Q: What's your *easiest* source of new clients? A: Your MSP's existing clients

I love a good marketing strategy for attracting new clients. My favourite one that I've told thousands of MSPs about on dozens of videos and webinars is:

1. Build multiple audiences (such as your email list and LinkedIn)
2. Build a relationship with those audiences (content marketing, such as sending weekly emails and posting daily social media content)
3. Commercialise those audiences (use multi touchpoint marketing campaigns and critically a telephone person to speak to them. This helps you identify the potential buyers, and get the right message in front of the right person at exactly the right time).

However...

As cool and sexy as that marketing strategy is, it's not as easy as asking your existing happy clients for referrals.

Why?

Because when someone's thinking of switching MSP, there is a lot of fear.

“What if it goes wrong? What if they don’t know what they’re doing? What if it leaves us with no internet for a couple of days?”

This fear is what drives inertia loyalty, where it feels easier for someone to stay with an MSP they're a bit "meh" about, rather than switch to you.

So when a friend says “you should use my business’s IT support company; they’re great,” much of that perceived risk is removed. Because a recommendation from a friend is the ultimate form of social proof.

Most people prefer to do what most other people are doing. Yes, even business owners and managers. The majority of us are sheep (baaaaaaaa) and like to follow the herd.

This is an ancient piece of psychological programming that has driven human behaviour since we lived in caves. 10,000 years ago, what you didn't know could kill you (literally). Strangers were a particular danger. So you were suspicious of them.

It was safer to stick with who you knew and what you knew. And you wanted to stay in your cave group no matter what. Being pushed out of a group meant being picked off by predators. So you were socially compliant in order to stay in the group.

Today we push past that programming all the time, because our brain can tell us modern society is a safer place and move us out of our comfort zone.

But deep down that programming still drives how we feel and act. So we mitigate the risk. You'll always feel more comfortable talking to a stranger who appears to be like you, than someone is completely different from you.

If we can see that people who appear to be like us are using a specific supplier – and then those people recommend that supplier – we perceive this supplier to be dramatically safer.

This is a feeling, not a cognitive process.

What’s interesting as well as being influenced by people like them, people also typically refer people like them. You want more business owning clients? Then ask your existing business owner clients.

This is sound in theory. But there’s a problem in practice.

Most people don’t like making referrals. Few will do it off their own backs. And even when you formally ask people for a referral, the majority are very reluctant to do it.?

Let me tell you why this happens. When you refer a friend to a business, there is an inherent social risk in doing so.

• Because what if your friend doesn’t have the good experience that you do?
• What if they find the service crap?
• Or don’t click with the people?

That risk is on you!?If they have a bad experience, they will remember it was YOU who recommended the company!

So it becomes easier not to make any recommendations or referrals.

The same deep seated psychological programming that makes us socially compliant, stops us from making recommendations. And it’s why most MSPs fail to get an abundance of referrals from their existing clients.

Good news. There is an answer.

Instead of asking people to refer your business, you put together something called a referral kit. It’s a piece of educational marketing that you give away for free. We call this an "ethical bribe".

A book works very well for this.

(shameless plug... we give members of our MSP Marketing Edge service a book they can personalise and print, to use for a variety of purposes - including referrals)

Then, instead of asking your clients for a referral, you ask them to tell their business-owning friends about the free referral kit you have to offer.

Here’s a good script for an email, telephone call or conversation:

“Are you happy with our service? Great. Then can I ask a favour please. You see, we’re always looking for more clients like you. We find that existing clients are the best source of new clients for us.

“Please could you tell all your friends and contacts who own or manage companies that we have written a new book called ‘The 7 ways IT kills business productivity – and how to prevent 6 of them’. They can get a free copy by visiting www.yourwebsite.com/guide.”

Make asking for referrals systematic. Mention it at every strategic review. Put it in the follow-up email when a ticket is closed. That’s the point people are most likely to refer you, at the point you have “saved” them.

Don’t be disappointed that even with a referral kit, most people still don’t refer you. It’s not personal. That brain programming is hard to overcome. The 80/20 rule applies here. The majority of your client referrals will come from a small number of people.

Just make sure that once someone who's been referred has been on your website and requested a free book (or whatever you use), you then send them weekly educational emails. And at some point pick up the phone and speak to them.

In fact, what you really want to do is make referrals a channel to feed the first step of the marketing strategy I laid out right at the start of this article:

1. Build multiple audiences
2. Build a relationship with those audiences
3. Commercialise those audiences

Further reading: There’s a great book about referral kits, called?Unstoppable Referrals?by Steve Gordon.