Here’s a comment I got from a reader last week:
“[My biggest challenge is] getting clientel.”
And interestingly, in the past few weeks, I have done business with at least 6 small businesses — all of whom said that they got the bulk of their business easily — through “word-of-mouth”.
In other words, most of their clients are referred to them by past clients.
Immediately I asked them whether I could interview them, so I could find out their story and the secret of their success!
Although they were interested, no one has followed through yet.
Could it be because they have too much business already and don’t want any more publicity? Perhaps they’re too busy with their clients and don’t have the time. Or maybe they don’t want to share their secret!
Well, I don’t really know.
So let me share the story of my experience as their customer instead:
We are in the process of buying a house. So we need a lot of different kinds of services to help with the home-buying process: a home inspection company, a lead inspector, a landscape designer, a window replacement specialist, a settlement company, and so on.
We found out about each of these services from our friends and colleagues (i.e. through word-of-mouth networking).
- When we asked people for recommendations for these services, we obviously asked people who had used that particular service themselves.
- So each service was referred to us by a past client, who was very happy with their work (and often, happy with the price as well).
Well, we’ve been very happy with each of these businesses, and would gladly recommend them to anyone who asks for our opinion.
By the way, you’ll be interested to know that a couple of times we were told NOT to hire certain companies. Clearly, these were dissatisfied clients!
The point of this story? Well, there are two questions to ponder, actually:
- Are your clients or customers satisfied with your work? How can you tell?
- Do they recommend you and your business to their friends and colleagues? What (if anything) can you do to encourage this?