George Kao argues that skilled professionals miss referrals because they ask too directly. Instead, post helpful content consistently on social media. Friends share it naturally, extending your reach without friction or awkward asks.
Have you ever wondered, why is it that being that you are so caring and you're good at what you do, the service you provide, why can't people just discover how great you are and talk about you to their friends? In fact, why aren't your friends and family and colleagues regularly talking about you? Right? So that you get plenty of client inquiries. So if you're wondering about how to get your word of mouth marketing engine going, let's talk about it. So first of all, what's word of mouth marketing? It's when your friends, your family, your colleagues, your clients talk about you to their circle and get, you know, therefore get people interested in what you do. So why don't you have enough of that? Because you may have heard that, oh, the number one way to get clients is through word of mouth. Well, if you've never heard that, now you've heard it. So you might be saying, well, how come I don't have that? I thought that's. Well, but if you look at the last three clients you, you got, if those of you who have clients, we can confirm this, the last three clients you got, where did they come from? Chances are, you know, two out of three at least came from referrals, referral sources. So you think, gosh, wouldn't that, wouldn't it be great if I had more of that? And I do such good work. Why aren't more people talking about me? Here's why. It takes work for them to talk about you, right? Like, what are you going to do? You're going to ask all of your friends and family once a week to say, hey, have you looked at three people you could refer to me yet? If you do that, they're going to leave you pretty quickly. Okay? So you can't do that on a regular basis. You can do that maybe twice a year maximum, is what I mean. Try to do it twice a year if you can. Okay? To reach out to your friends of them, hey, you know, here's what I do again. Maybe give me feedback or if you think of anybody, I'd love to, for you to send this on to them. That's great, that's a great thing to do. But you can only do it twice a year, right before you, you know, so you don't bug them too much and you don't have enough friends and family you're reaching out to. Like I said, it takes work for them to think about. Hmm. Who could have referred to this? You know, my friend, it takes work for them to do so. And so most of them aren't going to do that or no matter how much they love you, they're so busy, it's not a priority for them unless someone immediately comes to mind that they happen to have talked to that need what you do, they're not going to do that. Don't blame them. Don't blame. Because you're the same way. Right? But when someone, right, when a friend asks you, hey, can you refer me clients? You don't go, let me take an hour to look at my contact list. And even if you do you it's probably not easy for you to go, I'm going to now email Bob. I'm now. Yeah. And even if you email Bob, you have to think about how do I not sound salesy even though I'm helping my friend. So there are many reasons why word of mouth. Trying to get your friends and family to talk about you is difficult, except for one way. You know what that is? You know what the easiest way to get word of mouth going is? No. It's not to ask. It's not to send gift certificates to your past clients and say, please share these gift certificates with your friends so that they can have a free session with me. It's common strategy, but I've seen that done over the years and nobody, not nobody, I'm sure somebody out there is doing it consistently, but it still feels a little weird and it's not, it's not a very sustainable strategy to use. So the number one easiest way is when your friends, family and colleagues and clients see you on social media, you happen to share something you interesting or helpful or inspiring or funny or profound and they share it forward with their circle. So yes, you might not be surprised that I'm the one saying this. I say this all the time. Authentic and consistent content is the easiest and most sustainable way to get word of mouth going. Because think about it, right? Let's say you've got a friend, Jane. You reach out to her twice a year and like I said, she's likely not going to do the work of thinking about who to send to you because it's work for her and it's like she's not, she's not your marketing manager. Right? So. But Jane will see you on social media all the time. I mean, how many posts do you do on social media? At least, let's say on average once a week, she's, you know, 52 social media posts a year. Let's say Jane catches a third of them. So 17. So. Right. She catches 17 of your posts a year and let's say five of them were interesting enough for her to engage with it or share it forward. So instantly Jane is now sharing your you to her circle five times a year, let's say. So that's like she has probably what, 300 people in her circle on average. You know, Facebook users have 300 friends or something like that. Do you see what I mean? So this is one of the many reasons I always urge you, encourage you to please show up consistently with content. And if you can, if you, if you keep showing up, you practice, you'll just get more and more comfortable doing it. But you can't get comfortable until you try. You have to get the exposure to showing up again and again. So show up with your authentic self, trying to be helpful in your content as much as you can, and watch your word of mouth engine grow and grow and grow over the years. I mean, this is one of the, this is the main reason my business has gotten easier and easier over the years and gotten bigger and bigger because I just keep showing up as you see me. I keep showing up consistently, doing my best to share my heart, to try to help. Because you are worth hiring. You care, but how do you demonstrate your care how you are? You're going to sit at home and go, I care, I care, I care. How come nobody knows that? You demonstrate your care by showing up consistently. People, Right? So I hope this is encouraging for you and go for it. I look. Thank you for joining me and look forward to your comments and your questions. Take care of.
