Prospect with your customer list 

Do you have a referral gap? Most agents we meet have no organized program for soliciting referrals from their customers.  Yet prospects who are referred become customers at a much higher rate than other prospects who result from media contacts. 

We recommend that you put a mailing program aimed at soliciting referrals from your best customers on your marketing agenda for 2008.  Test a couple of letters.  Make response easy.   

We have clients who use letters plus an enclosed postage-paid reply card for listing referrals; the card refolds so that names of people referred are not revealed in the return mail.  

Others use a “fill-in your referrals” card and a postage-paid return envelope. 

Success Points:  (1) Always ask permission to use the name of the client who is making the referral; (2) Make sure you recognize, and thank, every one who gives you a referral--- and let them know what happened after you’ve followed up;  (3) Don’t give up after one try;  get X-dates, and make a contact next year at renewal time;  (4) Track your results.