No B.S. Guide to Maximum Referrals and Customer Retention: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Plan to Securing New Customers and Maximum Profits by Dan S. Kennedy & Shaun Buck

Author:Dan S. Kennedy & Shaun Buck
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9781613083345
Publisher: Entrepreneur Press
Published: 2016-02-21T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

The Big Event: Events for More Referrals

by Dr. Dustin S. Burleson

If you want to be in the referral business, you should get into the event business.

This first raises the important question of: What business are you really in? Most business owners have a very narrow definition tied to what they do. I am an orthodontist who owns five orthodontic practices, and most people think that defines the business I am in. I don’t see it that way. I am really in the business of marketing orthodontic practices, and as part of that, I decided that I would be in the business of generating large numbers of patient referrals for these orthodontic practices. If you decide to be in the business of generating large numbers of customer referrals for your business, whatever it is, you’ll also want to join me in the event business.

We use special events as a way of creating a lot of referrals in surges, in a short period of time, by giving our patients an easy, fun way to introduce their friends, neighbors, and co-workers to us. You can, too.

Sadly, most business owners, marketers, and salespeople are confused about referrals. They cannot accurately report their referral statistics and have no idea what they should be doing in order to consistently generate new customers from existing customers. If you have fallen like this, you’re not alone, but you’ve fortunately found the book to help you get up!

To do so, and to gladly invest in any referral marketing including events, you need real knowledge about the referral productivity in your business. A lack of clarity in any area of your business will lead to poor decision making, inaction, or both. I see more confusion and lack of clarity with referrals than I do in any other area of business.

As a coach and consultant teaching doctors how to run better practices, I’m no longer shocked when a client tells me they aren’t certain how many new patients were referred to their office last month, let alone how many referrals they average per active patient per month, quarter, and year and whether or not that is trending up or down or sideways. I’ve nearly stopped asking what five things they are intentionally doing this month in order to generate more word-of-mouth referrals. The answer is almost always, “Now that I think about it, nothing.” For the few clients who actually have an answer, their strategies are inconsistent, poorly structured, inaccurately measured, and unfavorably rely on the customer for random referrals. All of these failings have been discussed in-depth throughout this book, but no specific referral strategy can be presented without this reminder: Random acts get, at best, random results. The events strategy I have for you should not be grabbed as if a single item on a store shelf; it should be integrated into a complete referral marketing system.

In my world of professional practices, referrals are mostly taken for granted. Some offices have scripts for their employees to use to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.