or a coworker, to equip them with tools that they can use, that they can pass along to those people that will do the heavy lifting for them rather than expecting them to do it all verbally.

Well, you know, and the really cool thing about that is, and think about it yourselves, I mean, how many times have you maybe said to somebody, I've got a foreign car. Do you know somebody who's really good at fixing foreign cars? Just as an example. And somebody knows the person, but they don't— they can't clearly tell you, well, here's their phone number, here's their website, you know, here's how to contact them. And so with the pass-along stuff, it's already right there for them, so they're prepared to just give that out. And, you know, listen, I used this in my own menswear stores. Using the example that you had, Dan, we had cards that we made out which basically, which is kind of a hybrid of another strategy we're going to talk about later, but it had the person's name that would be written on that was handed the card to, and then the person who handed the card, their name was there also so that we would know who the referral is so that we could go back and reward them. We'll talk about that as a later strategy. I, Dan, you remember I first saw Jerry Jones when he had Healthy, Wealthy and Wise and he was providing patient newsletters, I mean newsletters for dental offices, and in there he was putting in cards in there that were to be handed out to people. The dentist here in the Maryland area that I work with has refer-a-friend cards that he hands out, and our independent business advisors, we give them a little booklet that they can hand out to people that tells people all about being a Glaser County member and the new member strategy, the new member gift that we have waiting for them. And then a lot of IBAs now— and, Dan, I don't even know if you knew this or not, but one of our IBAs, and I'm really kicking myself because I can see the guy's face but I can't remember his name, so forgive me when you listen to this, but he developed a really cool little DVD that he puts in a DVD case. And he— a lot of our IBAs have jumped on that and are using that as well. They're getting them through this guy, and people are handing out DVDs and being able to talk about what membership means at Glaser Accounting. All these are pass-along resources or tools that people can pass along and get referrals from. And, you know, and I think, Dan, before we move on to the number 5, I think it's important to also understand that Like with marketing, where the worst number in marketing is 1, the worst number in the referral program is 1. So you want to be thinking about using as many of the 10 that we're going to be sharing with you in combination, not look for necessarily the one thing. So whereas this strategy will garner you new customers, it's much, much better when you use it in conjunction with a bunch of them that we're we're going to be sharing with you. So number 5 is conversational basis for referral, and again, Dan, would you explain that one?

Well, my take on this is that first of all, most people avoid the discussion face-to-face at all. They're not prepared for it, you know, they're simply not willing to do it for any number of beliefs about it they have in their head that really aren't representative of how their customers or clients or patients think. So some people aren't willing to do it because they think it makes them look needy and they'll be perceived unsuccessful. Some people are unwilling to do it because they think it's pushy and intimidating and will make the customer or client uncomfortable. Some people aren't willing to do it simply because they can't stand even a tiny smidgen of refusal or rejection and so avoid a situation where they might experience it. But for any number of reasons,— people really don't have conversations with customers, clients, and patients about referrals often enough. Part of that is competence breeds confidence, so you really need both scripted material that you're good at to have those conversations and you need some basis for having the conversation. And so it might be— it might be Dental Health Week, National Dental Health Week. It might be some item that has occurred in the news this week that's timely that you can hook your little referral raft to. It may be an organized referral a general promotion you are running for a period of time. It may be the 30th anniversary of your store, whatever, but some basis for opening the conversation with the customer or the client or the patient about your eagerness of the moment for another customer customer, client, or patient just like they are. And then the discipline to do it regularly to keep track of whether or not you are doing it, who you've done it with, and who you haven't. But most people just do not engage in this dialogue anywhere near enough with their customers or clients.

Well, so this was always a— A sort of a big struggle for us at our— when I was in the menswear business was getting my salespeople to ask their customers for referrals. And the way that we sort of fixed this problem was we diagnosed when was the right time during the sales process that it was not uncomfortable but comfortable for salespeople to ask customers for referrals. What we actually found the right time was after the sale was completely completed. Historically, the salesperson would always thank the customer. A lot of times the customer would thank our salespeople. We gave them a very, very simple script which was this, which was basically it says, "Listen, I really appreciate your thanks, but could you do me a favor?" Then we taught them to shut up, not say another word. Everybody who, after they thank you, when you ask them for a favor, they'll always say yes. And then the favor was, would you mind just taking a moment and scribbling down on a piece of paper for me the names of a couple of people that I could help the same way I've helped you? And it was magic how we would get so many referrals when we learned the right time in the sales process. And like Dan said, we kind of created like a little script for them. And so what I would tell you is that one of the shortcuts to this in terms of the conversation basis referrals is to identify the right time in the process. Everybody has them, whether you're a professional practice, whether you're in sales business, whether you're doing any kind of a business at all. There's always something in the right place. Several years ago when I was looking to take clients, which I am I'm very much in the client repellent business right now. I was looking to take clients. I was working— this is a long time ago— I was working with a company that was in the home improvement business, which by the way, Dan, I know you know this, but it's probably one of the best sales forces there are, the home improvement guys. I mean, they're just extraordinary. It's like the first 9 nos don't yet mean anything. But this one guy that I worked with, he owned his own company.

His name was Jake.

What he would do is he would put the referral in the front of the sale. So basically— actually, I'm going to switch phones here because I'm concerned my phone is dying. Anyway, what he would do in the beginning of the sale is when he would position price to the buyer, he said to them, listen, I'm going to give you this great price, and the reason why I'm going to give it to you is because when I'm finished your job, you're going to be so happy with your that I'm going to ask you for referrals of your neighbors and you're going to gladly give them to me because you're going to be so happy with the job I've done. So he's setting up the referral at the end of delivering the presentation— I mean delivering the services, and he was always getting them. And, you know, for every job he would do, he would get 2 new jobs just from referrals. So a lot of this conversation is also about setting up the right time and determining when the right time is for the conversation. Well, let's move on to number 6 on our list, which—

A real education, by the way, about this very quickly is now just keep score for the next month of everybody you do business with and how many of them have any kind of conversation with you about referrals. You will see that your scorecard will be pretty close to blank.

Well, it's pretty much the same scorecard as in most businesses. How many of them, other than if they're forced to, how many of them are asking you for any contact information? Right, right. You know, so yeah, so the doctor's office has to ask you for that, but, you know, the normal business does not have to ask you for that at all, and they just don't do it, which is, as everybody knows, that's where the real value is, is in the customer list. So listen, next one is source, not Salesforce, which is interesting.

So Dan, make it interesting. Well, you know, as I said before, they're not capable of really telling your story. I tell the story about the first person who— tried to get me to go to a chiropractor long before I was doing anything, any work with the profession. But I long had back problems, and so I was repetitively complaining, and the person said, "You know, you've got to go to my chiropractor because he fixes me right up." And I said, "Well, you know, I've heard funny things about those guys. Tell me what goes on when you go to the chiropractor." And he proceeded to give me a lengthy and detailed description of a visit, which the short version includes, well, Doc lays me down on this table and he gets up around my neck and he distracts me with something, talks to me about the ball game or something, and then he just twists my neck really violently to one side or the other. And you can hear it snap, crackle, and pop all the way out in the waiting room. And then he does it in the other direction too. And the table has a foot pedal underneath it, and when he hits that foot pedal, which I never know when it's going to happen, the support from my lower back drops out of place, and my back like folds in half and snaps into place. And I said, you know, that doesn't sound very appealing. That actually sounds terrifying. You can imagine if they're doing this on a regular basis, if this is what they're telling people, they're driving people away. They're not getting people coming to you. We quickly figured out that in many businesses, not just a professional practice, your best thing is to collect that referral just like you just described your salespeople doing. Collect the referral and then do the contact work yourself. Don't rely on the customer, the client, or the patient to do it. And in many cases, it's— if they've come in the door either as a referral themselves or through a lead generation process where they raised their hand, they were sent information, they responded to that information, and then that's how they're in the door. Then having that process repeated on someone they give to you is not disturbing to them at all. So you've just got to remind them, here's what we're going to do. We have this nice letter here we're going to send them which references the fact that you provided their name and thought they'd be a great customer, client, patient, and we're going to send it out with this packet of information and we're going to invite them to request some more stuff and we're going to invite them in for a free consultation, examination, free gift with first appointment, free carpet, we're going to offer to come out and do the free carpet audit, etc., etc. And if you ask, you'll get names and addresses and email addresses, you know, and so forth. And when you treat them as the source of this information, they are far more productive than when you're asking them to go out there and be a sales force. As you pointed out, there are timing issues with this and they vary a little bit business by business by business. But in real ruthlessly managed direct sales operations, people are required to collect contact information of referrals from everybody that they sell to. And if they return to the office with sales and no prospects, they get fired. And consequently, there's pretty much 100% productivity in collecting these names and addresses. But we've created environments where it's done in group. In chiropractic environment, for example, often patients come to a group lecture when they become new patients. In a well-run practice, it's required, and that's a place where it's done. Forms are literally passed out, the who-do-you-know form is passed out, the conversation is had, and the doctor stands there and waits while everybody fills out their forms and provides the referrals. Or one-on-one, often right at point of sale, as you pointed out, when everybody's excited. But you really should be multiplying your customers by treating them as sources of good prospects and extracting those prospects from them, not leaving the referral, the multiplying process in their hands, but putting it in yours.

And you know, you mentioned that in, I think your words were ruthlessly run sales organizations, people the salespeople had specific referral requirements. And I guess I'm proud to say that when I was in the menswear business, I was running a ruthlessly-run sales organization because that's really what I was running. You know, I was the marketer of a ruthlessly-run sales organization.

It really—

it was inconsequential that we were selling apparel. And our salespeople prior to the month, the manager would sit down with them and and agreed-upon results would be discussed. And so certainly their sales, the amount of sales for the upcoming month would be discussed. The average transaction size would be discussed. How many phone calls they were making to previous customers in order to get appointments would be discussed. And one of the things that was discussed was how many referrals they would generate for the upcoming month. And all that stuff was clearly posted and every day was scored. And so everybody saw the results, their results on a daily basis, how they were doing in that month. And yeah, the stuff that gets tracked gets done. So, you know, I would highly recommend everybody to be creating these types of quotas, even albeit for yourself, how many you will actually generate in a given period of time. The next two are kind of linked together, so I'm going to mention both of them, but then let's talk about the difference, which is somewhat subtle. So number 7 and 8 is the in the business event is 7, and number 8 is the social event, because in most—

in many cases they work, you know, they work kind of the same.

So let's start off with the in the business event, and— Somewhat obvious what that does, but you want to explain how you've seen that, how that's worked?

Yeah, I mean, the idea is the same for both, so lumping them together is no harm done. I mean, the idea is to create an opportunity and a reason for people to bring one or more friends or family members or coworkers to you. And so in the case of in the business, it can be combined with a sales event providing there's a lot of other stuff going on, be that drawings and contests or roving magicians and circus performers or wine and cheese tasting. Common in a number of industries including the one you come from is the factory rep there for some period of time. There's one of the very pricey beds is sold this way in high-end department stores. So their best customers are invited and encouraged to bring a friend and the technical genius from the factory is going to be there and there's champagne and there's hors d'oeuvres and there's some minor local celebrity present still that people would like to meet and get their picture taken with. In some cases, they're— posed as seminars and classes. In some cases, they're put together as customer appreciation events, but again, with great emphasis on bring a friend. Some of the martial arts schools do a great job with graduation ceremonies and encouraging the parent to invite and bring little Johnny's playmates' parents to the ceremony with them, which exposes them to the school and at the really good schools gets their contact information collected and so forth. So the in-store or in-office event is all about getting that customer, client, or patient to not only be there, but to bring at least one eligible customer, client, or patient with them.

Yeah, and you know, it— a lot of the members know about— I used to run my Thanksgiving greeting card promotion in my menswear stores. And, you know, now since I've taught it, it's probably been used in 50 or so different industries. And almost by accident, one year we, made the offer which was, you know, come in any of the 4 days after Thanksgiving and you would get 17% discount or bring a friend with you and we would give you both 20% discount. And at least half of the people— I mean, it was kind of a— it was a wonderful surprise. At least half the people brought a friend with them to get the maximum discount and to bring their friend in for that as well. And it was a terrific new customer acquisition strategy for us and it was a way to— encourage people to bring friends, which was kind of a referral plan program. We, you know, you mentioned also seminars. I remember one year and at my suburban store, it was our 10th anniversary of that business, and we brought in a lady who was a specialist in color consultation. So what are the best colors for people to wear based on their skin tones? And there again, our customers were invited to bring friends with them, which was amazing. How many of them that did? And so they learned you've got to go buy the blues and they had all browns. So while they were there, we conveniently helped them with the blues. So, you know, very, very smart way to do that, especially when the product or service that you're providing is already present. And, you know, again, I mean, don't make the mistake that because I'm giving you two menswear examples, this only works in menswear. I believe the auto repair shop could make this work where if you bring in your car and you bring your friends— have your friend follow you in to get his car serviced, you both get some kind of extra benefit from that. I think these will work.

And to use that example, you can be that blatant or you could be more subtle. The auto repair shop could have a big outdoor in his parking lot Saturday event for his customers with the college game on 4 big-screen TVs and hot dogs and, you know, all my customers come on down and bring your buddies. And the exposure alone will convert to business.

Yeah, and I found that the more festive they were, the better response we got. So, you know, we— you know, lots of times when we were doing— you call it the fast year— rep was coming in, we called them trunk shows, you know, having the people there that were doing the chair massages, you know, were well, well received. Having the special gift everybody came in, you know, was always made it more fun. And the more fun that you could have, you know, roving little music and that kind of stuff, it was always better, which now moves to the write-out social events.

And I know you've got—

I know you've got— I've heard you tell it many times for a long time, the story about— I think the guy that used to get the big tent once a year and have all his customers come and bring friends.

Yeah, there's an insurance agent. Yeah. He's like famous in Phoenix. Because every year on his birthday, he went— he rents out this restaurant bar. And it started with just renting the restaurant and bar, and it gradually evolved into a giant tent in the parking lot. And to the distress of the neighbors, everybody parking all the way up and down residential streets. All around this place, and he has a giant birthday party which starts at noon and goes until the cops come and close the place down at 2 o'clock in the morning. And I'm not sure that I would always recommend the open bar program, but his is open bar. And so there's food and there's booze and there's music and there's him sitting up on a giant throne, um, and with his crown and his robe and, um, a couple of extremely attractive and relatively scantily clothed assistants, um, managing the parade of his clients who bring him gag gifts.. And there's a competition, of course, for the best gag gift and so forth. And the client is invited to bring as many of his buddies as he wants to. And this thing grew from, you know, 50 people showing up to 200 people showing up to— now, of course, they don't all stay the entire time, fortunately, but the last time that I paid any attention to it, Over 1,000 people moved through this thing during its time period. One-third clients, two-thirds not clients. He has repeatedly told everybody it's the only marketing he needs to do all year. He creates obligation. Everybody has a good time. It sparks conversation about him between the clients and their friends, of course. There is collection of names that everybody signs the guest book and so forth. And there's a little bit of follow-up, but frankly, he doesn't even do much follow-up. He just is deluged afterwards with people calling and saying, you know, gee, maybe we should review my coverage. Maybe we should take a look at insurance. Maybe I, you know, ought to have an annuity. And it's his whole marketing gambit. Similarly, there's been— there's a chiropractor in Florida that for years has had a big event once a year at his farm, and it's an all-day picnic with hayrides and pony rides for the kids and softball games and all of that. And it's the same arrangement. It's invitation to patient and bring as many people with you as you want. And so some bring their entire families, they bring everybody, all their coworkers, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people go through here. And it pretty much takes care of his marketing for months and months and months. On a much smaller scale, there's a martial arts school owner who does a very good job with bowling nights and miniature golf outings. So forth, again open to the students, their parents, and their friends. And there's no— it's not like in the middle of it somebody gets up on a, you know, a crate and delivers a pitch. There's none of that blatant attempt to convert to customers going on on the spot. It really is purely a social activity. That creates interest in this person and his business and creates some sense of obligation.

Well, you know, let's not also forget about platinum member in our IBA down in Florida, Chris Hearn.

Yeah, that's another great example.

That's right. Yeah, he does the Mardi Gras event for his business every year. And, Dan, you actually probably know more about it, but I know that he uses that to promote both Mercantile Mortgage Company, but also I believe he also uses it to help promote promote his IBA area, does he not?

Yeah, absolutely. Once he added the IBA business, he used the same thing for both. And there is some cross, of course. It was originally built for mercantile, and it has grown each year in number. And it's a major Mardi Gras party with performers and activities and contests and costumes and so forth. And Chris does a great job with it and gets great productivity out of it.

Yeah, one of my members in one of my mastermind groups several years ago, and I really don't want to mention his name because he's kind of proprietary about it, about what he does, but what he was doing, which was kind of interesting, is quarterly he was having client seminars. Where he'd be bringing in really, really good speakers, not necessarily related directly with what he was providing, but he would bring in— have it for his clients, client appreciation quarterly events, and they were encouraged to bring their friends with them. And he was actually a little bit blatant about— not overly, but he spent about 5 or 10 minutes getting up and welcoming the new the new guests and also telling them about a free evaluation service that he had available to them. And it was a very strong— which obviously as you can imagine the evaluation led to them needing to do business with him. And he, you know, he was— that was a very successful strategy with doing these quarterly customer appreciation seminars which not only further put the iron cage around his existing clients so that they, you know, they loved him. They really did love him. But at the same time, it was a great strategy in order to get new clients for his business. Well, number 9 is probably the one that most people leap to first, which is incentive-based campaigns. It was clearly the one that I used most.

I really feel—

everything I used at my menswear stores led to this. So Dan, you know, again, if you would explain what this is, which is other than just the obvious.

Well, look, there's two approaches. There's the institutionalized ongoing rewards program which for years, although many won't do it because they consider it unseemly, but for years we talked to professionals and so up on the wall is the 5 choices of gifts that you get for a referral or in more complex programs you can accumulate points and take a gift immediately when you first or refers for some of your bank points from multiple referrals to get something really good. And that program's in place continuously. And then there is the short-term promotion, the spring new customer drive, the— again, you need a reason— the 10th anniversary new customer campaign, whatever, that lasts for X number of weeks. And during that period of time, Typically everybody who refers at least goes into a drawing for various prizes and gifts including something at the top really good. Sometimes the person who refers the most during that period of time is going to get a particular gift or reward. These things are essentially sales contests for your— for non-salespeople. They're referral contests and they're run with very specific prizes and rewards. Travel often works very well on a local level depending upon who your customer is. The day at the spa works very well. The golf outing for 4 works very well, has a prize people will actually, you know, make a serious attempt to qualify for. And if you run this at the same time that you do some of the other things we're talking about so that you at the same time are equipping them with good tools to use and perhaps creating an event that they can bring people to, then, you know, you can really get some spectacular results.

And the last one on our list, which is kind of a hybrid of number 9. So number 9 was an incentive-based campaign, and number 10 is recognition and reward. So it's basically taking reward and just making it even, you know,— put it a little bit more on steroids with recognition. And Dan, talk about how by adding recognition to the reward program that actually increases results.

Well, often it works— the recognition is more important than is the actual tangible reward, especially especially in an environment where you are dealing with customers who do not routinely and regularly get praise, applause, pins and plaques in their, you know, in their day-to-day existence. It's exactly the same reason that it works for direct sales groups. Is because most of the people participating in a business like Mary Kay or a business like Herbalife or whatever, they're not as a matter of fact getting rich and they're not predominantly motivated by the money. They are very motivated by pins and it's because they don't get any recognition anywhere else. And so they're drawn to participate in an environment where they get it. I've often directly copied, just moved the direct sales thing over to the other business. Again, to use a practice as an example, we had a very successful model that we taught in the '80s and I have one doctor who was like the poster boy for it where every month there was a social event, educational event, a big luncheon for all patients and patients' friends, but it was also where all the patient awards were handed out. And so at some point during the luncheon, the patients qualifying for awards came up to the front of the room and got their pins and plaque, and there were attendance awards, so keeping your appointments, everybody came up and got a pin. Everybody that was a patient for their third month in a row in a maintenance program, everybody came up and got a pin, and it ultimately shifted into who referred that month, and they got a plaque, and who referred the most that month,, and they got a big plaque, and then Patient of the Month. And the Patient of the Month, they were always celebrating the one from the month before, and Patient of the Month always got some customized reward. So like if it was you, you might have gotten 4 tickets to a Baltimore Ravens game and a limo to take you there and so forth. If it was somebody else in It might have been a day at the spa for her and two of her girlfriends or, you know, that sort of thing. And all that was photographed and so now they showed photographs of the patient of the month's great adventure and experience and the patient of the month said a few words. And so if anybody has ever been to an Amway, Shackley, Herbalife, etc., monthly rally, they'll recognize that I've just described that, just done with patients instead of with salespeople. And of course everybody getting an award was more likely to bring somebody along to see them get an award than somebody not getting an award. And everybody who had a speaking part who was telling their story, they were even more likely to have somebody with them because they were getting to go up on stage. Pretty soon people were vying for and working toward their next award level so they could trade in their silver pin for a gold pin and their gold pin for a platinum pin. And again, these things pretty quickly got to the point where they were being attended by 300, 400, 500 people, and it really made the practice a by-referral practice only. And on the surface, many of us might be tempted to think it all sort of juvenile and foolish and why would people participate in such a thing. And certainly my customers who are more sophisticated would never participate in such a thing. And yet if you're a golfer, you know that high-income executives and entrepreneurs spend enormous amounts of time and fight and claw and get instructors and everything else to pay their way into a golf tournament to compete in a golf tournament to get a $15 trophy which then is displayed in their office forevermore. And so no demographic is immune to this. Done right, everybody will respond in the right environment. And associations, of course, revolve around this, so why shouldn't your business revolve around it too?

Well, and, you know, like I said, and as you mentioned also, that the recognition is often even more important than the reward. And obviously when they work together, I think it even puts it much more on steroids for folks. And I can also, you know, listen, the one thing that we do know which we probably did not mention that should, we should mention is the person that's most likely to refer is the person who has previously referred. So if somebody has already sent you a referral, they're much more likely to continue to send you referrals provided that you do these two things. If you promise them a reward, that you give them the reward you promised them. And secondly is you recognize them for giving you the award, which could be recognition in public or it could just be as simple as just a thank you letter to them thanking them for referring somebody to you and just making sure that they know that, you know, you know that they referred and you appreciate it.

Yeah, or both. And I mean, what you said is just critically important because every one of us has had the experience of referring somebody to somebody and getting no acknowledgement whatsoever. Now, now, Dan, I don't know about you, but I— it pisses me off. I tell you, it pisses me off too. And, and you and I are not alone. It aggravates people, and then they are very uninclined to refer again. But as you said, the person who is referred is the most likely person to refer again if they're handled properly because A, we already know they know how to do it. B, they've already demonstrated that they have a circle of influence. And so if anytime somebody has been able to produce one, it's a very good bet they have the capability and capacity to produce many more if properly recognized, rewarded, incentivized, you know, etc. And so I've always taught, by the way, that you definitely— the first referral you get from somebody, you should make a big damn deal out of it so that they are motivated to go do it again.

You know, I probably shouldn't admit this, but you'll get to see a real glimpse inside me with this. But I was speaking somewhere. I'm not going to be too revealing. And I met a new speaker there while I was speaking. He came up to me and he was chatting with me trying to figure out how he could get into our fold. And they did an absolutely fabulous job of following up with me repeatedly. With trying for me to refer him to other people or for us to use him at Glaser Kennedy, which he was not a fit for Glaser Kennedy. But I was able to refer him to a client of mine, which he went and spoke at. He did very, very successful with the— while he was there and selling his resources. But I never got a thank you for making that referral. So, you know, it's just amazing how people put so much energy in the front end to get the business, but they forget the back end of once they get what they're looking for to thank people for helping them get there. Like you said, Dan, I hate to be thought this way, but I will not refer this guy again just for something as simple as that.

So yeah, it's really monumentally important. Thank you for listening to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with Dan Kennedy. If you love hearing in on these lost Dan Kennedy talks and speeches and calls, then please let someone else know about this podcast. That's how you can help it to grow. And the more it grows, the more free Dan Kennedy we can bring to you. Also, Dan would love to give you the most incredible free gift ever designed to help you make maximum money in minimum time. And this free gift comes with almost $20,000 in pure money-making information for free. Just for saying maybe. You can get Get this gift from Dan right now at NoBSLetter.com. Not only do you get the $20,000 gift, you also get a subscription to 2 marketing newsletters that will be hand-delivered by the mailman to your mailbox each and every month, one from Dan Kennedy and one from me, Russell Brunson. To get this gift and your subscription, go to NoBSLetter.com right now.