Facts About Word Of Mouth Sales

Many of us have been in sales for many years. So we do know that to some extent, generating sales for our business is a numbers game. Did you know these interesting facts?

1. About every 20 prospects will end up buying your services or products.

2. 1 out of every 6 referred prospects will end up buying your services or products.

3. Referred clients buy 3 times as much over year 1 in the relationship.

4. Clients who come by referral stay almost 4 times longer with you.

5. Referred clients are 2.5 times more likely to refer to you other clients.

So, think about it. If all your customers came via referrals, you would be able to double the number of clients in a year. And it is really in your hands. You can measure the depth of your relationships, their profitability, and their effectiveness in generating mutually beneficial business opportunities. We can measure those relationships in 5 stages:

1. Ignore. They have no clue you even exist.

2. Know. They know you exist and they are okay with that.

3. Like. They like the idea of working with you and occasionally try to help you.

4. Trust. They believe you are good, and they are ready to identify opportunities for you.

5. Work. They work constantly with you on referring clients to one another, and they are ready to create opportunities for you. If only one person is referring clients, it is not yet a class 5 relationship.

Think about business owners and professionals in your BTB Club group, in which one of these 5 stages are you on with each one of your fellow members?

In business networking groups, average members have these kind of relationship ratios:

• 35,8% of members are in Ignore status.

• 31,6% are in Know phase.

• 26,6% are between Like and Trust status.

• 5.8% are in Work relationship.

Why is that? Sometimes networkers feel that just because they show up to the 'gym', they will grow their 'muscles'. But in reality, unless we use the 'machines' and put in the time to work out, we will not feel any different.

These statistics means that in a group of 100 business owners, six or less colleagues will refer business to us all the time if we just do the bare minimum.

This is why it is so important 1) to grow our group by bringing visitors whose category is not blocked yet, and 2) to deepen our relationship with our fellow networkers so they know how to help us, and are able to trust us professionally.

So this is the challenge we can complete once a month; write down the names of all your fellow networkers at BTB Club under one of these five columns:

IGNORE KNOW LIKE TRUST WORK

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Smith Björnsson Benedetti Dudek Müller

... ... ... ... ...

... ... ... ... ...

How many of you have more than 10 people under the last column? What could be a good goal for you? What if you could double the number of people you have under column Work?

The main thing is to take ownership. The only responsible of having more people under the last column is me, and nobody else. The sooner we accept this fact, the sooner we can implement the needed actions to receive more and better referrals.

Focus on generating Trust in fellow members by showing up every week on time, and prepare well your presentations. The way you collaborate inside of your group gives a great indication of how you work in your own business. Bring clients to the meetings, and other visitors that can show how well connected you are, and how much effort you are putting into growing your network. It also shows how committed you are to help your fellow members by growing the group in a way that can help everyone.

Show personal interest in other people and their referrals. And do it in a positive, not-pushy or aggressive way.