On May 29, 1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first human beings to reach the summit of Mount Everest – and live to tell about it. (In 1924 George Leigh Mallory launched a final summit assault and was never seen alive again. Whether he reached the summit remains a mystery.)
What marked the success of Hillary’s British team was the way they set their stages along the way from base camp to the summit. Having learned from dozens of previous failed attempts and employing the latest technology, they became the first of many to summit the peak, 2/3 of the way to the end of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Their success teaches us about the power of effective staging.
Just as you wouldn’t have much luck summiting Everest without months and even years of preparation, you can’t expect to garner referrals for your business without setting the stage properly at every step of the way.
But when you do – from first attraction through fulfillment and additional offers – referrals happen naturally. Who have you bought from that you naturally evangelize for? If you own an Apple device or drive a VW Beetle TDI maybe you can relate.
Referrals happen easily when you overdeliver at every point in your customer’s experience with you. That’s called “setting the stage”. And remember, the cost of acquiring a new customer often exceeds first purchase, so each referral that you get represents nearly pure profit.
Of course, setting the stage may be the most critical part, but how can you really drive a complete referral system to get a steady stream of high margin new referrals?
Here’s a checklist of strategies and tactics you can implement to assure a pipeline packed with referrals:
- Ask customers what they value about you
- Focus, dominate, be best in category
- Do something nice, unexpected AFTER you get paid
- Find ways to elicit stories about your customer’s experience with you and your product or service
- Start 180 days out and work backwards, what’s your customer’s “dream come true”?
- Let your existing customers know, there are two ways we are compensated – one is monetary, the other is your referrals
- Start up front: “We know you are going to be so thrilled with our service that you’ll want to send referrals, so we’re gonna come back in 90 days and check in with you just to make sure
- Set all this up from the start and include it in all your follow up sequences
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“If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence,
try ordering somebody else’s dog around.”
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