The full title of the book by Bradley J Sugars is
Instant Referrals: How to Turn Existing Customers into Your #1 Promoters
In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave it 3 Stars.
Here is my review.
A simplistic look at referrals but not as bad as some in this series
This book promises to tell you how to build a “referral based business that grows by itself.”
I haven’t been impressed with many Brad Sugars books but this is not too bad. It’s not up to the standards of Instant Cashflow but much better than the dreadful Successful Franchising book.
In fact if you don’t know anything about referrals it is worth reading provided you skim over the shameless plugs for ActionCOACH. The writing style and structure are also OK.
You get a quick introduction which covers acquisition cost of a customer, lifetime value, ActionCOACH’s business chassis, targeting customers and the process of moving from a suspect to a customer advocate.
Good, solid, fairly standard stuff not covered in much detail but enough to get the basic message across. Referrals are good because they are cheap to attract and the chances of conversion into customers are higher than leads generated from other sources.
There are action steps to generate referrals and while they are not as innovative as I was hoping, I can’t quibble with the idea of deciding who your ideal customer is, working through your customer list, categorising them and firing the ones who cause more pain than gain and the benefits of regular contact with your customers. Nor can I argue against the idea of teaching customers why giving you referrals is good for them or giving great customer service so you earn referrals.
Strategy nine is “Be daring. Ask for a referral…” The referral tips carry on at this level. There’s nothing too difficult or imaginative but if you don’t do currently ask for referrals, then it all helps pull in the extra business.
This book is OK. I read it and didn’t make a single addition to my referral notes so it is only suitable for a beginner with no referral strategy and no idea how to go about it.
The book failed to survive the purge on my business library and has been sent to a charity shop.
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