What’s the best way to ask people for referrals? Here are a few suggestions:

Email – send out an email to your database and ask them if they know of companies that could benefit by doing business with you. If you’d like, you can offer some sort of incentive to really entice them to refer more business to you.

Phone calls – after somebody has done business with you and you have collected their contact information, pick up the phone to learn about how satisfied they were doing business with you. If they were very satisfied, ask them if they know anyone who would like to be satisfied as they were.

Thank you cards – every time you thank someone for doing business with you, always put a little blurb on the bottom that asks if there is anyone they know that might be in need of your product or service.

Competitions – many businesses hold contests to see who can refer the most amount of people to their business. Give away a nice prize for first place to really incentivize people to refer more business to you. We have done this very successfully at Infusionsoft in the past.

Special events – if you are attending a tradeshow, workshop/seminar, special corporate event or just about any other type of event, it’s always easy to ask people who they might know that would benefit by doing business with you. Remember, if you don’t ask, you probably won’t get any referrals.

Right after you have WOWed them – probably the best time to ask for referrals is when somebody is raving about your business. When you have just delivered the best product or service your customer has ever seen, that is the perfect time to ask for referrals.