The Second Secret to Securing Referrals

Derived from : John Jantsch, The Referral Engine
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There are two critical elements of securing referrals. In our previous post in this series we considered the need to Clarify Your Core Difference. And, the second is to get really clear on what you Ideal Customer looks like. A referral for the wrong customer can be worse than no referral at all.

Define Your Ideal Customer

Defining your ideal customer is important for two reasons:

1. You know who you’re working to attract. And, therefore you can then find out where they hang out.
2. To educate the people referring others to you. This is to avoid recommendations that only waste everybody’s time and reputation.

If you want to be remarkable and talked about, you’ll need to take a stand. To achieve this sharpen your business focus: Add or reduce product features, provide service in a unique way and set interesting prices.

Not everyone is going to like this – and that’s the good news. It makes you more unique.

And it gives you an opportunity to blow other people’s trumpets too: ‘No, we don’t do that. However, I can recommend…’

Questions to Define Your Ideal Customer

• Who do you want to help? And, what do you want to achieve?
• Who do you love working with?
• Which customers do you wish you had more of?
• What qualities of these customers do you like most?
• Who DON’T you want as customers?
• What are the personalities of your Ideal Customer?

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