Upside Downturn

The simplest way to get new business leads in an economic slowdown is to offer your  clients, colleagues, friends and whores a 20% commission for any leads that convert into a sale. It’s that simple. New business for you and money for them; the perfect relationship.

For your existing client, they know that your service is the schnizt and they know how your product really has changed their business. So why wouldn’t they recommend you? All they have to do is make a recommendation, and give you a phone number, and they could be quids in.

Key point: Remember, your clients are facing the economic slowdown too,  they need new cashflow sources too.

By offering 20% of your fee, I appreciate you are taking a hit on your services. But remember, if you had got this lead via normal sales channels it would have cost you money: telesales staff aren’t free, print advertising costs a bundle, and whoring your self around networking events takes you away from doing the actual work of your business. 20% is a fair price to pay for a new client. If you don’t offer enough of an incentive, no one will pass leads to you. Fair trade.

So how do you approach your client?

You want your client, to spend some time, mapping your services, onto their contact base. This sounds fairly simple, however you know your services a lot better than they do. So you have to give them hooks that they can use that make their business compatible with yours. Here are some of my examples hooks to my clients:

The IT company: every time they install a new PC network, they ask about their website, and say “can I arrange our colleague to pop in for a friendly chat?” The hook is everytime they deal with a new business, they mention me. Simple.

The events company: Every event they manage pretty much should have a website, so if there isn’t one already they are well placed to bring me into the mix. They like how I work, they understand I wont let their client down.

The print design agency: They do the design element of a project and pass the web build and content to me, I guarantee to be true to their design. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

The local business guy: I built a site for one of his businesses, and he now gets 10 enquiries a week. 10 enquiries a week is a statistic that is easy to tell other people about, and he’s happy to share the success with other people.

So you too have to make it easy for your existing clients to map your services onto their clients. You will also notice that I’ve used the term “partner” for people that pass me leads. This is what it is. You want long term sales channels, some may only give you a lead once every two years, others may give you 1 a month. You can be sure by incentivising them, and giving them hooks, you will get substantially more.

Arrange a coffee

So go through your clients and workout what the angles are for them to pass you leads.

There are of course some clients that are better sneezers, that is socially connected business-people that are influential amongst their peers. Of course these are the people  that you should target first.

“This 20 percent thing is slightly unethical, the new client is paying more for your services”, says one of my print design freelancer buddies, and “I would feel uncomfortable doing it, it feels a  bit like a back hander”.

At it’s simplest, this 20% referral method is just another sales channel: a network based, incentivised sales channel. If you do think it’s slightly dodgy go and think about the real world examples: my gym offers an ipod nano if you introduce a friend, Sky satellite tv is offering a free £50 M&S voucher to customers who introduce a customer, PartyPoker offers £80 free credit if you get friends to sign-up.

All the above examples have factored in the free gift in their cost of sales and marketing budget. You should do the same or your business will die.

Money isn’t always an incentive

Although I started off this post, talking about 20% money, money, money is essential. This is just the starting point. If you have a client that is already successful,  s/he may not want money, you have to be the judge of that and guage what you can  offer something in return. But make no mistake, you have to offer something in return, no matter how subtle. Whether it’s just your free time taking them for coffee,  a meal out, posting them a clipping relevant to their business when you see it, or the suggestion “well, if you ever do want some graphic design done, I will do a major discount” (if you are a graphic designer).

Always, always, always put your IROSO (Incentivised Return Of Service Offer) in an email documenting what you will do for their ongoing thinking of you. You might be thinking all this is quite cynical. But life is transactional.

Next time I’ll look at the Reverse 20% an additional way to monetize your existing client base, and make 20% commission.

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Paolo marketing