The Howard Partridge
52 Weeks of Implementation
Week 36: The Referral Appreciation Luncheon
The Referral Appreciation Lunch
One of the most powerful and profitable things you can do is get groups of referral sources in one place with you as the center of attention. The reason it is so powerful is
- You save an incredible amount of time! For example, imagine how long it would take you to call on 12 individual people. Now imagine that you have all of them in one place at one time!
- Social Proof and Testimonials. If someone is in your audience has used your service or been pleased by referring you, they will testify of your reputation and experience.
- Positions you as the expert. Because you are the one presenting, it positions you as the authority.
The Free Lunch Program is one of the most powerful of all referral strategies. Not only does it get groups together, but it builds a tremendous amount of “emotional equity”. Emotional equity is a positive account balance in the “emotional checking account”. When people feel indebted to you and they care about you, they will go out of their way to help you. I have done the Free Lunch Program 3 times before. Each time I have done it, I have done it under different “platforms”. You need a hook.
In this particular case, we simply billed it as an “appreciation of your referrals” lunch. We sent invitations to 158 people that had referred our services. This only included those that worked for a referral source. It did not go to individual clients. We had 34 people respond. 31 showed up.
Here’s why a function like this is so profitable
More potential than any advertising could ever have. I spent $649.00 on the lunch. The mailer cost less than $100.00. Goodie bags cost less than $100.00.
I gave away some door prizes and some carpet cleaning. IF the carpet cleaning is ever used, it might cost me an additional $300.00.
So, for about a thousand dollars or so, I was able to have a huge impact on 31 referral sources who have ALREADY taken action to refer me. The potential returns on this investment can’t even be counted.
The Law of Reciprocity. These people were so appreciative that they will go out of their way to refer us and to help us.
The Law of Social Proof. When these referral sources saw that we had a room full of people that support us, it reinforces their support.
A Captive Audience. I was able to share more about our services as well as our more advanced programs. We had a check off form that we used to get them to “raise their hands” and ask for advanced programs.
Time Saver. How much time would it take to see each one of these people individually? Cindy coordinated the entire event making it very easy on me, and we were both able to visit with each and every person that was there.
Credibility Builder. When you are the one presenting, you position yourself as the authority.
New Referral Sources. Some of the referral sources brought someone with them. This connected us to new potential referrals.
Newsletter Material. I will be able to get some “marketing mileage” out of this by publishing the pictures in my newsletter.
Here are just some of the benefits they received…
A fantastic free lunch. This was not a middle-of-the-road restaurant. They had Caesar Salad, Spinach Salad, Fresh Salmon, Pastas, Mozzerella Marinara, Bruschetta, Chicken Parmegan, and for dessert, Tirimasu and a humongous chocolate cake that was practically a meal by itself. It was loaded with different types of chocolate fillings and frosting.
A CD with several PowerPoint Presentations: The Referral Relationship Program, How to Select a Professional Cleaner, and presentations on our various services. We loaded about 24 helpful articles that can be printed out or e-mailed to their clients. Of course every article has contact information on it.We also put a link to our website so that when they load the cd, they can click directly to our website.
A Free Bottle of Home Pro Spotter. Of course it has our name on it. We also promoted the Home Pro Spotter Program. I will share a little about that below.
The Opportunity to Network with Other Industry Members. We had Flooring Retailers, Realtors, and Designers, all in the same room meeting each other.
The Key to Getting as Much Mileage Out of this program as possible was the presentation of the “Advanced Referral Programs”.
Toward the end of the luncheon, I did a short presentation featuring our advanced referral programs. The idea here was to give them ideas that would generate even more referrals from them. There is a link to the form we used to promote the advanced programs and to find out what they are interested in.
To make sure that we got full participation, we gave away door prizes. In order to win a door prize, you had to fill out the form!
I outlined the various programs and their benefits and asked them to check off the one’s they are interested in. I was astounded at the response! Every person asked for something, and many of them asked for several programs.
Follow Up
After the luncheon, we quickly hand addressed a 9 x 12 envelope for each attendee. I created a special follow up letter for each of the items we offered, telling them exactly what to do. Of course, we will follow up with each of them by phone to “close” them on the various programs.
Photos – I brought my digital camera and immediately e-mailed the photos out after the event. That was a perfect opportunity to ask them if they were getting our e-mail newsletter.
How to do Your Own Free Lunch
- Set a date
- Select the restaurant
- Select the database
- Print and send the invitations about 2 weeks before the event Take the RSVPs
- Make a “goodie bag” for each attendee. Put in the bag: 1 Home Pro Spotter, 1 How to Select Brochure, 1 Free Trial Offer Card (these are just to bring attention to the materials-make sure each source has a good supply), 1 Dealer Report, and 1 CD.
- Get some door prizes. You can just do certificates for cleaning if you like. Restaurant certificates, Starbuck’s or Barnes and Noble Gift Cards, etc.
At the event:
Set a goodie bag at each place setting
Meet and greet people as they come in and during the meal
After the main course, do a short presentation. Thank them for their referrals…
“Thank you for your referrals. We are a referral based company. We don’t have a yellow page ad. We rely on your referrals. Therefore our success would not be possible without you, so thank you. We just celebrated our 21st anniversary.(they clapped for us on that one!!)
… and there are people in this room that have been referring me from the beginning. I want to highlight a few of our services that you may not be familiar with… mainly our Oriental Rug Cleaning and our Stone Restoration Services(I elaborated on these).
… I would be happy to take any questions you may have on these services. I have a few door prizes I would like to give away, and I would like to tell you about some programs we have that can help you in your business. These programs are outlined on the entry form for the door prizes.”(Cindy and I then passed out the letter. To my surprise, they started checking off boxes before I could tell them about the programs, so I just waited until most were finished and some began asking questions about them.) I then went through each of the programs to let them know how they work.
We then had them fold their entry forms and pass them in. We put them in a bag and I drew from the bag. Each one came up for a photograph.