How to get more referrals, including when and how to ask for them, to grow your small business with serial entrepreneur Henry Lopez.

On this episode of The How of Business podcast, Henry Lopez focuses on the topic of small business Referrals. Why are they so critical to the growth of your small business, how to ask for referrals, and how to encourage your best clients and customers to refer you to their friends and family.

How to get referrals for my small business? How do I get more referrals? How do I ask for referrals?

What is a referral?

• Referrals are the most effective and cost-effective, way to grow your small business. But asking for referrals, like trying to close on a sale, can feel awkward. You don’t want to come across as desperate or pushy or presumptuous.
• A referral someone who is currently in the market to buy your product or service and they have been told about you by someone they know and trust. The referred potential client knows something about who you are and what you do when you connect with them. It is, of course, stronger than just a “lead” or a cold call.

Why do we need referrals?

• We want more like our best customers or clients to help us grow our small business.
• Lower cost of customer acquisition.
• For Service-Based Businesses and most B2B companies – referrals are the life-blood and the future of your small business. If you are not growing through referrals, you may be doing something wrong. And even for B2C businesses, referrals are important – you may just get them differently.
• Some examples of business that rely on referrals: Insurance Agent, Real Estate Agents, Financial Services Providers, CPA/Accountants/Bookkeepers, Attorneys, Business Consultants or Coaches, Free Lancers, Travel Consultant, Contractors.

When to ask for referrals?
There are lots of different opinions on when and how you should ask for a referral. You must experiment and use the approach that works best for you and your business. But you can’t hide behind being too embarrassed or afraid to ask!

• In episode 78 of The How of Business, guest Stacey Brown Randall shared her tips and techniques for creating more referrals.  For high-touch businesses, where your client has to meet you, Stacey recommend a developing and taking a Human-to-Human approach.  Clients need to know, like, trust you before they will refer you. She believes in “Never asking for referrals – it’s just not me”. Instead, she sets the tone and shares with her clients that she builds her business through referrals.

• In episode 38 of The How of Business, guest Tim Templeton shares some tips from his book “The Referral of a Lifetime” including the approach of getting more “Qualified Pre-Indorsed Referrals”. He also believes in developing relationships, delivering value first, identifying “Power Advocates” and then educating them on what you are looking for in the way of referrals.

Developing a Referral Program:

Notes and tips on developing an running a Referral Program for your small business:

• Reward the behavior of referrals with a personal thank you.
• A simple process for referring and getting the reward.
• Promote your referral program.
• You should track:
  • Who was referred and who referred them?
  • When were they referred?
  • Whether or not they converted or were sold?
  • How are you going to nurture and follow up with them?
  • How and how much will you pay them?

Top 5 Tips for getting more referrals:

1. Ask! – Whether directly or indirectly, you have to ask!
2. Ask you best clients or customers – your connectors.
3. Deliver an experience that makes them want to refer you.
4. Reward Referrals – create a simple and easy referral program.
5. Cultivating referrals must be an integral part of your business process.

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.

Resources:

Free Downloads:

• Small Business Referral Tips

Books mentioned in this episode:
[We receive commissions for purchases made through these links (more info)].

• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Referral of a Lifetime by Timothy L. Templeton
• Generating Business Referrals Without Asking: A Simple Five Step Plan to a Referral Explosion by Stacey Brown Randall
• Business by Referral: Painless Ways to Generate New Business by Ivan Misner

Related Podcast Episodes:

Episode 078: Stacey Randall – Growth by Referrals

Episode 038: Tim Templeton – Referrals

Sales Episodes

You can find other episodes of The How of Business podcast, the best small business podcast, on our Archives page.

Transcript:

The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos and some other minor inaccuracies.

0:00:05.4 HENRY LOPEZ: Welcome to this episode of The How of Business. This is Henry Lopez. On this episode, I’m going to focus on small business referrals, why are they so critical to the growth of your business, how to ask for referrals and how to encourage your best clients and customers to refer you to their friends and family, to receive more information about the how of business, including links to the show notes page for this episode. Let’s start with just the basics of defining a referral, I know everybody understands what a referral is, but just to make sure we’re on the same page, referrals are certainly, arguably the most effective and cost-effective way to grow your small business, but asking for referrals like trying to close a sale can feel awkward for a lot of us as small business owners, and you don’t wanna come across as desperate or pushy or presumptuous, a referral is someone who’s currently in the market to buy your product or service, and they have been told about you by someone they know and trust.

0:01:25.1 HENRY LOPEZ: The referred potential client knows a little something about you, perhaps, and what you do when you connect with them, it’s a lot stronger and a lot easier to propose to them to offer them your services, your products, than just a lead or certainly than just a cold call. To someone who knows nothing about you. Why do we need referrals? Well, if we want to get more of those customers, like the ones that we have now, that our best clients or customers, the ones that generate the best and the most business for us, then referrals is the way to build that business, we are going to grow for a lot of business types, not all of them, but for a lot of types of businesses, that’s the way to most effectively grow your business at a much lower… Significantly lower cost of acquisition. And that’s an important component. I’m not gonna do a deep dive on that in this episode, but just think about that, think about how much money, and I encourage you to add it up, if you don’t know what it is, all the different ways right now that you are attracting new customers or clients, probably through your marketing and sales efforts.

0:02:33.0 HENRY LOPEZ: And what does that cost you? One of the key metrics we should have always, if you’re spending any money to acquire customers, and most of us do, is What is it costing you to gain a new customer, what is that cost of a new customer? And if you think about that, that puts into perspective that it makes sense to spend some effort and maybe even some budget on getting more referrals now, certainly for service-based businesses, and a lot of B2B companies, business to-business companies, referrals are often the lifeblood and the future of your small business, if you’re not growing through referrals, you may be doing something wrong, and even for some business-to-consumer businesses be deceived businesses, referrals are also important, they may just come to you in a different way, in a different form. Some examples of businesses that rely exclusively on referrals, often our insurance agents, real estate agents, financial service provider is a CPA accountant, bookkeeper, attorneys, business consultants and coaches like myself, referrals are a big part of how I grow my business, freelancers or any short people who offer freelancing services, travel consultant, my wife has a travel consulting business and it’s built on referrals, so a lot of different businesses, if you’re listening, are built on and will grow because of how well you cultivate referrals to help you get more of those best clients and customers.

0:04:05.3 HENRY LOPEZ: One of the biggest challenges with small business referrals is knowing and learning when and how to ask for the referral, or lots of different opinions on when and how you should ask, and I think you just have to experiment and use the approach that works best for you and your business, but you cannot hide behind the excuse that it’s embarrassing or you’re afraid to ask, you have to develop that courage and confidence to ask for those referrals. For me, typically, I prefer to ask for referrals once I’ve delivered some significant value to the client or the customer. Let’s explore a bit more about how and when to ask for referrals. Back on Episode 78 of the HOU business, I had the opportunity to interview Stacy Brown-Randal, and Stacy is an expert on the topic of referrals. Her business is all about helping her clients learn how to effectively get more referrals to grow business, and she has what I think is a very unique approach and opinions on how to go about doing so, so here’s a clip from that conversation that I had from her and it also includes a follow-up question that I asked her to share with us an example of what she means when she shares her approach on how to ask for referrals.

0:05:21.1 S2: I truly believe, and this doesn’t fit for everybody, I’m always really clear with folks, this is for what I refer to as high-touch businesses, these are the types of businesses that people are running where your client probably has to meet you, right. They have to get to know you, they have to decide, it’s the old adage, right? To know like and trust you before they’re gonna ever hand over their money to you, and I always use the example, I don’t need to know any one on Amazon or Zappos to buy a pair of shoes, I don’t need to know anyone on Amazon to buy a book, I just need to buy. But if I’m gonna give someone my money to invest, or if I’m going to have an attorney help me with my legal work, or if I am going to trust someone to build my home, if I’m gonna trust, you know someone that’s going to be a part of my world, either whether it’s for a short time or a long time, I need to trust them, I need to obviously decide that I believe in what they can do, and there’s a connection that is formed there, and it’s within that connection that I find that people miss out on opportunities to really grow a business from referrals, and what I’m talking about is never asking for them, I know the last 30 years of advice, we’ve all been heard, all the books we can read, all the advice that’s out there that talks about how you get referrals is number one is ask, you gotta ask, you gotta ask.

0:06:33.8 S2: And that’s just not me. So I kept thinking to myself, Well, is there another way? And that’s the code I went about trying to crack is how do I use that point of, I’m a resource for you, you come to me because what I provide, you want it from me and maybe other people can provide it, but not in the way that I provide it and that you have trust with me and you wanna do business with me, and how do I use that without having to ask you for referrals to actually receive more referrals, and that’s the code I went about cracking that I’m happy to say I was successful at…

0:07:05.3 HENRY LOPEZ: Give me a couple of examples, because again, like you say, definitely we’ve been indoctrinated and think… And you have to ask for the referral. There’s a million different ways to do that. How does it happen then, why does it happen? Give us a little bit more or a couple of examples of how you make that happen so that the client brings you the referral without you having to ask for it.

0:07:26.9 S2: Absolutely. So let me set it up, typically what it does look like, and then I’ll kinda show you how… What’s wrong with that? And then of course, what we want it to look like, so typically, if you’re meeting with somebody, there’s a few points where the experts out there will tell you that you should go for the Ask, and It Is that someone has just signed the paperwork, they have decided to work with your company. They are happy, right. And that you are supposed to… You’re supposed to… And he literally the words that are typically used are to go in and manipulate how they’re feeling, that feeling of reciprocity, I go in and leverage that, sometimes it’s leverage, sometimes it’s manipulate, sometimes it’s use… Use that sense of that good feeling and ask for the referral, who else do you know who should be doing business with me, and it makes everybody’s backs go stiff and everybody get uncomfortable, or that you’re told when you’re meeting with somebody for the first time, you’re supposed to say, Who do you know? Who’d be good for me? And blank, blank and blank. Right, and it’s that idea of, Wait, we haven’t informed a relationship or are already asking me for something, and there’s other opportunities where I see it happen when people go for the ask and it completely changes the dynamic of the relationship we have.

0:08:30.6 S2: But remember when we’re talking about the sales, that dynamic of that relationship, that’s all we have, and we have to protect it, because when we’re human-to human… Right, there’s that relationship. And if we violate that relationship, it makes it even harder to do good work for that person, let alone ever get referrals from that person, so I believe it’s this thing that I call mastering the no-ask ask or mastering the non-ask ask, and it’s not… It’s a gimmick, it’s not a script necessarily. It’s just what I call it, so that my clients will remember to use it, so it’s just… When we master the non as A… And there’s a couple of pieces to this, but one of the big ones I always tell folks is, if you think about mastering the non-ask ask in three different ways, let me just hone in on one way for you, ’cause I wanna give your listeners something is very tactical to take away, there’s a couple of parts to this, but one part of that is, is always setting the tone that you work from referrals, so Henry, if somebody said to you, Hey, Henry, house business, what do you typically respond with a…

0:09:29.6 HENRY LOPEZ: Were you say, Oh, business is great.

0:09:31.7 S2: Great, ’cause this is great. Or you’ll say business, it’s good or I’m busy, right? All those are perfectly okay responses, except they tell me nothing, right, ’cause it’s just that response, and I’m not saying you can’t say that to somebody… Right, it’s the same person ask you every single day health business saying It’s great. It’s probably okay. But when you’re with somebody and they say, Hey, Henry house business. If you just change your language just a little bit to say, still say it’s great right now, it’s great, but then elaborate on that to kind of what I call plant the seed that you do business from referrals and just say… Gosh, thanks are great. Thanks, Stacy for asking. I just brought on three new clients and each came through referrals, and I’m just having the best time in my business, or I’m having so much fun, or my business is growing like crazy and I’m getting all these referrals in, it’s that piece of collating the seed and it’s really how you answer the question, house business, now, are there other things that you do to get referrals with your clients and with your centers of influence, and are there other things that I teach? Absolutely, but that’s just one easy tactic that someone can take away of like just planting the seed, just putting it out there that you do work from referrals, you do business from referrals, and you didn’t ask for it, and you’re not gonna ask them for a referral, you’re gonna literally answer the question, Oh, business is great, I’ve been growing a lot, I’ve got these handful of new clients that just brought on that came into a referral, which is great, you know, things are good, period, you don’t need to explain anymore ’cause they’re typically gonna ask you…

0:11:02.8 S2: What does that mean? Or they’re at least gonna remember the fact that that’s what you said.

0:11:07.4 HENRY LOPEZ: Great content there from Stacy Brown. Again, that’s from Episode 78 of the how a business, very interesting approach and perspective, I love this concept of never asking for referrals, and I get it that that’s a lot of the reason why often people, business owners don’t ask for referrals is because they find it uncomfortable it’s awkward, and perhaps this approach might work for you now, in my opinion is… And she shares it as well, it’s not that she’s not asking for referrals, it’s how… And when she asks it, she says It’s about mastering that non-ask ask is about setting that tone and sharing at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way with your client that this is how you build your business, is setting that tone, but you still have to ask, I still think it’s an ask, it’s just a matter of how and when do you ask… I also don’t know that it’s always about manipulation to ask it to close, I understand what Stacy is sharing her and certainly that happens in a lot of environments, I’m sure you’ve been at the receiving end of that of an awkward ask, so I still do think that in certain situations, for certain types of businesses, that is the right time to ask is at the close or after you’ve closed the sale, rather, I should say, when that customer is perhaps in that honeymoon phase of their relationship with you.

0:12:27.7 HENRY LOPEZ: I think it’s okay to ask, but again, as Stacy recommends and shares, it’s a matter of how you asked, don’t put people on the spot, that just makes it very awkward and less likely that they’re going to be comfortable giving you a referral. The other point I wanna expand upon here is, who are those people that subset of customers or clients that will refer you that are most likely to refer you, and typically that’s also the type of client that you would like more of. So that’s what we need to focus on sometimes to ask for referrals, we might ask everybody, but that’s who we really want to refer us, because we want more of those types of clients or customers now beginning to identify who are the people that will refer us, brings to mind, a great point that Malcolm Gladwell makes in his book, Tipping Point, one of my favorite books, Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, he talks about people who are connectors, and he describes them as a connectors are people who seem to know everyone connectors. They’re typically sociable, outgoing, and they’re naturally skilled and making friends and acquaintances, and they’re also great at staying in touch with those friends and acquaintances, there are also people who have strong social networks, so if we can better identify and reward and entice those connectors in our group of customers and clients, those people are great sources of referrals, they may, for example, in the online world, be the people that have your top fan badge on Facebook, for example.

0:14:08.1 HENRY LOPEZ: Let’s explore this concept a bit further by listening to this outtake from episode 38, way back to episode 38 of the how a business… I had an opportunity to have a conversation with Tim Templeton, and he is another expert on referrals and specifically what he calls the qualified pre-endorsed referral, so listen to what he has to say and his perspective on referrals. You talk about this concept of a qualified pre-endorsed referral. Can you explain a little bit what that is and how we get there? Well, Henry, that’s what we’re all looking for. Right. Ultimately, and we all… We don’t really wanna work too hard for it, we wanna show up and have her phone ring, to have that pre-endorse, meaning someone else has already endorsed us that we know that that person that was on the phone here that’s contact, we’ve already been set it up they’ve been qualified to because they know exactly who we’re looking for, who our target client is, who are super… Our avatar is in terms of the perfect type of client, and I’ve worked with lots of people in financial planning and others that they don’t want just referrals, they want qualified referrals because their bandwidth is already restricted, they already have enough clients.

0:15:25.5 HENRY LOPEZ: What they’re looking to do is replace the bottom 10% of their clients with people that look like the top 10% of their clients, so these are qualified referrals, and so ultimately, it’s a process that you step through, and that’s when I outline in the book and it really doubled down on this new revised and expanded edition is focusing on those processes, those specific steps of where I took the things that we charge thousands of dollars for back in the day, things I’ve taught on now for 15 years, and part of that is being able to really identify who your perfect client is, so you can share that perfect client with others, so they know who to refer to you, which is that pre-qualified… Pre-endorsed referral. So Tim is talking about this concept that he shares and this approach that he teaches, and he covers in a book… It’s a great book called the referral of a lifetime. Never make a cold call. Again, it’s written by 10 temple 10. And Ken Blanchard, it’s this concept. Again, his approach is to share with people the right people, the right clients and customers, who it is that you’re looking for, this ideal client that you’re looking for more of people like them, and in doing so then that is going to encourage them to search for…

0:16:48.2 HENRY LOPEZ: Think about and refer to you what Tim calls a qualified pre-endorsed referral, another person like them… Who’s a perfect fit for what you have to offer? And now here is another portion of the conversation I had with Tim on episode 38 about what he calls a power advocate, power advocates. Can you explain what that is and why it’s so important to a small business? Yeah, absolutely. One of the things we talk about grouping, and there’s some simple steps about abusing your list of contacts, but your AS number one are those people that are most likely or have referred you in the past, and it’s just getting really strategic well, inside your… As there is a group of power advocates, one of my most favorite books… Of course, Malcolm… Well, everything, I read everything by Malcom Gladwell, right? He’s just a fantastic writer, but my most favorite book that he wrote was tipping point, and an inside Tipping Point, what Gladwell points out is, look, we have a sphere of influence, he said, but he said, The truth is, most of us don’t have a sphere of influence he said, We are connected through a people connector connectors here of influence does there are certain people to collect relationships.

0:18:03.9 HENRY LOPEZ: And they do it naturally. They do it on purpose, and most of us gain most of our relationships by being in the sphere of influence of those connectors, and so there are certain power advocates, for example, Vince Cecilia is a power advocate for me, then Sicilian went to bat with Ken Blanchard to insist that he read this book when he got hundreds of books presented to him to read… That’s a power advocate. We all have those in our lives, and those are people, if we give first, if we lead with the helping hand, if we get the dollar signs off of our forehead because the core element of the refer able lifetime in the salary Henry is all about taking the dollar signs off our forehead, put in a side, putting relationships first, lead with the helping hand to ask the questions of how I can help others first, this is some… We do naturally, we have to do this on purpose ’cause we’re not watered that way, and ultimately when we do, those people then have the ability to step up and will wanna help us, and they’re a small percentage, but when you identify…

0:19:09.4 HENRY LOPEZ: And first of all, you gotta understand that they’re there, so it’ll be worth just listening to this, to identify power advocates, but then build that relationship with ultimately to help them. And then educate them on how they can help you. That was, again, a portion of my conversation with Tim Templeton from episode 38, so his approach is to look for and cultivate and nurture those connectors, he referred again to Malcom, Plato’s book, The Tipping Point, those connectors amongst our clients or customers, educate them, share with them, who it is that we’re looking for the ideal client that we’re looking for, and as connectors do, and hopefully we motivate them as well, they will share with us referrals. Now, I wanna take a slight different angle on this, looking at it from different types of businesses, and certainly in the online world, the way that referrals might manifest themselves, although they might not think about them as referrals in the Jewish sense of the words, but things like testimonials and of course, reviews and sharing of our posts or information online on social media platforms like Facebook, those are I think, a type of referral that we also need to nurture, it’s a separate thing, but I think it’s important to also look at that as a way that people are supporting and recommending us or referring us to their friends and families, or at least to their online connections, so that leaves me then to a referral program.

0:20:47.4 HENRY LOPEZ: I think it’s critical that we should have… If your business depends on referrals, if you’ve been listening this long, then that means referrals are important to you and the growth of your business, and I really think you should consider having a referral program, this is a program that reward that behavior from those connectors or those people that are your biggest fans, those top clients, the people that you want more of, so you want to reward and sent them to refer you to others, I recommend keeping it a very simple process for referring as well as for earning whatever the reward or incentive might be, there’s a download that’s available, a free download that’s available on the show notes page for this episode that will include some examples that I’ve used before, for example, in my wife’s business, which is a travel consulting business, she has a simple but effective referral program that rewards people for referring her new clients like them, people who enjoy travel, but they need the help of a travel consultant to put together a more complex trip to Europe, for example, a realtor… When I was a realtor, I had a referral program in place to again, and send people to refer me to people that they know who are ready…

0:22:09.9 HENRY LOPEZ: Or thinking about buying or selling a home can keep it simple, you do have to promote it, you have to market it, so people are aware of it, of course, ideally, you’re making aware of it though, that top 10%, those connectors in particular in your group of customers or clients, and you need to… Do You need to track it? You need to track who has referred you and to whom, you need to know when they refer you, whether that referred client converted or not, whether it turned into a sale or not, and how are you going to nurture that follow-up with them, and how much will you incent them at Office of illusions, one of the businesses that I’m a minority partner in. We offer a $5 gift card for someone who refers as someone who becomes a private or team office member, that is… That has a lot of value to us to secure a new member, likely they will have an agreement with us of six months or 12 months or stay with us for years, so the value of that member for us is very high, and so it’s well worth going back to the point of the cost of customer acquisition, it’s well worth it for us to incent those connectors, those people that we want more of are existing members, to refer to us, people like them.

0:23:32.2 HENRY LOPEZ: So I encourage you, if you don’t have already, to develop a referral program, keep it simple. Keep it easy. Now, I think there’s two steps at a highest level, one is thanking someone for sending you a referral, so I think that a good program immediately, if somebody sends you a new contact… Hey, my friend Susie is interested in what you have to offer. Here’s her contact information, well, I should reward that person who gave me that referral immediately, now it’s not at the same level as if then Suzie turns into a customer, that’s when I would pay that person who referred her to me a bonus or reward… The gift card, whatever the incentive might be. But what I do is that initial referral, regardless of whether Suzie turns into a customer or not, I send a hand-written thank you note to that person to reward and encourage the behavior of having thought about me, regardless of whether Suzie, whomever they referred to me, ended up being a fit or was ready to buy from me, now with… And when Suzie does buy from me, then I reward that person with whatever the incentive is, that’s part of my program, so think about that, you wanna continue to reward the behavior of people even thinking about you and referring somebody to you to begin with.

0:25:00.2 HENRY LOPEZ: As I start to wrap up on this topic, I wanna share with you my top five tips for getting more referrals, and then in the free download that I talked about that you can get at the show… No, patron, this episode at the how of business, you’ll have even more tips as well as some examples, so be sure to get that free download, but here are my top five tips. Number one is pretty obvious. If you’ve been listening to this episode, you have to ask now whether it’s a direct ask or an indirect ask, Well, that depends on the situation, what works for you? What type of business you’re in, but you do have to ask one way or another, and we wanna ask… Number two is, we need to ask ideally, those connectors, those top customers or clients that we have, because ideally, we help them understand and they Understand probably intuitively, who is it that we’re looking for, who are we a great fit for, that they might know… And he’ll refer us to those people, and then perhaps this one should be number one, but number three that I have on my list is that you obviously have to deliver a remarkable experience, your product or service has to exceed expectations, I should be part of your business model anyway, but when you do that, now you’re providing a reason, especially for those connectors to share with others, what you have to offer.

0:26:25.5 HENRY LOPEZ: Number four is, I think you have to have a rewards program, a referral program, so that you incent people to send you referrals, Keep It Simple and easy, so it’s easy to understand and easy for me to know how I earn that reward. If I refer someone to you, and number five of these top five tips is cultivating referrals, this has to be a process, it has to be an integral part of your business process and systems, not just something you do sporadically or sometimes, or when you think about it, it needs to be inculcated as to how you do business, part of your process so that you do it repeatedly and consistently, again, if you wanna get more tips, the whole 10 tips on generating referrals, as well as some examples. And this document that I have, that’s a free download at the holiness dot com and the show notes page with this episode, you can download that for free. I’ve got the 10 tips on there. I’ve got an example of a graphic that I use to promote the referral program at office evolutions, and I’ve got the entire email and or flyer that my wife Pam uses to promote her referral program for her travel consulting business.

0:27:41.5 HENRY LOPEZ: I also wanna let you know about the next online marketing workshop that I have coming up, this will be an in-person workshop, this is happening, the next one is happening on August 19th, and then I’ll be at Office evolutions in Plantation, Florida. So if you’re in the South Florida area and you wanna join me, I invite you to this half-day hands-on live workshop on the topic of online marketing for your small business, you’ll see a link to more information on the show notes page of this episode as well, we mentioned several books, I did and my guest that I featured in this episode, several books including the referral of a lifetime, never make a cold call again by 10 Templeton and Ken Blanchard. That’s a great book that I recommend. If you wanna read more about referrals, and also probably one of the classics on this topic is a book entitled business by referral by Dr. Ivan Miner and Robert Davis. And then, of course, we mentioned the tipping point, a great book by Malcolm Gladwell, and I’m also a huge fan of Malcom podcast, revisionist history. That’s one of my favorite podcasts, I encourage you to listen to that.

0:28:56.9 HENRY LOPEZ: So what’s the key take away? What would I like you to take away most from this episode, that is that if your business depends on referrals for growth, then you need to apply a consistent method for getting more of those referrals, you also need to experiment to see what works best for you, and for your business, and of course, above all, you have to deliver that remarkable experience, and one way or another… You do need to ask for the referral. Again, remember to download the free small business referral tips document and start implementing, start trying some of these things, so that you can develop a formal referral process in your business so that you can continue to grow by referrals. This is Henry Lopez, and thanks for joining me for this episode of the how of business.