In this episode of MSP Founders Den, we discuss the Power of Referrals and how to best approach our customers to get organic referrals based on their positive customer experience. We also share important lessons we have learned through our years on how to maximize the effectiveness of these resources.

Don't forget to download our free e-book "Top 6 Benefits of Having a ScoreCard".

"We believe if you do not measure what you're doing, you won't know if you're growing or slowly dying."

Hello guys, this is Jhovanny Rodriguez, co-founder of an MSP as well as a voice services company selling through the channel.

Today, we're going to be talking about the power of referrals and how to ask for referrals in the right way. One of the things that I keep saying is that, 'cause I talk to MSPs all over the country, there's one thing in mind, and it is how to add revenue, how to grow the company. So we created this series of video blogs to try to convey to you some of the challenges we've had, some of the lessons we've had in a very open book matter, so I hope you enjoy it. 

So what are some of the challenges for being able to get referrals? One of the main things is, most MSP doesn't have a reliable lead generation machine that you can count on month after month, as most MSP don't have a marketing department, you're not comfortable, or don't have the time to do prospecting, cold calling and generate really fresh leads every month.

Maybe your business has plateaued, meaning that your business has reached a growth level that it's either steady, but not growing any faster or not growing at all. You need to bring more money to bring more resources, it's a chicken and the egg situation, or you're trying to find some kind of shortcut and that shortcut doesn't come.

So as an MSP, in the beginning, we were pretty much on the same boat as some of you might be. On the MSP side, we worked lots of hours, we didn't have that lead generation machine. Our work was seven days a week for the first two years, I would say and I remember little by little, we got our Sundays off and our Saturdays off, and then it became a regular workweek. Date nights, back in those days were coming to the office and doing some work.

So, if I had known something or if there was something I could have done to speed up that growth sooner, that would have been great and it would have been something I would love to have heard. So let's go through some of the lessons that we're gonna teach you or share with you in this video.

So we're going to show you two lessons that we learned over the years.

These are both while running an MSP and now as a voice provider through the channel.

• Lesson #1 - Make sure your quarterly meetings are happening

Lesson number one is, extremely important, one for customer retention but two for you to make sure that your customers know exactly what's happening with the business, your relationship, and the work that you're doing for them.

This is a perfect time where you can talk about your wins, reviewing the quarter, what has happened, and hear their vent. Many times, customers would share with you some of the struggles in their business. And you're a business owner as well, so you become their sounding board where they're sharing with you confidential information about some of the struggles they might be having in their business, and you could provide some referrals and bring in some staff to help with their current scenario.

I've been in situations where they were sitting down to review IT and they're telling me about how they are struggling with their financials, take away into being that they need a new accountant or they need somebody to be partial CFO of some kind.

So that is the perfect time to do that. Besides venting, talk about the plans for the next quarter, the plans for the next year, you can forecast some of the expenditures that are coming so that way it doesn't become a surprise. That can include some of the equipment that has to be upgraded in the future, but also, you wanna talk about what are some of the things that you're doing that don't cost any money, but that improve processes, getting them to trying to understand their business a little bit deeper, a little bit better so that way you can actually not only upgrade technology but upgrade technology and incorporate technology into those business processes. That's something that you'll hear me say over and over again.

If they're happy and things are going well, that would be the perfect time for you to say, "Hey, if you like what we're doing, we rather spend more time... " And it sounds cliché, but it's true. "We'd rather spend more time servicing you than trying to find new customers, and is there anybody that you can make an introduction to better than giving you their contact information that could take advantage of the type of service that we're providing for you?" And that is a perfect time.

Obviously, if there are some things that you have to work out with the customer, that's not the right time to ask. But if the meeting goes well and you're showing value, there's absolutely nothing wrong with asking for that referral.

Customers that are referred are eight times more likely to do business with you than somebody that you meet through some type of cold call or anything like that.