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Chances are if you see me tapping away at my BlackBerry I am not sending some goofy text message to a friend. I am probably composing the next blog post, brainstorming teleseminar ideas or preparing a testimonial for my website.  It is this last item, testimonials that I want to explore today. 

By using your phone to compile client testimonials you will create more social validation for your business and justify to your significant other your purchase of that cool, new gizmo. This process is so insanely simple that once you understand it your website will become filled with the social proof needed to influence prospects to become profitable customers and clients.

Voodoo Soup: What you will need

1. Smarphone: iPhone, Blackberry, Droid or any phone with a camera and audio recording capability
2. Audio record:  Knowledge of your phone’s recording process
3. Photo:  Break out the instruction manual and memorize the procedure for taking and naming photo files

Get ‘er done!

Any time you find yourself in front of someone you have wowed (a client, business associate, network group member, you get the point) ask that person if you can take a few minutes of their time to capture their experience with you. Once they say yes (charisma assumed here) whip out your phone and snap a photo. One captured, rename the photo (your client’s name/testimonial) for easy retrieval later.

In this next step turn on your phone’s voice recorder and begin the interview.  Ask your evangelist questions like:

1. How did (insert your name) help you?
2. What does (insert your name) do that is not easily imitated?
3. What would you like others to know about (insert your name)?

Be sure to put the phone close to your mouth when asking questions and close to your fan’s mouth when he or she answers. This will isolate your talent’s voice against distracting background noise.

As social creatures we are biologically wired to seek the opinions of others to help us shortcut the decision making process. Give your website visitor’s the opinions they seek and simplify the social proof gathering process by using your phone to collect enthusiastic raves about you and your business.

What do you think about your phone now?

Ever wonder what pops up when your name or the name of your business is Googled?  I suspect your prospective customers do. In fact, your Google results are fast becoming one of the most important measures consumers use to determine if they want to do business with you and taking control of the results Google delivers can be a fast track to establishing authority.

How this all works

Seth Godin in his book Linchpin refers to this phenomenon as the “Google You”. What he isn’t speaking to is search engine optimization, the art and science behind getting your site found by  search engines.  Your Google You comes into play once a prospect has already picked up your scent and wants to verify that you are edible.

Let’s assume someone is tipped off about your widget by either referral, an advertisement or through some other raised hand.  At this point your prospect will probably head over to Google to research your company looking for proof that your widgets are the cat’s meow.

If you have done a good job of marking your company, you will have left all sorts of digital bread crumbs that lead prospects from their research right back to your door.  Press mentions, guest blog posts, Twitter updates and helpful YouTube videos should fill the pages of your prospect’s search leaving no doubt that you are the one.

Eyes open now?

Don’t worry we all have to start somewhere and if you haven’t yet cultivated your web persona, here’s what I suggest doing first:

1. Buiild your media list: Grab your virtual assistant and start building a list of local newspapers, magazines, news programs and blogs that your prospects consume and include the contact information for reporters and editors covering your area of focus.
2. Online press releases:  Submit press releases to PR Web and other online distribution resources. Be sure to submit releases about awards your firm receives, new product launches or recent business growth as these facts are big influencers with prospects.
3. Guest blog:  Reach out to the bloggers on your media list and pitch completed posts including a byline that links back to you.
4. Update profiles:  From Linkedin to your local Chamber business listing make sure your profiles are updated and peppered with customer testimonials.

Bringing it home

As social creatures we are hard wired to shortcut the purchase decision-making process and Google is the front door and often the only door your prospects will use to determine your worth.

What does Google say about you?

Partnering with other blogggers in your niche is the single most effective tactics you can use to grow your online influence and business. If you have made it a part of your business marketing strategy to build relationships with remarkable bloggers, Feedly is a great tool to stay on top of their updates. For today’s lesson I prepared the following screencast video to get you started.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.

The Tools

Feedly’s free service bolts onto the Firefox browser through a plugin and arranges all of your blog rss feeds into an easy to read, magazine-like interface.  You can create groups to organize your feeds and it is in these groups where the power of Feedly as an online networking tool shines.

The Strategy…

Organize a group of 3 to 5 bloggers who commit to supporting one another through guest posts, blog comments, idea exchanges and promotion through social media. The best team members are those who sell a complimentary product or service to the same target customer. Complimentary business owners will find it easy to contribute to the collective, as their expertise will be naturally relevant.

Once you have a few good social media folk in your personal network add their blog feeds to a Feedly group to monitor new posts and jump into discussions that draw your interest by adding comments; promoting great posts on Twitter and pointing your Facebook friends in your partner’s direction.

Tell us about your online tribe?

I define a system as a series of repeatable steps leading to a predictable outcome and to their detriment its the one thing most businesses don’t use to generate referrals. Most rely on what Internet marketer John Jantsch calls accidental referrals and I refer to as “hope and pray” referrals where you do a good job and hope the recipient passes your name along. Accidental referrals do happen but you can’t count on them to materialize and because there is no process to ensure they occur, the result is infrequent unpredictable cash flow.

The best referral system

The most powerful referral system by far is the referral exchange alliance where you agree to exchange referrals with 2-3 businesses who sell a complimentary product to your target audience. With these relationships referrals pass without much work because your partner’s client’s already want your service and the same is true for your customers.

Alliance partners are motivated to send you referrals because they know you will do the same; they sell a product that compliments yours so referrals occur automatically and because they sell their service to the same customer base as yours you will get fewer tire-kickers. This system flat out changed my business overnight.

Empower your referral network

Once your dream team is formed, add a section to your website to fan the referral flames and consider including the following content:

1. Program details: To sell prospective partners include information explaining the benefits and details of the referral alliance system.
2. Partner newsletter: Send a short monthly newsletter to your network partners with tips for generating more referrals, a motivational message to keep them fired up along with updates on referrals generated by the network.
3. Partner links:  Add links to partner sites and promote this page to your site visitors to create “no work” referrals.
4. Add a Forum: Add a community forum for alliance members to share referral lead ideas, stories about new relationships and to train new alliance program members.

Follow this approach and you will soon be wiping “I need more customers” off this years to do list.

How do you generate referrals?

As the social media elite wax on about the best ways to attract 20K followers on Twitter; in all of their singing they fail to realize that most of us haven’t even gotten our arms around adding email newsletters to our business marketing Kung Fu. Let me be the first to tell you that a good number of the gurus who built huge followings did so years ago when Twitter and Facebook were in their infancy and there was little noise in the channel.  That time is gone and many of the strategies that worked for them are almost sure not to work for you, so what about the rest of us; how do we make Twitter work?

From building relationships with powerful, “Oprah-like” local influencers to getting the attention of Google, there are many reasons to tap online social networks but I will share one strategy I use that is simple and almost guaranteed to get your phone to ring.  Are you sitting down? Okay, email your Twitter tweets to the next hot prospect you encounter, that’s it!

Okay, there’s a bit more too it than that but the technique is really simple. Let’s get ‘er done:

1. Commit to posting three or so knock out, helpful bits of information to Twitter each day. Resist the urge to post any sort of advertisement or sales pitch. You can automate the process using tools like Tweet Later.
2. Setup your first sales meeting:  Over here I use a 2 presentation approach consisting of a needs assessment presentation and a solutions presentation.  This is a powerful 2 step process that if done right positions you as the “must have provider”.
3. Bite-sized Chunks:  Email your prospective client one Tweet from step one above each day in between your needs assessment and solutions presentations.
4. Prepare your business for a rush of new customers or clients.

Now that really is it!

Why this SYSTEM works

We can assume your prospect is interested in your product or service, afterall you were able to set up the meeting, right?  The question in your prospect’s mind that the Tweet-a-day process answers is, why this person should purchase YOUR solution vs. moseying down to the shop a few doors away. Assuming your short tweets are “light bulb” bits of information gold that your prospect can instantly put to work (at no cost) you will build in your prospect’s mind a powerful sense of trust and liking. Who was it that said, “People do business with those they like and trust…”?

How do you engage vs attract followers?

I bet if I asked you how your business gets customers (or lead generation) you would likely respond, “Referrals mostly…word of mouth”. Now if I were to ask how you get those referrals you probably wouldn’t have an answer beyond the obvious, “you know, customers like what we do and they tell others.” I call this the hope and pray strategy and it doesn’t work so well unless you are owed a favor from on high.
 
If this scenario seems familiar you are missing out on the lead generation power of using a true referral system that if implemented properly could generate so much business you likely wont have to do any other marketing. At the heart any successful referral system is a group of between 3 to 5 professionals (not clients) who sell a complimentary product or service to the same customers as you. Once your team is formed they must be taught to spot and communicate to your target audience.

Your website is the perfect platform to school your lead sharing dream team and whip them into shape. Create a page on your site dedicated to this end and include the following information in your online guide.

1. Best Customer Profile:  This section will include the age, gender, business size and other defining characteristics of your best customer.
2. Trigger phrases:  These are thoughts people will reveal during a normal conversation that will help your referral partners recognize a prospect’s need for your services. With my business if someone says, “I can’t update my website when I need to,” or “we do good work but we just need to get the word out,” this is the time for my referral partners to insert us into the conversation, “I know someone who can help with that…”
3. Referral process:  If your referral system offers reward incentives for leads this is the place to disclose what they are and how they work.  Also you will want to describe how you will treat the lead once referred.  Remember your referral partners have a lot invested in their relationships and they need to be assured that you will take good care of their “friends”.

Now go out there and build your online referral guide and soon you will be where you belong; sitting on the beach sipping those cocktails with those funny little umbrellas. How do you get referrals?

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About the author:  In addition to being your new media coach John Easton is the President of Eastonsweb Mulitmedia helping clients turn their website browsers into buyers.  Download John’s special report free, the Definitive Guide to Explosive Website Performance.

My friend Steve Yankee at the Video Business Advisor taught me a vital lesson that I want to share with you. The rule of 8:16 says that it takes 8 contacts over a 16 month period to turn a prospective customer, non-profit donor or even prospective church member into an actual one. I live by this rule and it has had our shop slammed for the past 12 months.

Burn this into your brain because it is fact; you will not acquire a new customer with a single magazine ad, with one direct mailing or with a single sales presentation. You have to use a contact system where you expose prospective customers multiple times to your company’s compelling message. Even people intrigued by your first contact will not take the final step without further prompting.

Now that we have internalized 8:16, how can we make our 8 contacts? Making first contact can be done in any number of ways including sending a postcard mailer, meeting prospects at networking functions, referral, search engine leads, advertisement, etc. From here you could begin calling your new prospects but this will be tough.  If you are like me, you hate cold calling.

Sending a newsletter, blog feed or other syndicated content is one of the most efficient ways to facilitate your remaining communications. Once your mailing list is populated, educational and promotional content can be sent on a monthly basis through your newsletter or even daily in the case of a blog. Not only will you easily deliver your 8 contacts but your publication’s content will help position you as an expert in your field.

Create a well-organized system to satisfy the rule of 8:16 and you are on your way to business success. Will you take action?