Jeff Miller breaks down three referral models: cash rewards for introductions, thank-you offers in onboarding, and free service after hitting a referral target. Ask for referrals right after a client gets results, not later. A chiropractor gives three free months for three referrals, valuing each at $600/month.
clients sending you business. Setting aside the idea of having like a fantastic service, right? And setting aside the idea that most people will ask for referrals before the right time to do so, right? The right time to ask for a referral is right after somebody has purchased or right after they experienced the result.
Mm-hmm.
Not at the end of your time with them.
Yeah.
Right. And certainly not in the middle of all the suck.
Yeah.
So assuming we understand that, here's 3 ways of thinking about this. The first is you can send them an email and this could be automatic, but I'd have a preference for manual.
Yeah.
And you, you phrase it not so that you're addressing it to them, but it's like a broadcast to like everybody.
Mm-hmm.
And the email says something like, hey, this is Jeff. I'm sending out this email because right now it costs me $1,186 to get a client from Meta. And honestly, I would just rather give you that money. So if you know of somebody that should become a client of mine and get the same results you're experiencing working with me, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to text me an introduction to them. And if they close, I will give you $1,167 to you instead of to Mark Zuckerberg. See you later. Right. So that's the easiest thing to do, right?
Yeah.
So again, that's an en masse email to everybody. If you don't have an everybody, you can send it to them, but address it like it's en masse, right?
Yeah.
The second thing is a lot less boring, or sorry, a lot less exciting and has a lot less of a experience, but feels like a steady burn, right? Which is on your onboarding documents, you can say something very similar. You can say, PS, by the way, if you end up becoming a happy client, you should know that it costs me $1,167 to get you as a client. If you'd prefer me to send you this money, all you have to do is introduce me to somebody and when they become a client, I will give you that money. Right. So again, blast out to everybody or incorporate it into your onboarding process. There are different versions of this referral program. So one of the people that I know that's been in the chiropractic space the longest, now 15 years doing the same advertising strategy, now 15 years, he's making $1 million a year after team EBITDA type of thing. He's having a great time. What he does is he tells his clients, by the way, if you refer me 3 people, your service with me is free.
Right? Oh, wow. So like forever.
Or while those, all those clients are clients.
Yeah.
So what ends up happening is if he charges, let's just say $1,800 a month and he charges more than that, but the math becomes easy, effectively that's $600 a month per referral.
Yeah.
So he has 10 clients, by the way, that he does not charge at all because those 10 clients have sent him 30 clients.
Wow.
Right. So there are some managerial complexities to that process. Which is if somebody leaves, how do I tell them that they gotta pay more? Right. Or like, what if the start-stop date is weird? I understand that it's your devil in the details kind of thing, right?
Yeah.
But again, the, the big idea is you can send a large communication saying, I will pay you X dollars for a referral, and having specific numbers makes it memorable. It was $1,166. Cool. The other, is by keeping the communication but changing what you're saying, which is, hey, by the way, if you send me 3 clients, you don't owe me anything, right?
Yeah.
So those are the 2 big strategies that work. The, the power partner process is something a lot more advanced, right?
Yeah.
Um, power partner process is I'm gonna pay you X dollars per month to serve as a member of my staff, and you're going to teach my clients what to do because they won't listen to me and they'll listen to you even though we're saying the same thing.
Okay, got it.
So I think what you're asking for is more like referral strategies, not necessarily power partnering.
Yeah, right.
But that process is very easy to do. Most businesses don't do it very well, including me. And if you make a type of like a, like if your end of the quarter checkbox, like, hey, Did we properly talk about and communicate our referral process and our referral program? If the answer is yes, you're fine. If the answer is no, most times it's a no.
Yeah.
You get to say, did I remind people about it? Did I tell them about it? Did I tell them about it at the right time? Did I give them the right incentive? You know, that kind of stuff. Some people, by the way, will even just say, fuck it, I'm going to send out an email, I'm going to send out a text message, I'm going to send out a story, and I'm going to send an advertisement.
Hmm.
Right. To like, to make sure the client sees it across multiple channels. But That is a long-winded answer to how you do referrals. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. That clears it up.
