Stop Asking for Referrals…And Become a Referral Magnet!

By Annette M. Bau, CFP®

Learn the 6 steps that will transform your Referral Marketing

It seems that everything you read these days about referral marketing says that all you have to do is ask for them. If only it was that easy! While I agree that asking for referrals can work in certain situations, you risk embarrassing yourself with existing clients and getting referrals to clients you’d rather not be working with.

Initially in my career, I would work with anyone. I found it frustrating, however, because the people I was advising had few things in common, and many of the referrals I received weren’t worth the trouble.

I knew there had to be a better way to get qualified referrals than asking all my friends and clients. I just needed to find out what it was. Once I stopped asking for referrals and instead spent more of my energies doing research and developing a niche, I built a thriving business with plenty of multi-millionaire clients.

Follow these six strategies and you, too, can attract quality clients and amazing referrals.

1. Choose a Niche Market.
Once I selected two niches - high-net-worth widowed and divorced women and high net-worth realtors - I was able to clearly identify the clients I wanted to serve. By working with a group of people with similar needs, I was able to learn a lot about their unique needs and provide better service. My clients noticed this, and immediately began giving me qualified referrals without my having to ask (or beg) for them.

2. Don’t Keep it a Secret.
I’ll bet you have friends, acquaintances, and even relatives who don’t know exactly what you do and for what types of clients. Simply explaining your work in casual conversation can go a long way toward generating business. It might not happen immediately, but the more people clearly understand what you do and with whom, the more likely they’ll refer you to people they know who fit your requirements. Be sure to paint a clear picture of your ideal clients and use positive actions to describe what you do: For example, “I help affluent widowed women create financial plans to ensure their security and protection,” or “I maximize high end realtors’ assets so they can make money while they’re traveling.”

3. Use the AskLearnRiches^TM Questionnaire.
This strategy consists of interviewing prospects, existing clients, and centers of influence in your niche market for insights about what you can do to become a better advisor. This technique is so effective because you’re much more likely to get names from existing clients and be able to talk to people when they don’t think you’re trying to sell them something. For this to work you can’t ask your interviewees for their business. The people you interview will be so impressed with what you’re doing, they’ll come to you. To receive a copy of this questionnaire go towww.MillionaireSeries.com/copper

4. Say “Thank You.”
I learned this strategy by mistake. We started sending out a quarterly mailer to our clients that included a note saying, “Thank you for your referrals to affluent widows and divorcees.” Something amazing happened. We started getting referrals from clients who had never given us referrals before!

5. Let’s Share Referrals.
This strategy has been worth its weight in gold in getting referrals from other advisors. My first referral using this strategy came from a CPA who referred me to a family with a net worth over $100 million. My largest insurance commission, which was in excess of $500,000 also came from this strategy. This strategy consists of marketing to other advisors with which you want to create a reciprocal referral relationship.

6. Create a Relationship Marketing Campaign.
When you’re friendly, honest, responsive, and sincere, you develop long-lasting, deep relationships with your clients that can lead to the best referrals of all. I’m incredibly gratified whenever my clients take it upon themselves to champion my cause and influence their friends and family members to work with me. This strategy became a huge success for me when once I created a systematic automated stay-in touch approach. I would send frequent heartfelt messages that nurtured and developed our relationship. Two of the best referrals using this strategy included a client worth in excess of 10 million and another in excess of 30 million. I just finished an interview with a real estate professional who focused only on using this relationship marketing stay in touch strategy and within the last 4 years sold $159,000,000 proving this strategy can work in other industries too.

I recommend that you choose 2 of these strategies so too can reap the rewards.

Annette Bau has been a successful financial planner for over 20 years. She is a foremost expert on millionaires and author of The 7 Principles of Becoming a Millionaire for Life, Powerful lessons to create wealth, health and happiness. Annette is also a top marketing columnist for ProducersWEB.com the largest online financial services magazine.

To receive more information or an invitation to attend a marketing webinar go to http://www.milliondollarmarketingpractices.com/.