I’m assuming you are building relationships with people in your community who are able to refer new customers to you. People like real estate agents, apartment complex managers, and other self storage managers. (If you really want to step up your game in this department you should talk to Storage Marketing Solutions.)
Before people start referring to you, they need to like and trust you. There are tons of things you can do to facilitate the referral process, but let’s start with something super-simple.
It’s called the Exposure Effect (or the Mere Exposure Effect).
Psychologists have proven that the more a new acquaintance is exposed to you, the more likely they are to have positive feelings toward you, simply because you are familiar.
You may not have something earth-moving to say and you might not think of yourself as a social butterfly, but it doesn’t matter. Merely get in front of your referral sources on a regular basis, in a friendly and non-annoying way, and they will like you more.
The more they like you, the more likely they are to help you out with referrals. Simple as pie.
P.S. If you are going to the ISS conference in Las Vegas in March, 2011 shoot me an email. I’d love to catch up with you there. I’ll be there Monday evening and most of the day on Tuesday.
If you’re interested you can also see me present live on Tuesday, March 15th at 9:00 am. I’ll be outlining my contrarian approach to “Motivating Manager’s to Sell.”
