The Referral Engine

Teaching Your Business to Market Itself

By: John Jantsch

Narrated by: John Jantsch

The small business guru behind Duct Tape Marketing shares his most valuable lesson: how to get your customers to do your best marketing for you.

The power of glitzy advertising and elaborate marketing campaigns is on the wane; word- of-mouth referrals are what drive business today. People trust the recommendation of a friend, family member, colleague, or even stranger with similar tastes over anything thrust at them by a faceless company.

Most business owners believe that whether customers refer them is entirely out of their hands. But science shows that people can't help recommending products and services to their friends - it's an instinct wired deep in the brain. And smart businesses can tap into that hardwired desire.

Marketing expert John Jantsch offers practical techniques for harnessing the power of referrals to ensure a steady flow of new customers. Some of Jantsch's strategies include:

• Talk with your customers, not at them. Thanks to social networking sites, companies of any size have the opportunity to engage with their customers on their home turf as never before-but the key is listening.
• The sales team is the most important part of your marketing team. Salespeople are the company's main link to customers, who are the main source of referrals. Getting them on board with your referral strategy is critical.
• Educate your customers. Referrals are only helpful if they're given to the right people. Educate your customers about whom they should be talking to.

The secret to generating referrals lies in understanding the "Customer Referral Cycle". Businesses can ensure a healthy referral cycle by moving customers and prospects along the path of Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer. If everyone in an organization keeps this sequence in mind, Jantsch argues, your business will generate referrals like a well-oiled machine.

©2010 John Jantsch (P)2010 Gildan

Purple cow on steroids

This is probably the most beneficial marketing book I have read so far. If you have read Purple Cow, this book takes that concept further and focuses on real techniques on how to get people to refer you business.

A Must Read

I got to hear about this lovely book from Chris Guillebeau's book The $100 Startup. It is a must read.

Great resource of referral ideas.

Well written and narrated. The book takes you through a great many ways for any organization to achieve a significant referral business.

real world

Great read overall. i was inspired to take action with refers. And I loved the guidance and real world examples

Useful, but so boring I couldn't finish it

There are a lot of great tips in this book. It is just so boring that I could only make it half way through. If you want something to go to sleep to, this may be the book.

Brilliant

Better than Einstein's bio. I really was into this book and it's very well written.

Packed full of getting it done

Jantsch has written a fantastic book about building a business based on referrals. The book is packed with idea after idea for helping your customers refer you to other customers.

If you've already read "The Ultimate Question" then this is the other half. Why just ask how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague if you don't then ask them to actually get up and make that referral.

My current fave: "You're going to like our product so much that in 30 days I'm going to come back and ask you to introduce me to three friends or colleagues that could also benefit from our product"

Synthesized on and offline networking

John Jantsch has done a great job at synthesizing the soft-skills of real world networking with the overview of the online landscape and best practices in networking online. It inspires quick action, but also in thoughtful content creation that generates inbound traffic are beneficial for business owners. I enjoyed the author reading of this book as well.

Business resource library book

This is marketing dollars maximized! Reading this book will help you to see the value of building your business around generating referrals.

Actionable ideas

Great book and full of real ideas. Very easy to keep engaged and relate to.