The endorsement letter

Endorsements work. This images is from a screen shot of a Webinar with Mike Jeffries posted on Michael Stone's website.

Yesterday, I listened to a webinar hosted by Michael and Devon Stone of Mike Jeffries of closingsuccesssystem.com. Jeffries offers a free eight week course: "8 Weeks of Low Cost or No Cost Lead Generation Strategies and Tactics" and his first suggestion is elegantly simple and effective: Arrange with your best and most influential clients to send out endorsement letters on your behalf.

Endorsement Letters

Find a customer who is very happy with your services.
Let them know that the best work you get is from referral.
Ask if they would be willing to send a letter to people that they know well - explaining why they were so happy with your services.
Write the letter - offer to address and mail it for them AND cover the cost.
Expect a 10 to 15% response rate.
Imagine what that would do for your profits.

Jeffries describes this process as "putting referrals on steroids". He suggests you can help out with the letter-generation process by preparing the letters and even sending them out for your great clients.

We use a variation of that idea as a cornerstone of our own selling process in the business-to-business space, but add another twist: Our endorsement letters go to the suppliers of the people referring the business.

The principal is simple: If you receive significant amounts of money from an organization or business which you genuinely respect, and that business asks for a small favor or request of you which could help your own business, as well, it is hard to say "no".

Jeffries and Stone, of course, are using other marketing techniques in this webinar and eight week course, and they are selling services which are not free. But you don't have to buy their stuff: They are delivering value with insights, observations, and useful resources, and so deserve some recognition here.

The balancing act

Yesterday, driving to work, and listening to a CD I purchased from another marketing guru (who said he got his ideas from elsewhere, but didn't identify their source, so I'm not going to identify the guru here), I heard an interesting idea that our own business uses effectively. Yet, as I listened to it, I also appreciated the paradox -- the contractor who uses this business model will likely be so busy he won't use it very often because it is TOO effective.

In the example, the anonymous plumbing contractor does a great job in solving an immediate and urgent crisis for a respected public speaker -- saving the client acute embarrassment. After completing the project, the plumber visits the client and asks if he wouldn't mind helping spread the word about the plumber's good work. The enthusiastic client responds "sure".

The plumber then invites the speaker to provide a list of the people he knows in the community, and a copy of a letter explaining the client's great experience with the plumber. The plumber asks the speaker for permission to send this letter -- under the speakers' own signature -- to the contact list provided by the speaker. ("We'll do all the work, in preparing the letters, stuffing and folding the envelopes," the plumber says).

And so the plumber sends out the letters as the first part of a direct marketing campaign -- a campaign with real clout because of the endorsement from the speaker/community leader.

I'm quite confident that a campaign like this would work very well. But you won't see it happen often in practice. The reason is apparent to most of us -- most great plumbers are busy enough as it is and the response they would generate from this kind of marketing would overwhelm their resources and service capacities. In some cases marketing can be too effective -- In this case, you would need a team of journeymen plumbers trained and ready to work to your high standards, and some care in planning how to handle the response from a strong endorsement.

Nevertheless, if you are in any contracting or professional service business, please consider the power and effectiveness of the satisfied client endorsement letter. And note its potential applications for virtually any construction business and the allied professions.

For example, if you are a consulting engineer with expertise in hospital work, if you have a letter from a really satisfied hospital client, who belongs to a trade association and is respected by other clients within that association (say your client is the president of the association!), and if you could get a direct letter of reference/referral and target it to association members in communities where your practice has offices or could serve effectively), I think you can see how this kind of letter would accelerate interest and build powerful referral business for you. And if you are a general contractor, imagine the clout of the organized referral letter distributed to your satisfied client's contacts within your regional business community.

Just remember, do this right, and you won't need to market very often. And note this stuff only works if you do your job really well -- always, I emphasize, the most important cornerstone for successful marketing.

BTW, I'll be happy to send you a sample copy of a referral endorsement letter we use in our own business. Just email me at buckshon@constructionnnrgroup.com.