Thursday, September 9, 2010

Small Business Marketing Highlight of the Week: Amber Simpson, Posh Salons, The Woodlands TX

This week's highlight is an ambitious, vivacious independent stylist.  She is amazing at partnering for referrals.  Every time I mention a beauty-related service I need, she has a card right at hand for just the right person.  And I'll just bet that person has her card, too.

She's not selling things I don't need or pushing, just listening and making high-quality recommendations.  She has become my go-to source for all things related to beauty care.  This makes me more loyal to her - her value to me goes beyond the service she directly provides.  It also means that others take care to refer clients to her.  And, for all I know, she gets referral fees.  I've never asked.

Two important things about referrals:
- Only refer to people and businesses you trust to build your good name.  The quality of your connections will affect peoples' opinions of you.
-  Only refer when it's a fit.  No one will thank you for doing otherwise.


Now, get out there.

1.  Find related businesses:  Who else does business with the kind of clientele you want?

2.  Learn more about them:  Talk with the business owner to find out what kind of clients they actually want, and what kind of services they offer in detail.  If possible, take advantage of the service yourself so you will be able to refer based on your own experience.

3.  Strike a deal: 
Offer to mutually refer appropriate clients.  You may even want to include a referral bonus of a flat dollar amount per new contact or a percentage of their first sale.  If you do this, be sure to provide your new partner with referral cards to give their clients so you'll be able to track them appropriately.

It can be done -- just ask Amber!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Kimberly,

    Thanks for this article. I built my video production company up in the last 5 years very much in the same way Amber did - by building a solid business network and establishing solid referral relationships with some key partners in business. It's been great!

    I started using something called Hello Referrals with my network recently - it's a web based software for referral network marketing. Check it out at http://helloreferrals.com. I signed up for a free trial and find it really useful. It's a web based software that allows me and the people that I refer to send, track and receive referrals and it's helping us to close more business and stay on top of the leads we're exchanging.

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