Make a Referral Week (March 9-13, 2009)

As I’ve said time and time again, I firmly believe that the way to survive and thrive in an economic downturn is to ignore the doom-and-gloom headlines and focus instead on what you can do to grow your business despite fluctuations in the economy.

That’s why I’m hoping all of you will join me in participating in Make a Referral Week, which is a campaign inviting everyone around the globe to make 1,000 referrals during the week of March 9-13. It’s an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small-business economy–one referred business at a time.

The goal of generating 1,000 referrals to 1,000 deserving small businesses highlights the idea that by taking one simple action and generating one referral to a small business, you really can make a difference and help jumpstart the economy. Small business is the lifeblood and job-creating engine of the economy, and if we all pledge to make one referral, we could possibly generate millions of dollars in new business.

The weeklong, virtual event also features daily education programs focused on teaching small-business owners and other marketers how to tap the power of referral marketing. I’ll be featured, along with my friends Bob Burg and Bill Cates, on Tuesday, March 10.

Click here to learn more and join the campaign.

If you do join me in participating next week, I’d love to hear back from you about the referral(s) you generated.

4 thoughts on “Make a Referral Week (March 9-13, 2009)”

How could I refuse to such a small thing that would have positive results. Count on me!

Let us hope this is just the beginning of individuals taking steps to help out small businesses through referrals. Our business is built on referrals and as a result, I’m always willing to refer others to businesses that deliver great customer support.

I encourage all businesses to also ask their customers for referrals? If a business is not willing to ask for a referral then they must not be confident in the service they provide.

Making and asking for referrals is the beginning. It is also important for businesses to track referrals so they can be proactive and appreciative for the referrals received. I wrote a recent post with tips for tracking referrals in a database that readers might find of interest as they get their referral mojo underway.

http://www.trackvia.com/blog/2009/03/10/referral-database/

After entering two referrals on the site for this week, I just read through many of the 250 “referrals”. It’s an interesting exercise in seeing how people define a referral. The site lists many people giving testimonials for other companies, which are not referrals. Most people are posting the referral: I gave so and so’s name to so and so. But the number that are not referrals intrigues me. BNI can help these people!