Referral Madness Gain referrals by marketing your business to customers every step of the way.

Referrals are perhaps the ultimate measure of success for your marketing efforts. People refer for logical reasons (because they have determined that your company offers good deals or great products) and for emotional reasons (because they enjoy doing business with you).

One of the keys to gaining consistent referrals is identifying and addressing all the customer touch points--steps in the customer life cycle that lead them to believe that your organization is one they can trust, buy from and eventually refer.

I say this often, but it's worth repeating: Every element of your business that comes in contact with a prospect or a customer is performing a marketing function. Your organization's brand is essentially determined by the sum of these relationships.