Getting people talking about your business

The other day, I was standing in the food market trying to decide between 11 different types of egg brands.

I'm gently opening each packet to inspect the eggs as if looking at them will tell me what they taste like, when I hear a random voice beside me say; 

“Those eggs there are incredibly good. I’ve tried dozens of brands, and those ones are delicious. Plus they hold together nicely when you poach them.” 

And just like that, I buy those exact eggs based on the words of a stranger who may or may not know what the hell they’re talking about.

This is a third-party recommendation. And they happen all the time. 

When a friend refers you to a reputable contractor to do work for you. Or indirectly when you overhear a conversation about a brand.

They’re one of the most powerful tools you can use to grow your business.

But the best bit?

They cost you absolutely nothing. 

When people share positive experiences they’ve had with a business, others tend to listen carefully and trust the advice when it’s directed specifically at them.

I know referrals aren’t new to any of you, but I wanted to share how I’ve used them systematically to grow my business over the past few years.

Before we kick off, let’s get one thing straight…

Recommending rubbish doesn’t work. 

You must have a product or service that’s good enough that people want to talk about. 

In my experience, people only share shitty experiences or really (really) good ones, 

Everything in the middle doesn’t get mentioned - it’s just “Meh” and you never hear from them again

The first is...

1. Testimonials

These do exactly what that person did to me when they pointed at the eggs in the market and I bought them.

They’re tiny stories or snippets of an experience that other people have had to help customers decide if they should buy from you.

But even though I know they work, I’ve never liked cluttering our website with testimonials.

Instead, I use them more in printed documents or on dedicated sales pages when acquiring new clients.

And I make sure they’re the right testimonial for the right client I’m chasing because - People buy stuff that people like them buy.

To capture testimonials, you’ve just got to ask.

It’s that easy. 

Ask a good customer to share something positive about your company and how you helped them. 

They can also be pulled from positive feedback people email you or screenshot reviews online.

We capture them from in-person chats, texts, social comments and emails that come in and use them in social media stories. 

And the good ones have landed us a ton of new business.

The next is… 

2. Referrals

Sometimes you can’t wait for everyone to slowly hear about your business from a friend.

You kinda want to speed that bit up a little. 

And when you already have a network or customer database, you can use incentives to encourage people to talk about your business. 

The best referrals give the person referring something, as well as the new client.

But remember my earlier point about recommending rubbish… 

If someone has put their reputation on the line and referred you to a friend or brought them into your store, you must be ready to delight that new person. 

You want the new customer going back to that friend and saying:

“Oh I contacted Dian, and they were wonderful! Thanks so much…”

Here are two methods I’ve used that worked:

1. A printed discount code for a regular client to give to their 4 neighbours/work colleagues to buy with you in the next 2 weeks. It allows your regulars to be generous on your behalf.
2. A digital voucher for anyone who sends to three friends (and they sign up) to grow our database of online readers.

I prefer to create a physical offer that our clients give to other people because it encourages them to chat which also gets a testimonial thrown in as they hand it over. It's a double win.

But it doesn’t scale as well.

The key is to think about how you’ve received recommendations in the past that worked on you and start to build a system around doing that yourself.

There’s one final way to get word to spread about you.

3. U-Turning Negative Experiences

One of the most underutilised opportunities to get referrals is by turning a customer's experience around when they’ve had a shitty experience with your business. 

No one does it better than Zappo’s.

They’ve essentially built their whole business ethos (delivering happiness) around turning a crappy experience into a dazzling one by solving customer problems quickly and going above and beyond to do so. 

There’s an entire book called Delivering Happiness so I won't go into detail.

But to summarise, they don’t just credit you or replace things when it goes wrong because that’s an expectation these days. 

They empower their team to go above and beyond in unique ways.

It means you have to do the unexpected. 

To go so far beyond their expectations of a normal outcome that they must tell someone how unbelievably good it was.

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I don't need to convince you that the spoken word of others is a powerful thing in business.

Think of this more as a nudge to start using it strategically instead of accidently.

Thanks for reading!