The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself

There's nothing totally unique about any one idea in "The Referral Engine." There's nothing unique about a 5lb. bag of sugar either. Of course that bag of sugar could be in the hands of a skilled pastry chef - or it could be in mine. I can tell you there's a pretty big difference. John Jantsch is the Head Chef of Marketing. He has an almost magical way of accumulating massive quantities of more basic ideas, sifting them, combining them in perfect proportions, and then turning them into recipes for delicious success. The end result almost defies identification of those original ingredients. A great chef understands every tool, and exactly what his oven will do at each temperature. John Jantsch understands small business owners to the extent he crawls right inside our heads to tweak attitudes - and he does it by slowly building a case logically, step by step, until you can't help but agree with what has just become so obvious.In "Referral Engine" one of the first things he tackles is a business owner's reluctance to ask for referrals. I know that until I was exposed to Jantsch's material, I hated it! I expected my clients to love me and spread the love without me asking - and in fact, often times that did happen. No matter how good you think you are now, if you're like me, you have no idea how great your untapped potential in this area is.I think the thing I like most about Referral Engine, and Jantsch's work in general, is that there is no dishonesty, no gimmicks, no use of trickery. I've always believed the path to success lies in creating a great product or service for which one charges a fair price. It's an approach built on creating a great product or service to begin with. Jantsch shares that approach. For example, Chapter 5 is titled "Your Authentic Strategy." The underlying premise of this work is the need to create a company worth referring. The second key idea is that you get ahead by helping others first. We're encouraged to partner with other businesses, and to always be looking for ways to help others, to connect, to refer. There are no one-way streets in Jantsch world. You clearly give as well as get. The icing on this cupcake is the multitude of examples and references that help one understand just what all of this means and how it's done.Then, once the underlying foundation is in place, Jantsch starts with the mechanics, and, unlike other "idea" based authors - many of whom I also love - Jantsch gets into the guts of the issue. Here's how. Here's where you go. Do this next. There's no sugar coating. This stage isn't about the tasty result. This is about the process. Jantsch doesn't just cover the need to blog, he starts at the basement. For example, from P. 131, "Keyword rich" covers the way you need to use keywords in your blog in order to make it accessible. Sure, you might want to buy another book just on SEO, but in this one section, Jantsch manages to succinctly distill the basics that you will need - including providing tools like [...] which will help you.If you take all of this book to heart, and implement it fully, not only will you have a great referral machine, you'll have a great business. This one book may not have all the information you'll need to improve all of the other parts of your business, but it will help you identify parts that aren't working because they will keep you from being talk, or referral, worthy. This book, assuming one has an Amazon Prime membership - and every small business owner should - is $11.69 today, its release date. I'd be surprised if your return on investment wasn't at least 1,000 times that. On the other hand, you could order 20 to 30 other books to cover the various aspects covered here - and I would hope for that, you'd have greater results, but somehow I seriously doubt it.I love this book, and I think you will too.

In today's business with so much competition vying for customers, if you don't have a good referral system in place, you're missing the boat. THE REFERRAL ENGINE: TEACHING YOUR BUSINESS TO MARKET ITSELF, by John Jantsch may be just what you need to put your referral system in place. Geared for the small business owner, there are plenty of ideas here applicable to large corporations as well. This is possibly the most complete work on building a referral network available.As if you need persuasion, Jantsch first builds the case for why you need referrals in your business. That part seems like a "no-brainer" to me so I won't elaborate here. The next chapter is a "no-brainer" as well, but one often overlooked, and that is the importance of how employees view the importance of building referrals. This is a 3-pronged stool; the employee must know clearly what is expected, have the proper tools to do what is expected, and receive appropriate praise and feedback when expectations are met. This, of course, is predicated on the notion that your employees first believe in the company. If they truly believe that your company offers world class products or service, then they are doing a disservice to their customers by not asking them to refer their friends.Chapter 3 examines the Path to Referral by introducing the 4 "C's" of marketing; content - context - connection - community. The question is posed, "Where does your company fit in?" Here we examine the customer life cycle and an expanded view of collaboration; collaborating with prospects, customers, staff and businesses within your network.The next few chapters look at building a referral system that is right for you. Jantsch covers just about every aspect of referrals and sprinkles in plenty of real life business examples of these systems being successfully used.Once you reach Chapter 10, your mind will be swimming with new ideas you want to implement right away, but Janstch leaves no stone unturned as here we look at what to do when referrals start coming in to do business with you. We look at what can be learned from these referrals and what to do at this point in the process. There are also some valuable resource links for online tools that will be essential for small businesses to build a successful referral network.Chapter 11 looks at developing "Referral -specific Campaigns" such as landing pages, community events and exchanging services for advertising. Chapters 12 & 13 wrap things up with Snack-sized suggestions that looks at successful referral systems for specific types of businesses, with plenty of real-life examples, and a workshop for putting it all to work for you.This book has been a pleasure to read and I've learned a lot from it. I have only one knock on the book. Mr. Jantsch desperately needs an editor. The work is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors and typos. If you can overlook that, this gook is a gem.

So many business books out there are chock full of ideas but the framework to turn those ideas into actions are completely missing. The result is a "smarter" entrepreneur, a "more self-aware" manager or an "increasingly insightful" CEO.With zero behavior change.This is NOT the case with "The Referral Engine."John Jantsch gives you concrete actions that you can take to market your business RIGHT NOW.-I am currently using this book with a Mastermind Group I facilitate. We are reading the book backwards. And having great results!We started with Chapter 13 and I challenged the members of the Mastermind Group to decided and begin to work on one of the 6 action plans re-summarized in Chapter 13. Each person skimmed the appropriate chapter (5-10) for the action plan they thought was most critical to work on and began to write out their plan. Next we read Chapter 12 and each person was challenged to identify their favorite snack-sized suggestion and what they might to market their business better based on that suggestion. This resulted in a significant discussion, brainstorming and inspired ideas (one of which I am now using in my business!).Now we are reading the book, enhanced by the free discussion guide available on Jantsch's website.The result: people are reading with the end-in-mind. That end goal being a specific action plan to market their business more effectively.The only thing that would make this book better (and why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5) would be downloadable action plan worksheets. Maybe for your next book, John?

If you are a business owner of salesman then you will know the value of referrals and this book will help you get better.If you are just starting in business then you are soon going to discover the importance of referrals, so the sooner you start the better.Enjoy!

This book was recommended to me as a must read and consequently I am very happy to recommend it to anyone else as a must read for a growing business that is focused on giving extraordinary customer care...If your business is like mine with customers at the heart of everything you do you will love this book, if on the other hand your business doesnt function with customers at its heart then you simply wont get this book.Your decision....

Very good and practical advices. Finally a book that includes all you need as a professional to build referral and happy clients

If you want to leverage your sales and business through referrals, then this book is for you. The book has a detailed level explanation of referral system and tools. For novice as well intermediary readers who want to learn about referrals.The author introduces 4 C's of marketing that is Content, Context, Connection and Community and gives emphasis to the right convergence of each other based upon the business you have.Book is full of strategies and tools description and what I like the most that at the end of some chapters it has an action plan that is a kind of summary of the entire chapter. If the chapter is understood and in future some reference is required to brush up things; then this action plan is helpful.Read it to take your business and sales to the next level. Might be you are missing this book to leverage.​

Ottimo libro, davvero consigliatissimo! L'unica critica che posso fargli è che poteva essere un po' più corto, alla fine i concetti vengono ripetuti varie volte e si poteva snellire un po'...ma questo non toglie niente all'altissima qualità dei contenuti. Per tutti coloro che vogliono migliorare i propri processi di business online, sia principianti che facenti parte di aziende navigate, questo libro vi aprirà un mondo! Complimenti all'autore.