An endorsement can be an extremely powerful business booster, particularly when the person doing the endorsing is well known and respected by the people who read or hear what he or she has to say. Your endorser doesn’t have to be a famous sportsperson, a film star, or a university president to command respect; someone who is ‘visible’ in your community’s business life will just do fine!

Also the endorsement’s wording doesn’t have to be (in fact shouldn’t be) run-of-the-mill. It can say a lot more than “Louise runs a fabulous hairdressing and beauty salon, please drop by there and see for yourself.” An endorsement can be creative and compelling – truly novel.

Endorsements can be presented through direct mail, TV, telemarketing or a simple personal letter. We use endorsements from satisfied clients all of the time. In fact it is part of the agreement we establish with a new client from the outset. What we say to our clients is, “If you find any of our services or business development products the best value – for – money investment you have ever made in your business, will you endorse them to your clients or customers and business associates.”

Let’s have a an example: When a solicitor friend of one of our daughters wanted to increase the size of her firm I suggested that she approached her accountant – who was also one of her clients – and asked him to send a letter of endorsement to his best clients.

Her accountant readily agreed to do this. This is what the letter said:

“It’s rare for me to write, much less to write about someone in another field. But I’m writing to tell you about my solicitor, Jane Sharpe, and to tell you of some of the great work Jane has done for me.” (At this point the accountant mentioned several ways in which Jane’s advice had saved him time and money. Then came the creative touch) -

“Because I appreciate your loyalty to our accountancy firm over so many years, I was thinking of sending you flowers for your office or a gift box, but I decided that the noblest thing I could do for you is to buy you an hour of Jane’s time. I’ve arranged to do that, and there’s no charge or obligation to ever use Jane again.

The session will not cost you one penny, and you can use it to talk about any subject you want to discuss, whether it’s a business or personal issue – or whatever. I can’t recommend Jane enough. Here’s her number. Just tell Jane that you’re someone for whom I’ve purchased an hour of her time.”

That’s what you call an endorsement. One that was highly successful with just over two-thirds of those people receiving it actually taking up the offer, and 57% visited Jane not just once, but on several occasions. Jane’s business increased dramatically, and the accountant’s business also benefited through a referral percentage.

Referrals provided by your customers/clients and suppliers can be another potent profit-builder and one we frequently use to add significant additional profits to our clients bottom line.

Keep this in mind too: Competitors can actually help you grow your business and profits. Here’s how:

Go to a competitor and show them that if they’ve lost a customer or client that, for all practicality, it’s a sunken cost that they’ve written off. Tell them that if the customer or client doesn’t want to buy from them, they can still make a profit by introducing the customer or client to you. Both sides win.

Go to your competitor and say, “Let me have a chance to access your inactive clients, not your new, active ones. Or tell them, “let me have one of your salespeople to call on your old customers to say, ‘You didn’t buy from us, we understand. We’ve done something to loose your goodwill, but we want to introduce you to somebody we respect. We think that we’re superior and superb, but if you don’t want to do business with us, let us introduce you to the next best thing. We really respect these people.”

If you do just that, the law of averages says that you’re going to get 30% to 50% of those ‘old clients’ to buy from you. Pay the referring competitor as much as 100% of the first transaction. Show them that you could write them a cheque for tens of thousands of pounds, which they could use to pay off debt, to run advertisements, to build new clients, to add to their facilities or, to hire additional sales personnel.

After they get over the shock of a competitor wanting to do business with them, many will agree to your plan. If they say no and tell you to take a wild leap, don’t let that upset you say to them, “I’d say the same thing if someone came to me with this proposition. But let me make a point: You’ve got a lot of lost assets. You spend thousands of pounds to build them.

These old customer or clients are not buying from you now and probably they never will again. Every week, every month, every year that you do nothing with them, it’s a lost asset worth less and less.

If you can convert a thousand of those five thousand customers or clients to me – and I am willing to pay you 35%, 50%, 75% or, 100% of their first transaction with me – I can write you a cheque for £20,000 or £50,000 or £200,000. How bad is that?”

This article has been supplied by Jeffrey Benson, the Managing Director of Brainybusiness.com. Brainybusiness.com provides quality and very useful personal and business growth resources for small business owners. Whatever you need to grow yourself and your business visit: http://www.brainybusiness.com