Written as a follow-up to his bestselling book Duct Tape Marketing, John Jantsch’s The Referral Engine tackles the ever-present dilemma of how to attract prospects. The premise is simple yet powerful: educate people, and you won’t need to sell to them. Instead, you’ll use a combination of traditional and digital marketing to build a referral engine of happy clients and supportive partner businesses.
Education Leads to Referrals
According to Jantsch, it is important to do great work, but you must go further to attract referrals. Your unique way of doing business should be able to make people say, “Nobody else does that.” It is crucial to educate through great content in several formats. When you educate, you become known as the go-to for information and resources in your field.
Turn Your Customers into Your Champions
In Referral Engine, Jantsch argues that cultivating your customers to become your biggest champions will increase customer satisfaction and company profitability. The “Six Elements” of his business, marketing, and referral system include:
- A Strategy Action Plan
- A Content Action Plan
- A Convergence Action Plan
- A Direct Customer Network Plan
- An Indirect Partner Network Plan
- A Ready-to-Receive Action Plan
These elements all contain tools and strategies designed to increase referrals, such as:
- Relevant, valuable, and (free) educational content is presented in the context of a prospect’s life. Examples include seminars, how-to checklists, trial offers, and free reports.
- Human interaction that’s both high-tech and high-touch.
- Creation of a physical or online community that encourages people to get together and converse.
- Sales and marketing messages that clearly convey your message of differentiation.
You should also review results with customers so that you can fix any problems, improve your product/service, teach customers how to maximize the use of your product/service, and cross-sell other products/services.
The book’s timely nature and sheer abundance of real-life examples from companies that practice what it preaches make it a compelling read. You’ll be directed to specific instances such as logos, websites, and marketing strategies created by business owners who read Referral Engine.
The book concludes with “Snack-Sized Suggestions,” which are strategies for specific industries and occupations, and a workshop with an in-depth outline of the six elements above. At every stage, Jantsch makes it clear that reputation builds trust and trust builds the brand.
What’s the Bottom Line?
Despite the title, Referral Engine is about more than obtaining referrals; it’s about running your company more efficiently. Jantsch includes several real-life examples of small businesses using his principles to succeed, so if you’re a business owner looking for ways to grow, this book can point you in the right direction. With business luminaries like Seth Godin, Tony Hsieh, and Guy Kawasaki endorsing Referral Engine, it has valuable lessons to impart.
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