The POWER of REFERRALs

Alhamdullilah, there’s been quite a few comments and emails about my coaching course and so far 7 have sign up. Wohoo..Yup 193 more to go.. So let’s be grateful and thank God for his blessings. Everymile stone should be celebrated and let’s not be too sad if we don’t get the targets. We know we can get there and we’ll work towards that..

This is an another article about the POWER OF AFFILIATES or REFERRALs and why we should build an ARMY of them. This time I chose to write in my blog, because I want to test out something…

I want to show to you some examples that I personally encounter…

My Mum & Izati…

My mum sells kuih, lontong and SATAY..SATAY is actually her signature DISH. You have to try it someday!! :).  Currently she’s not working and staying at home thus she makes this kuih every morning to be sold at the nearby shop 1 block away from my flat and at the same time she’s taking care of Izati, one of our neighbour’s daugther. Izati’s parents are working very long hours, therefore Izati is under our care from 6.30am to 7.30am and 5.30pm to 8pm. In between she will be in school.

Izati is 5 years old and is in Kindergarten 1 now. She is very very bright and talks very fluently too in English and Malay. Well she’s currently schooling in Al Iman Kindergarten in Pasir Ris. The parents chose to send her there because the kindergarten focus on Religious and Main Stream Education. And being in a small class the children gets a lot of attention during their time in school. I heard they have breaks and sleep time too. Yah kids needs the few hours of sleep because when they are active they are really jumping around..haha…Us adults would have a hard time catchin up with them.

So the other day, my mum send Izati to the bus stop where the school bus will usually pick her up. The moment the bus arrived, the Bus Assistant, a lady asked my mum, “Do you make kuih ?”. So mum answered yes and asked her, “How did you know?”. She told my mum that Izati actually told her about that and she wonder if she can ordered some Kuih from my mom…

OK I’ll stop here..

Do you see how I’m already influencing you? Hmm. Infact I’m using some NLP technics here to get your mind to think and your mind to take action. For your info I’m not NLP trained, I’m kind of self taught.. :).

In every single paragragph I wrote, there is a form of recommendation and explaination but there’s nothing that FORCES you to buy except for ” You have to try it someday!! “. and in fact by now I’m not surprised if you write me back via email that you want to order and try my mum Satay..

So now your mind will also think this way…Wah the kid is so smart and can read and speak well at that age. I might want to send my kids to that Kindergarten too. :)..Again here, I just wrote a few lines to tell you more about the Kindergarten. Nothing more… Do you have the urge to find out more about the Kindergarten?

Then finally the big surprise of all..Recommendation from Izati and my mum closed a sale. Honestly I didn’t expect that either. It came naturally from Izati herself as she has been observing my mum preparing the KUIH…Perhaps Izati was carrying some kuih one day and the bus assistant ask her the questions such as “Where did the Kuih come from”.

So now…do you think Direct Advertisements work better or Recommendations work better? Oh no I’m going to kill my advertisement business…haha..but to tell you the truth it won’t die. Yes Fadzuli also do online and offline advertisement via my Company, IslamicSG Networks LLP. I will explain to you another time when do you really use advertisements as they are very very expensive.

After reading the previous line, your mind will start to think…What does Fadzuli really do ah? Well to answer that question. I am an Internet Entrepreneur and being that actually forces me to learn the various aspects of marketing, advertisements, NLP, web developments, psychology and many more but my specialisations is in WEB developments and BUSINESS Strategies. Therefore I have grown more and more of becoming a consultant and insyallah a GURU someday…

Ok let’s go back to the power of Recommendation..

Second story…

One of the students called me up the other day because he wants to know more about this FREE courses I’m telling you about. Therefore I asked him a simple question. “How did you find out about me?”. His answer, ” My mum knew you so she asked me to join this to learn from you”. Wah…the mum must really know me? To be honest I might have forgotten about the mum but in some ways I might have created an impact in their lives so when I start something, these people come back to me..

The second method actually uses Laws of Attraction .

• When I announced the information that I want to start something…there’s infact people who already knew me from the past that hears about it and wants to come back and learn…In fact you will be surprised by the number of people YOU know that is waiting for you to tell them what you are doing…
• People are KEPO ( BEing busy bodys ), they will always want to know about you. So leverage on the idea that “People are KEPO”…. This is developed because we are created by God to be compassionaite. We have emotions, feelings that allow us to care about our Bros and Sisters around us. So sometimes being KEPO is good.
• Create value. What you create today may not be seen as profitable nor successful. Just keep creating value because these values grow overtime and people will remember you because of that.

So when you are RECOMMENDING someone something, make sure it has VALUE and make sure you know what you are talking about and you see the results yourself.

Affiliate marketing online is similar…You have to learn these principles if you want to get good at it. So now imagine if you can duplicate and ARMY of AFFILIATEs. Each one knows how to really “Recommend” products and each one knows how to create “Buzz”. Wouldn’t that be great?

If I teach you to do so and YOU teach that to your own contacts, there is a high chance that anything that we recommend will be sold or moved. :). So yeah you have to learn to get good at RECOMMENDING.

So my first assignment to my students.

1) Write down 5 things that you have recommended someone before?

• It may not necessarily be a product )..
• Asking people to go to eat at a famous Restaurant is also a recommendation.

2) Try to remember how you did it?

Visualize that in your mind, write it down in words….

• You can type on MS words or Notepad. My advice is to use it on Notepad.
• You have to do it on the computer.

Where to find Notepad?

GO to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Notepad

3) Was the idea sold to your family, friend or customer

Write down 5 examples that were successful and 5 examples that were not successful.

Objectives of this exercise?

1. To get you used to typing on the Computer
2. To get you to learn to develop your own stories.
3. To develop the Story teller that is in you.

By the way these stories will be your pillar articles that will start you off later on.

Once you are done, email me the file to fadzuli@technoeo.net.

See ya soon and all the best

Everyone knows 250 people

Have you heard of Joe Girard before? Well I got to know his name through Sufian when we were on our way to KL last April 2007.

Today the name rang a bell again cos it reminded me of this principle that “Everyone knows 250 people”. During that journey, Sufian asked me, “Have you heard of Joe Girard - The world greatest Salesman?”. Well I said, “No, why don’t you play the CD”. Just like many motivational CD, Joe’s CD was different. The speech tell tale a story which many could tear at as he tells you the life he goes through and the hardship till the day that he found his potential as a car salesperson.

Does everyone really know 250 people? This is what Joe Girard did. Everytime he closed a deal, he would pass 250 name cards to his clients and ask them to give it away - then he would say I’ll pay you for referring clients to me. He did what he promised and yes eventually he sold 13,001 in 15 years. I say wow!! Most salesman can only close 1-3 cars per month but Joe average at 72 cars per month. Do you find it ridiculous? Well its true and till today the record has yet to be broken.

So does the 250 name cards work. Here’s how I analysed it based on my experience. Firstly word of mouth marketing really beats any other marketing strategies such as advertising or anything available on this planet. If you can win one person heart and show them the value that you bring into their lives this will spin of to magical results.

This idea resonated to his clients and at the same time it became beneficial to them to refer others to Joe. So imagine closing 72 deals for that month and passed 250 cards to each one. That figure amount to 18,000 cards being printed and distributed. My gosh he dont even need to advertise.

So let’s get to the bottom line to see if it works in todays generation.

Let’s say for 18,000 cards he got a great deal of $8 for 100 cards, therefore amounting to $1440 for namecards. Each car sales, will result in $4,000 to $5,000 in commission ( I’m estimating cos I dont know the real figures. ). So imagine 72 cars - $360,000…

$360,000 - $1, 440 = $358,560 per month!!

OK that’s a lot per month. Anyway I’m just estimating, the price of cars is not worth that much in the US compared to here but you can see the amount of results it created right!!

What we should learn from this is that when someone made a difference to your life directly or indirectly, you owe them this gratitude of promoting them. Whether you like it or not, its a principle you need to believe in else it will be hard for you to grow. Ooh yeah don’t forget to ask for comissions.

Remember this rule that 10% of your earnings needs to be given away. So why not use it for referral fees.

So if you find this post useful to you. Forward it to your friends using the “Share this post” button below! Get your friend notified and who knows this can change their life too.