7 reasons to consider your workplace as a business club

Most companies invest in a lot of resources to find new customers, from digital marketing to expensive events. This is of course necessary to attract new customers. But did you know that in most cases future customers are closer than you think ? This is what you will discover through the three main sections of this article :

• Part 1 - A powerful Client-Referral sales strategy

• Part 2 - 7 reasons to consider your workplace as a business club

• Part 3 - Implementation of your business club sales strategy

Part 1 -A powerful Client-Referral sales strategy

Recently, I read an interesting article from Harvard Business Review written by Scott Edinger about the implementation of Client-Referral strategies. Mr. Edinger'is consulting founder and author of "Making yourself indispensable" which is my source of inspiration for this article.

In short Mr Edinger explained how he advised several company leaders from the Fortune 500 to implement a Client-Referral strategy in order to leverage their current client relationships to drive new business.

You will probably say : "Yes interesting Mr Van Passel, but is this useful for my company ? How to implement this and is it really interesting because I'd like to avoid as we say in French "des usines à gaz" - (labyrinthe systems)".

Thanks for your challenging question. Let's start with a few documented statistics from Extole, leader in refer-a-friend marketing :

• 84 % of people trust recommendations from people they know

• Conversion rate is between 3 and 5 times more important than any other channel

• Customers acquired through referrals have a 37% higher retention rate. Referred customers have an 18% lower churn than customers acquired by other means.

• You can expect at least 16% more in profits from referred customers.

• And only 30 % of the companies have a client-referral program.

Part 2 - 7 reasons to consider your workplace as a business club

So nice, thanks Mr Van Passel, but concretely, why could this be important for my company. ?

Let's go back to the title of this article. Through my experience I identified 7 reasons why :

1. Become the center of your customers new partnerships

Don't be afraid, some managers think that they will lose control of the relations with their clients. Which is sometimes true but trust me thanks to this method you'll have built long a trustful relationships with "la crème de la crème" of your customers and prospects.

2. Humility : surrounded by experts

A good advice if your ego doesn't accept common success don't implement this in your structure ! This strategy is dedicated to humble people. You are working for your customers, and they work for you. The key to success comes from everyone, and every attendee will be the winner of that virtuous circle.

3. Leisure at your workplace : source of emotions

Customer experience

Did you know that more than 40 % of the customers are looking for human experiences ? Moreover, behavioral marketing experts discovered that most of our decisions are based on our subconscious influenced by our emotions. Which means that implementing a nice authentic atmosphere will increase your sales but also contribute to improve your customers networking and their own business objectives.

4. One place - multiple types of knowledge

Thanks to this strategy your company will be recognized as a center of knowledge because each attendee will contribute to build this wall of fame.

5. Impact on strong sales results

Organizing your own business club will have a natural impact on your sales figures, brand reputation and customer retention. You just need to accept that it takes time.

6. Natural exclusive loyalty program

Consider the members of this customer club as part of your loyalty strategy. You know probably that most of the loyalty programs strategies cost a lot of money and time. Your internal business club will provide the same results in a small group.

7. Building trust in your professional relationships

Becasue throught this strategy you will be surrounded by professionals and experts this will sustain your brand reputatation and create trust.

Part 3 - Implementation of your business club sales strategy

After the why, Mr Van Passel, tell me how to implement that in a simple way ?

Once again, through my experience you will need to identify someone in your sales team as leader for that project. Probably an extraverted natural bridge builder (yellow Insights profile). If you don't find this person in your team, you can always call me ...

Stay simple and build your strategy :

• Regularly invite some of your customers interested to meet your other customers

• Identify some of your prospects and business partners

• Implement a semestrial or annual agenda with inspiring topics

• Ask to the leader of the project to feel the link between people and listen to their needs.

• Sometimes there is nothing else to do... be patient and trust your strategy.

You need to discover more about this topic ? Feel free to contact me.

sebastien@4investors.eu

+32 490 43 71 1

Sources :

https://www.extole.com/blog/15-referral-marketing-statistics-you-need-to-know/

https://www.invespcro.com/blog/referral-marketing/

https://medium.com/@salesforce/neuroscience-proves-we-buy-on-emotion-and-justify-with-logic-but-with-a-twist-4ff965cdeed8

https://medium.com/@salesforce/neuroscience-proves-we-buy-on-emotion-and-justify-with-logic-but-with-a-twist-4ff965cdeed8