Are you missing out on getting business because you’re not asking your customers for referrals? The answer is probably, YES!
This is just one of the many topics Alice Heiman and Brent discussed recently on her Sales Talk for CEOs Podcast.
Most happy customers are willing to make referrals, but most companies don’t do a great job of simply asking. Somewhere around 90% of satisfied customers will make a referral if asked but something less than 10% are ever actually asked!
Alice points out that it’s an honor for people to be able to say: “I use X company and they’ve helped me so much and I think they could help you too – but we don’t even give most of our customers the opportunity to ever do this.
A great way to to engage your happy customers is to reach out intentionally on three things:
- How is it going? What are you thrilled about and would like to see more of?
- Is there anything we could do to improve?
- Do you have peers we can serve in the same way that we serve you?
Brent recounts that during his time at Eduventures, they were able to build a $10 million dollar business over three years by basically asking this question as part of their program development process.
When you ask, you might be surprised at how often expansion opportunities surface!