WEBVTT 00:00.110 --> 00:07.010 Let's discuss how to maximize professional referrals and social referrals for your business when people 00:07.010 --> 00:08.150 start their businesses. 00:08.150 --> 00:13.940 Many people include the strategy of getting referrals when they first create their initial marketing 00:13.940 --> 00:14.540 plan. 00:14.540 --> 00:19.010 But just saying I'm going to get referrals is too vague. 00:19.010 --> 00:21.140 There are different kinds of referrals. 00:21.140 --> 00:26.450 It's important to understand the differences between them, so you can take advantage of all the possible 00:26.450 --> 00:32.670 types of referrals for your business and hence maximize all the ways you can get referrals. 00:32.670 --> 00:36.780 There are two kinds of referrals social referrals and business referrals. 00:36.780 --> 00:39.390 First, let's go over social referrals. 00:39.390 --> 00:47.790 You want to, of course, do the obvious things like encourage customers to refer their friends, ask 00:47.790 --> 00:53.040 nicely on your own, and also build it into how your product asks for referrals if possible. 00:53.040 --> 00:57.150 Sometimes there are little pop ups saying please add a referral, things like that. 00:57.150 --> 01:02.160 And of course, if your product or service can become more fun when people do it with their friends 01:02.160 --> 01:08.610 like attend events or play games, then it's very natural to encourage people to invite their friends. 01:08.610 --> 01:13.020 So your job is to figure out which part of your business is better. 01:13.020 --> 01:20.080 When people do it with their friends or business contacts, so that they naturally want to refer your 01:20.080 --> 01:25.120 business to their friends or business contacts, because then you don't have to ask for any favors. 01:25.120 --> 01:31.330 They want to create that referral because if you just ask for referrals, few people will recommend 01:31.330 --> 01:33.250 you out of the goodness of their hearts. 01:33.370 --> 01:35.560 There will always be people like that. 01:35.560 --> 01:41.650 On top of that, add people who refer your business because something's in it for them. 01:41.740 --> 01:47.030 And to increase the number of people who refer your business because there's something in it for them, 01:47.030 --> 01:52.100 you want to find additional incentives for them other than fun. 01:52.100 --> 01:58.640 Best incentives tend to be finance related, like if somebody refers you and recommends their friends, 01:58.640 --> 02:04.730 you can give a discount to the friend and to the initial referrer so that the person referring has more 02:04.730 --> 02:07.550 motivation to find friends who will come with them. 02:07.790 --> 02:14.970 And of course, the best discounts and the best financial incentives are generous small referral fees 02:14.970 --> 02:15.600 and commissions. 02:15.600 --> 02:22.110 They don't really motivate people, but generous ones do because very often there are many clients who 02:22.110 --> 02:26.220 have good social networks that they could get into your business. 02:26.220 --> 02:28.440 They just need the right incentive. 02:28.440 --> 02:35.610 And then those invited friends can invite their friends, and it can create a secondary spiral effect 02:35.610 --> 02:40.320 where people invite their friends, and those friends invite their friends, and that way they do the 02:40.320 --> 02:41.460 marketing for you. 02:41.880 --> 02:44.370 And there's just more natural buzz around your business. 02:44.370 --> 02:51.570 Although the best way, arguably, to raise buzz about your business is to improve what your product 02:51.570 --> 02:59.460 is, every little detail about your product can be improved, and so you should always be very vigilant 02:59.470 --> 03:03.670 about what details you can improve, what you can make incrementally better. 03:03.670 --> 03:09.820 Because many such changes over months and years will take your business to a next, next, next level 03:09.820 --> 03:16.180 of quality that naturally gets recommended because it's amazing and helps people in the most amazing 03:16.180 --> 03:16.750 way. 03:17.170 --> 03:20.680 And the idea behind that, of course, is to never settle for being good. 03:20.680 --> 03:22.810 Of course you are good now. 03:22.930 --> 03:25.520 You can be so much better tomorrow. 03:25.520 --> 03:31.820 And of course, going back to practical things you can do to increase social referrals is to just add 03:31.820 --> 03:37.220 more social buttons and more calls to actions for sharing. 03:37.460 --> 03:40.670 Whatever your content is, your business is on your website. 03:40.670 --> 03:47.990 More social sharing buttons increase sharing naturally and bigger sharing buttons of course, to bigger 03:47.990 --> 03:49.700 buttons get more attention. 03:49.880 --> 03:52.250 So that was for social referrals. 03:52.250 --> 03:59.210 What about professional referrals when other companies refer their clients to you? 03:59.240 --> 04:04.370 A great example of this is let's say you're a doctor and let's say you're a physician. 04:04.370 --> 04:07.910 People come to you, let's say they have some ailment and they have some symptoms. 04:07.910 --> 04:13.310 Let's say there's something wrong with their muscle aches or their bones ache, or they have some skin 04:13.310 --> 04:14.000 rash. 04:14.000 --> 04:23.850 All those issues, if they require additional expertise, that initial doctor, the physician, is not 04:23.850 --> 04:25.710 an expert in those things necessarily. 04:25.710 --> 04:29.880 So he's going to refer those patients out to specialists. 04:29.880 --> 04:37.140 So there's a doctor specializing in skin, a dermatologist there's a doctor specializing in other things, 04:37.140 --> 04:38.310 other things, other things. 04:38.310 --> 04:44.780 So all of these specialized doctors, they need to form professional relationships with that physician 04:44.780 --> 04:51.050 and other physicians so that the physicians refer their clients to them when they have such clients. 04:51.170 --> 04:53.120 And of course, this goes the other way. 04:53.120 --> 05:00.380 When these specialized doctors meet somebody who has maybe other symptoms, they can refer them to the 05:00.380 --> 05:02.300 physician or other specialists. 05:02.300 --> 05:07.300 So it's almost like a big map of doctors all referring patients to each other. 05:07.300 --> 05:12.430 And naturally the patients get better help, but the doctors make more money. 05:13.360 --> 05:16.240 And it's the same with many kinds of businesses. 05:16.330 --> 05:19.300 Maybe you're a mechanic, but you don't paint the cars. 05:19.300 --> 05:25.960 So if some client of yours needs a paint job for their cars, well, you refer that client to the people 05:25.960 --> 05:31.880 who paint cars, and the people who paint cars will refer their clients to you if you can help them 05:31.880 --> 05:34.100 when they need some mechanical issues. 05:34.100 --> 05:41.600 So it's really smart to network within your niche, within your industry, and make sure that your peers 05:41.600 --> 05:44.960 see you as a respectable professional. 05:44.960 --> 05:49.370 And if they do, they will trust that you will take good care of their clients. 05:49.370 --> 05:52.430 And if they think that they will refer their clients to you. 05:52.580 --> 05:58.320 And what really helps with that is if you choose a great specialization, you can still help people 05:58.320 --> 05:59.670 with general issues. 05:59.670 --> 06:05.460 But if you choose a specialization, then people will think ah, aha, you are a specialist in this. 06:05.460 --> 06:09.150 I should refer you when my clients need that kind of help. 06:09.480 --> 06:15.930 And of course, the next level of this is not to just wait for people to nicely refer their clients 06:15.930 --> 06:19.290 to you, but incentivize referrals with payments. 06:19.290 --> 06:25.900 So let's say you're a mechanic and you want a network with a company that paints cars. 06:25.900 --> 06:32.020 Well, that company that paints cars has 20 different mechanics to whom they can refer their clients 06:32.020 --> 06:32.560 to. 06:32.560 --> 06:36.520 But who do you think they will be most motivated to refer people to? 06:36.520 --> 06:37.600 The ones who pay them. 06:37.600 --> 06:43.810 So you can say, I will give you a 5 or 10% commission on any sale from your referrals. 06:43.810 --> 06:46.450 And so right away you get in front of the line. 06:46.480 --> 06:53.770 Additionally, there are online companies where you can post physical or digital products and get referrals. 06:53.770 --> 06:57.100 For example, this is clickbank.com. 06:57.100 --> 07:05.350 You can post your products here where affiliate resellers will sell and promote your product for a commission. 07:05.350 --> 07:11.150 This is not available in every country, but a similar website to this is and it's Jvzoo. 07:11.300 --> 07:15.920 Jvzoo works in a similar kind of way, but they're available in every country of the world, although 07:15.920 --> 07:18.590 they are smaller, so they'll have fewer resellers. 07:18.860 --> 07:21.620 And of course, even let's say you have a product on Amazon. 07:21.620 --> 07:26.900 Well, you know, Amazon has an affiliate program where naturally, if you have a highly discoverable 07:26.900 --> 07:32.510 product on Amazon, the affiliates will discover your product on Amazon as well and resell that without 07:32.510 --> 07:34.700 you prompting them, without you asking. 07:34.930 --> 07:37.540 And also, I want to give you an example of my website. 07:37.540 --> 07:38.920 It's a little t shirt store. 07:38.920 --> 07:41.680 I'm kind of killing this business off at the moment. 07:41.680 --> 07:45.580 I'm not really into it, but the example here is at the bottom. 07:45.580 --> 07:48.790 You see, I have my own affiliate program that I made. 07:48.790 --> 07:55.240 People can sign up and resell these t shirts, and basically I give them 25% commission for sales. 07:55.690 --> 08:00.660 So it's basically extra marketers who promote me for free, and I only pay them when they make a sale, 08:00.660 --> 08:03.960 so I don't lose any money and people can just come here and sign up. 08:03.960 --> 08:09.000 But also I can reach out to bloggers and say, hey, I've got this 25% commission. 08:09.000 --> 08:11.040 Can you promote my business? 08:11.070 --> 08:17.700 Not only do I get the promotion, I get the extra branding, etc. so these are the ways to get extra, 08:17.700 --> 08:23.490 extra, extra referrals in so many different ways for your business socially and professionally. 08:23.490 --> 08:25.830 And take that referral strategy to the next level.