The Five-Minute Referral Secret

Here's the shortest great referral idea you'll ever get, courtesy of the Golden Practices blog:

"Find your five favorite clients.  Take them to dinner.  Don’t let them leave until they answer this question:  What can I do to get more clients like you?"

I know an advisor who started using this approach after going through the Automatic Referrals Jumpstart program.  Dennis words it a bit differently, but the idea is the same: "How do I find more of you?" 

He asked one of his favorite clients this question; she was delighted and complimented, and soon thereafter referred him to the man she was dating, who is the executive of a corporation.  Dennis got his accounts.

Now, this gets hard to follow, but next, she referred him to the son of her ex-husband, who is an executive at Microsoft, and his wife. Dennis got that account too.  Then the son's wife introduced him to her parents, who are a very wealthy retired doctor and mathematician.  He got that account too.  When he was telling me this story, he said, "This one million dollar account will be worth $20 million when it's done."

Can you afford NOT to try this great idea?  (Oh, and if you want to take it to the next level, consider a client advisory board (free registration required).