Every business can benefit from positive word of mouth, and almost all businesses try to cultivate it as much as possible. In fact, some businesses survive, and even thrive, entirely on word of mouth alone! For example, many successful hair salons do little or no advertising. They don’t need to, because they have a steady stream of customers coming to their doors, sent to them by other satisfied clients.

The only way to get positive word of mouth generated for your business is to ask people to tell their friends and families about you. Here are four tips that should help.

1. Give incentives for referrals
2. After completing a job, ask the client for a referral
3. Ask suppliers for referrals
4. Ask uninterested customers for referrals

Tip Number One: Offer Incentives for Referrals

No matter how loyal a customer is, she is probably not going to send referral business your way on her own; you’ve got to ask her. A good way to do that is to give her an incentive. For instance, if you run a hair salon, you can offer a free styling for a successful referral. Or perhaps $25 in free hair products. Anything you can think of that might entice people to tell their friends about you. You will probably be amazed at the number of referrals you receive.

In order to communicate the incentive to your loyal customers, you might want to consider doing a brochure printing that details the offer, and get it into your customers’ hands. That way, even after they have gone home, they won’t forget to tell someone about you. Another idea is to do a booklet printing, featuring both your products and your incentive offers, and have it inserted in your daily paper.

Tip Number Two: Time Your Request Right

As in many business strategies, your referral efforts rely a great deal on timing. The best time to ask customers to spread the word about you is when they are most happy with your service. If you have a customer come in for a haircut, and they are pleased with your work, that would be a prime time to ask them for a referral. They will often have someone in mind that they can tell you about right then and there. Even if they don’t, they are more likely to go home and refer someone to you.

Ask Suppliers for Referrals

The people from whom you buy your products benefit when you buy more from them. The more customers you have, the more you supplies you will need. So it is in your suppliers’ best interest to increase your sales as much as possible. Ask your suppliers for referrals; you might be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Ask Uninterested People for Referrals

This one might be a bit surprising. If a customer is not interested in your service, why would they refer someone else to you? Well, sometimes that is the best way for them to bow out of the transaction gracefully. In other words, if a customer does not wish to do business with you, but doesn’t want to appear ungrateful or rude, giving you the name of someone who might actually want to use your service is a good way for him or her to get out of the deal with his or her pride intact.


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