Referral Marketing: What's behind the wall?

This week, we started renovations on our kitchen! If you've ever done a renovation before, you know that you can almost always count on a few surprises ... because you never quite know what's behind the walls!! In our case, we discovered that a few little, furry critters were living behind the walls!! We found a very old stash of dog food tucked between the studs, obviously stored for a long, cold winter, many moons ago. Now, when I looked closely, I noticed that it wasn't my dog's dog food ... so, it must have been from a previous owner! Anyway, it seemed obvious that something had worked long and hard to find that stash and store it in a safe place. However, the one bad thing is that it must have never been utilized!

It's kinda funny but I see the same thing happen with how people treat their business relationships ... especially their clients ... when it comes to referrals! They work so hard to impress their clients ... building up a stash of credibility, trust, and loyalty. And then, for some reason, it's never really utilized to generate ongoing referrals from those clients. The stash is left behind.

Asking clients for referrals can be a delicate matter. You must have a strong relationship with that client and be very confident that you have done your best work for them. Asking too soon could harm the relationship. Be sure to allow your stash to develop fully before asking for referrals from your client! But by all means, don't allow your stash to gather dust behind the walls ... if you're going to work that hard ... make it work for you.