Want more new clients? Then this is a must read for you!!

By admin | May 26, 2011

Now, you can spend less time advertising and marketing, and get all the new customers you ever wanted with little to no effort on your part.  Just do what you do the best, and the rest will follow.  They will most likely love your service and gladly tell others about it.

Referrals can have a huge impact on your business.  In fact, here is an excellent example on how to quantify the big impact that it will have.  For instance, you have a hair salon business where an average haircut is $45.  This might not seem like a big transaction to most people, but the amount of impact it will have when it comes to referrals and the bottom line is really, really big.

If you are a salon owner and you have a client who comes in six times a year for a haircut, pays $45 for it, spends an additional $300 per year for other services and products, that is $2,850 in five years, which is the average length that a customer stays with the same salon.

If the client is extremely happy with this hair salon and tells just four of their friends and neighbors about it, and let’s be conservative and say that only 25% of those told decide to try it out, that is just one referral. Then the hair salon earned $2,850 more. Combine the original client and the referral client, and you have already made the salon $5,700. This is just because of one extremely satisfied and happy client. Of course we still have to subtract the cost of goods and the marketing expenses, but the lifetime value will be extremely substantial and beneficial.

Let me also share this tidbit: it might not, after all, be as little as you think. Did you know that a client that has been referred as a new client is up to FOUR times as likely to refer new clients AGAIN, since it is the exact same way they were introduced into this business? Now, think about what that impact would have on the bottom line…HUGE! And it continues as long as they are satisfied.

Just imagine if those 25% becomes 50% or 75%.  A happy client might not just tell it to four friends, it could be 10 or 12, or even more. The number of returning and referred clients can be greater. This is highly possible and easily attainable when you have a structured and organized referral program established for your business.

I hope that given these numbers, this stresses to you the significance of referrals to any business, and start a formal referral program for your business. Consider using these figures to convey to any staff you might employ the importance of satisfying your clients in every aspect so that you can differentiate your business from “theirs”. Remember, a dissatisfied client can influence far more potential clients to decide not to do business with you as well. One happy client and a single referral can earn you $5,700.

That is why the hair salon should train each and every one of their employees to treat that particular $45 client as if they were wearing a $5,700 price tag around their neck, conservatively.

It is critical that you start a referral marketing program right away if you are not currently following a system that you and your staff are using every day with every customer.

PS.  Think about it this way: each day, as clients visit your business, you must have a system in place to empower them to refer new clients to you. This is KEY for your business’ success.

For more information on how to easily implement a referral system:
contact RipCard at 415-251-1980 or email us at RipCardTeam@Gmail.com

Topics: Referral Articles | No Comments »

I came across This Awesome Referral Masters Recording.

By admin | April 3, 2010

David Frey has brought together some of the Top 15 Referral Masters for a Tele Sumit Series…and I was simply blown away by the Insight these Ladies and Gents are bringing to the Table..

This is a MUST Listen to content and it even comes with downloadable mp3 files as well as Transcripts and Tips Sheet for anyone that is in the service industry and has a close relationship with their clients…and therefore have the ability to influence the Referral Process or FLOW in a Big, BIG way…

Listen to 15 of the World’s Top Referral Marketing Experts That Will Have You Generating All The Referrals You Can Handle!

Have you ever wondered why some people just seem to be able to create sales and generate business with little or no effort at all. How do they do it? Let me tell you… Referral Marketing!

You’ve probably heard other business professionals talking about generating more business through referrals. But the thought of asking for referrals may make you feel sick to your stomach - after all, you don’t want to feel like you’re begging for business.

The great news is that you don’t have to! You can learn how to generate all the referrals you can handle, and do it in a way that works for you and takes all the stress out of it!

Bill Cates
 “The Single Most Effective System for Asking for Referrals that Get Your Clients to Willingly Open Up their Rolodex and Begin Calling Their
Friends and Making Personal
Referral Introductions for You.”

Here’s what you’ll discover in this presentation…

John Jantsch
 “How To Create Powerful Joint
Venture Referral Partnership
SYSTEMS That Automatically Send
New, Highly Qualified, Ready-To-Buy Prospects To Your Front Door”

Here’s what you’ll discover in this presentation…

Bob Burg
 “Mastering The Art Of Conversation:
A Simple System To Get An
Entire Room Of Professionals
Wanting To Give You More Business
At The Next Event You Attend”

Here’s what you’ll discover in this presentation…

Sidney Walker
 “The Ultimate Low-Pressure System
for Generating Five Times the
Amounts Of Referrals That You’re Currently Getting While Keeping Your Dignity and Credibility Intact.”

Here’s what you’ll discover in this presentation…

OK… I could go on and on… There are a total of 15 Top Notch presenters and you will learn so much that the hardest thing will be to figure out where to start….   But do remember this:  Nothing Happens Until Something Moves….and this is a Quote by Einstein, if I am not mistaken and you will just have to Start with ONE simple thing that will help you move you in the right direction.

So…. start by listening to this great content.  Then Take ACTION.

You can click here to find out more:

Topics: Audio, Referral Articles | No Comments »

How Referrable are YOU!?

By admin | January 27, 2010

Are You Referable?
….writes Bill Cates, of The Referral Minute:

The single most critical ingredient necessary for you to get referrals from any Centers of Influence is your referability in their eyes. Do they like you? Do they trust you? Do they understand your value proposition enough to be able to talk about you to others? Do they know how to talk about your work in a way that gets others interested? Do they know how to recognize a good prospect for you?

All of these questions go back to this issue of “referability.” Can you get all the above questions answered in just one encounter with a potential center of influence? Unlikely! It usually takes several meetings, over time, to become referable in the eyes of a Center of Influence.

Now, when it comes to friends and family that you obviously know, then this “time hurdle” is easily overcome.

PS…if you did like me, and watch the Apple, iPad launch today, you probably would have no problem referring that product to a friend or a colleague….however, the big difference here is that we are talking about a physical product as opposed to a service, which I think it is even more prevalent to give Personal referrals.

Topics: Good Business Articles, Referral Articles | No Comments »

Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media: Saw this Great Article in The NY Times

By admin | July 23, 2009

Comments by Admin: I LOVED this article when I read it… it is SO TRUE… it is all about generating Word Of Mouth and get Referrals…. why not use TWITTER for it as well.

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Published: July 22, 2009…

SAN FRANCISCO — Three weeks after Curtis Kimball opened his crème brûlée cart in San Francisco, he noticed a stranger among the friends in line for his desserts. How had the man discovered the cart? He had read about it on Twitter.
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Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Curtis Kimball, owner of a crème brûlée cart in San Francisco, uses Twitter to drive his customers to his changing location.
Multimedia

For Mr. Kimball, who conceded that he “hadn’t really understood the purpose of Twitter,” the beauty of digital word-of-mouth marketing was immediately clear. He signed up for an account and has more than 5,400 followers who wait for him to post the current location of his itinerant cart and list the flavors of the day, like lavender and orange creamsicle.

“I would love to say that I just had a really good idea and strategy, but Twitter has been pretty essential to my success,” he said. He has quit his day job as a carpenter to keep up with the demand.

Much has been made of how big companies like Dell, Starbucks and Comcast use Twitter to promote their products and answer customers’ questions. But today, small businesses outnumber the big ones on the free microblogging service, and in many ways, Twitter is an even more useful tool for them.

For many mom-and-pop shops with no ad budget, Twitter has become their sole means of marketing. It is far easier to set up and update a Twitter account than to maintain a Web page. And because small-business owners tend to work at the cash register, not in a cubicle in the marketing department, Twitter’s intimacy suits them well.

“We think of these social media tools as being in the realm of the sophisticated, multiplatform marketers like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, but a lot of these supersmall businesses are gravitating toward them because they are accessible, free and very simple,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst who studies the Internet’s influence on shopping and local businesses.

Small businesses typically get more than half of their customers through word of mouth, he said, and Twitter is the digital manifestation of that. Twitter users broadcast messages of up to 140 characters in length, and the culture of the service encourages people to spread news to friends in their own network.

Umi, a sushi restaurant in San Francisco, sometimes gets five new customers a night who learned about it on Twitter, said Shamus Booth, a co-owner.

He twitters about the fresh fish of the night — “The O-Toro (bluefin tuna belly) tonight is some of the most rich and buttery tuna I’ve had,” he recently wrote — and offers free seaweed salads to people who mention Twitter.

Twitter is not just for businesses that want to lure customers with mouth-watering descriptions of food. For Cynthia Sutton-Stolle, the co-owner of Silver Barn Antiques in tiny Columbus, Tex., Twitter has been a way to find both suppliers and customers nationwide.

Since she joined Twitter in February, she has connected with people making lamps and candles that she subsequently ordered for her shop and has sold a few thousand dollars of merchandise to people outside Columbus, including to a woman in New Jersey shopping for graduation gifts.

“We don’t even have our Web site done, and we weren’t even trying to start an e-commerce business,” Ms. Sutton-Stolle said. “Twitter has been a real valuable tool because it’s made us national instead of a little-bitty store in a little-bitty town.”

Scott Seaman of Blowing Rock, N.C., also uses Twitter to expand his customer base beyond his town of about 1,500 residents. Mr. Seaman is a partner at Christopher’s Wine and Cheese shop and owns a bed and breakfast in town. He sets up searches on TweetDeck, a Web application that helps people manage their Twitter messages, to start conversations with people talking about his town or the mountain nearby. One person he met on Twitter booked a room at his inn, and a woman in Dallas ordered sake from his shop.

The extra traffic has come despite his rarely pitching his own businesses on Twitter. “To me, that’s a turn-off,” he said. Instead of marketing to customers, small-business owners should use the same persona they have offline, he advised. “Be the small shopkeeper down the street that everyone knows by name.”

Chris Mann, the owner of Woodhouse Day Spa in Cincinnati, twitters about discounts for massages and manicures every Tuesday. Twitter beats e-mail promotions because he can send tweets from his phone in a meeting and “every single business sends out an e-mail,” he said.

Even if a shop’s customers are not on Twitter, the service can be useful for entrepreneurs, said Becky McCray, who runs a liquor store and cattle ranch in Oklahoma and publishes a blog called Small Biz Survival.

In towns like hers, with only 5,000 people, small-business owners can feel isolated, she said. But on Twitter, she has learned business tax tips from an accountant, marketing tips from a consultant in Tennessee and start-up tips from the founder of several tech companies.

Anamitra Banerji, who manages commercial products at Twitter, said that when he joined the company from Yahoo in March, “I thought this was a place where large businesses were. What I’m finding more and more, to my surprise every single day, is business of all kinds.”

Twitter, which does not yet make money, is now concentrating on teaching businesses how they can join and use it, Mr. Banerji said, and the company plans to publish case studies. He is also developing products that Twitter can sell to businesses of all sizes this year, including features to verify businesses’ accounts and analyze traffic to their Twitter profiles.

According to Mr. Banerji, small-business owners like Twitter because they can talk directly to customers in a way that they were able to do only in person before. “We’re finding the emotional distance between businesses and their customers is shortening quite a bit,” he said.

Topics: Referral Articles | 1 Comment »

Life Time Value of a Client (LTV), The Most Important Number you must Know

By admin | June 26, 2009

The Life Time Value (LTV) of a client is The Most Important number you must know…. or so say Many Marketing Geniuses, including Marketing Specialist Extra Ordinaire Jay Abraham.

You must know this number so that you can better understand the value of keeping a client as well as how much you can afford to pay to acquire a new customer.

It ties directly in to how the RipCard can help you do just that (www.RipCard.com)

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Video for Manicurists, Salon Owners of How to work with the RipCard - Increase your Referrals and Business Income NOW!

By admin | June 26, 2009

In this Economy we have to be very smart with our marketing Dollars…… Why not do the Most Effective, Back To Basic Marketing System you can possibly think of: Word Of Mouth…or REFERRAL MARKETING.

In the old days, the most common way a person in business got More Business, was when someone spoke Highly Of them or Flat out Referred / Introduced them.

Well…. this is the power I have harnessed here in the Principles of the RipCard….. Plus I have added TWO other very important elements: A way to GIVE a PERSONALIZE INCENTIVE…as well as To PRECISELY TRACK where that REFERRAL came from.

You did know that a Personal Referral will out do, out perform, out compete… HANDS DOWN… any advertising campaign coming from Any other company using the following Three Mediums: 1. A Sales Person, 2. An Advertisement in the Newspaper and 3. A Radio Commercial… Yes… it is TRUE… a Personal Referral is that much more effective.

You check it out and decide for yourself if this is something for you….and if you have any Questions, Suggestions or what have you…I am HERE…. Dedicated to help you succeed…. as a Matter of fact…. I would be VERY, VERY happy if you succeeded 10 times as much as I will…. so have at it my friend… Fire away with some questions.

Here is the video I just created….and it applies to a BROAD range of industries….but in this one I have focused on someone either working at a Manicurist shop or Spa…

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Video Of How To Use The RipCard if You are in the Service Industry.

By admin | June 24, 2009

So Imagine you are in the service industry….  more specifically the Hair Salon / Beauty industry…  however, it could also be any other Service industry since the principles cross over quite easily.

This is a MUST see Video Especially for anyone that wants to get more Referrals and not spend a Ton of time and money on wasted Advertising. Not only will you get more Referrals, but you can Personalize an Incentive specifically to that One Individual and also Precisely TRACK where your referrals are coming from.

Let me know if you have any questions / suggestions or thoughts or comments in general and post them below here.

Here is a video I just created.

Topics: Referral Articles, Videos | 2 Comments »

The Unwritten Rules of Referral

By admin | June 23, 2009

How to use other people’s contacts, clients, and clout to generate a flood of new business

By John Jantsch

Nobody likes to cold call. Okay, very few people that I know like to cold call looking for clients.For those of you that fit that description, I have some good news. Stop it. Don’t cold call ever again. Instead, let other people do it for you by systematically generating all the referrals you can handle.

That’s right, many business owners have built their entire business using this one simple, but powerful strategy. People want to do business with other people they know, like and trust and by creating referrals you automatically borrow upon some one else’s trust. For the small business owner this is a crucial point. You see referred clients, if properly qualified, will turn into your best customers and will likely put a higher value on what you do and be less likely to leave for price.

So you get that you should generate referrals and maybe you even do so occasionally, but you want to generate a flood of referrals, right?

Here’s how:

Deserve referrals.

If your business or service doesn’t wow someone then who is going to refer you? Consistently generating referrals is a bit of a mindset. Tackle every customer you generate as though your sole purpose in serving them is to generate a referral. Now, would that change your approach to service? Now you’re not a sales person, you’re a service person.

Target referral sources


Just as you must target your clients you must also target those clients, vendors, influences peddlers, or contacts most suited to generate the kinds of referrals you are after. Then you must educate them on just exactly who and what makes a good referral for your business.

Ask


People love to give referrals. Think about the last time you got a great deal on something or someone went over and above to help you—what was the first thing you did? You told everybody, right? Don’t be shy about asking for referrals

Tell them how you intend to follow-up


The single greatest reason your friends, neighbors and clients may resist handing over referrals is because they had a bad experience in the past. They gave an eager sales person the names of their family and he still hasn’t stopped hounding them. Let them know exactly what you plan to do and how you plan to do. Ease their past concerns and don’t hound your referrals.

Make it easy for them


Don’t just ask if they know anyone who might need what you do. Give specifics. I know a financial advisor who wants to work in certain high income neighborhoods. When he meets with his clients he puts a list of 50-75 names in front of them and asks if they know any one on the list. He always comes away with several highly qualified leads.

Let them participate


Don’t just jot down names and head out into the night, ask them to call, email or write on your behalf. Hand them a suggested letter of introduction that explains what you do and why you will be contacting them. Get your client to mail a letter on your behalf. Placing a call on your client’s recommendation can open some doors but nothing beats a heart felt letter of endorsement

Ask for testimonials


One very passive way for people to refer business to you is to ask them to write a letter that details some of the very specific benefits that they have gained working with your firm. The more the merrier.

Follow-up


When you acquire a lead, make sure that you act upon it quickly and make sure that keep the communication open with your referral source. Let them know how much you appreciate their help and always let them know if you turn the lead into a client. Cigars and single malt scotch are my preference.

Reward them


There are many, many ways to encourage your clients and contacts to send you referrals. You can give them free or discounted rates on their own needs as a reward. You can send them a thank you in the form of a discount to pass on to a friend. You can give them cash. You can create a contest among your clients and give away a special prize to the client who refers the most business. You can create your own currency and give it away as an incentive. You can partner with a non-profit agency and give a portion of all referred business to that agency. You can send a gift to someone’s office, such as balloon bouquet, and generate so much buzz they are forced to talk about how great you are.

Finally don’t forget to make generating referrals an expectation of every client relationship. Let your clients know going in that you fully expect them to be so thrilled with the service you provide that they are expected to give you ten qualified referral within the next six months.

Just saying that to every new client you land will make them realize that they made a great decision to choose to do business with your firm.

By John Jantsch is a marketing coach and the author of www.ReferralFlood.com

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Welcome to RipCard.com Blog..

By admin | April 3, 2008

Welcome to The RipCard Blog. We welcome you to start blogging and post comments about The RipCard and it’s Concept!

Our goal with this Blog site is to get members to interact and share experiences and ideas and suggestions of how to make The RipCard Concept work for them.

I will update this blog once a week to start with to see how it works and how many wants to interact and have a “conversation” with me about The RipCard Concept.

We all know that Referrals and Word-Of-Mouth are Very, Very powerful….as a matter of fact…it Ranks as Number ONE when it comes to influencing someones buying decision…that means that Referrals and Word-Of-Mouth are Much, Much more powerful that an advertisement on TV or in the Newspaper or even the Yellow pages.

…..SO…Get chatting guys…. we want to hear from you….what you like…what you don’t like……what can be improved as well as How you are using your rip card or the Referral / Word-Of-Mouth concept in your World.
We have Faith that you will do what is best for you and your situation and together we can learn a lot from each other…and we here at RipCard.com will listen Very Intently as to what you have to say.

….so Lay it on us… and we wish you a Big Welcome to Your Site, where you can Rant and Rave about how we can make things better.

Welcome,

Alf
Founder and Inventor…
Mover and Shaker.

Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »