I remember when I was a child running around the school playground. It was pretty common for children who liked each other to send their best friends over to a girl or boy to gauge their interest in becoming a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Even at these early ages children naturally realise how much easier referrals are. In this case, getting someone else to do the asking for you rather than having to walk up and ask yourself

Especially effective was when the child doing the asking was their friend and yours.
When it is their friend and your friend then the chances they will promote you with more vigour are increased. Then what we have is a testimonial.

Testimonials from existing clients are an extremely powerful tool in word of mouth marketing.

Do you have a collection of testimonials you can give to new clients or even better than that , your trained networking partner can give your potential client during the referral process.

Ideas to make your testimonials more effective:

1 Train your referral partner how and when to use them
2 Why not target your testimonial towards the 3 most common objections you receive from potential clients!
3 Make sure the testimonial cover

• What your problem was before they employed your product or service
• What they discovered during
• What was the result, the ROI as a result of your product or service

4 In this modern age do you have video testimonials?
As an example check out this link
Testimonial example
5 offer the person giving the testimonial the opportunity to promote themselves in the testimonial . They will be more inclined to take the time to do one for you.