After surveying 12,000 men and women world wide about referrals and networking we learned that, knowing a person’s level of competency was the most important characteristic for referring a person for women, and
women more than men felt that they needed to try the persons product or service prior to giving them a referral.
This is key information for you to know if your referral strategy is to gain more referral from women to their network of other women. Many women feel that it is important to try your product or services prior to recommending or referring them, unfortunately we cannot try every persons products and services. This is one of the reasons that Angie’s list became so popular, it made it easy for women to read what their neighbors were saying about the people hired to do work for them. I was never a subscriber to the list but many of my friends were and I could call them and ask them who was getting the best reviews. Unfortunately, many of my friends have dropped their subscription as the list went public, but I know that I can still call my friends and they will give me their opinion on local service people they or their friends have used. I can count on it!
So, what can you do to help women trust your level of competency if they themselves have not used your product or service? Here are 3 Tips that will help you gain trust and word of mouth with women in your network.
1. Give them free samples, free trials or a one time reduced cost. Companies have been doing this for years when they are trying to engage females in a word of mouth campaign. Women will often do this with products between friends, I had a friend using a certain type of hair product called WEN that I was interested in but it was a little bit pricy so I was reluctant to order it with out trying it so Lindsay gave me some her to try out. Today I have a standing order for the WEN products. Companies like Mary Kay Cosmetics have always known that if you let them try it out first they will buy more later.
2. Get great testimonials! Ok, I know you know this one but are you doing it? Are asking for testimonials? When you get them what are you doing with them? Go beyond the written testimonial, while they are great to have, the best ones are the ones where you ask your clients if you could interview them while you tape the interview with a flip cam. Companies like12StarsMedia make the flip cam video branding seamless, easy and cost effective. When I go to a website and see video after video of testimonials from customers, I am more likely to choose your services over a competitors and that is even higher if someone I know has used the service and spoken highly about it.
3. Don’t just sell to women, build a relationship. If you spend time building a relationship of trust and good will even if she has not used your services, she will still refer you. The second most important thing to a woman is your character, if you take the time to build a relationship versus just selling to her, you will allow her to get to know your character and that too will help her be comfortable carrying your word of mouth message.
If your referral strategy is to create a business that includes women as your target market, I would strongly encourage both men and women to take the time to understand the way women refer business and how they want to be referred. What influences them and what annoys them, women are relational and want to do business in a relational manner, are you prepared for that?
