Referrals are the most overlooked marketing tactic today. Seriously. It’s one thing to connect the dots and put your buddy in touch with a good friend that sells cars. Or for my wife to share her hair stylist’s name with a friend that notices her new do. It’s another to incorporate a proactive referral program into your business efforts.

People hate to ask for referrals. It makes them uncomfortable. One of the best examples I could ever give for an aggressive referral program is that taught by Northwestern Mutual Insurance. If you know them, you’ll remember they have branded themselves as “The Quiet Company.” They don’t buy Super Bowl ads. They build success around generating referrals.

His name was Bill. After being married for a couple of years, Becky and I thought it might be a good idea for us to look into getting some life Insurance. That’s when Bill came into our lives. He was a referral from a friend. Sure, he helped us with our insurance needs, provided counsel and guidance as to what kinds of coverage we should be looking into and coached us through the process.

But what I admired the most about Bill was his skill, and I do mean skill, at asking us for referrals. After every meeting Bill would wrap things up asking us if we could think of three people, young couples like us, friends, family, neighbors, that we might provide to him as a referral. Bill has such a smooth style with his request it never failed to send Becky and I running for our address books. “Sure, we knew tons of folks!” And before it was over, we were sharing names and numbers with not just three, but 5 – 10 couples that we’d be happy to make an introduction to for Bill.

As the years went on, it became difficult sometimes for us to provide Bill new referrals since we’d shared everyone in our Roledex by now. I even remember filling a twinge of guilt when I couldn’t think of more than three names to share!

If you aren’t comfortable with asking for referrals and you don’t have a proactive referral program in place, you’re missing out on a significant opportunity for growth for your business. Give us a call. Let’s have coffee and we’ll share some ideas on how we can help.

Oh, and if you would . . . toss me an email with the names and email addresses of three associates that you think would like to learn more about how a proactive referral program can help grow their business too!