In this document, Bill Cates offers 10 tips you can act on quickly that will start to increase your flow of quality referrals.

1. Carefully review the “process” you put prospects through early in your relationship with them. Are you bringing real value to them quickly? Are you creating an “experience” that they’ll want to share with others? Are you becoming referable quickly?
2. Ask a “value-seeking” question after every meeting with a prospect or client. Make sure that they see the value you bring to them. Depending on the context, your question might be “George, I wanted to stop for a minute to see how we’re doing and to make sure this process has been valuable to you. Can we discuss this for a minute?”
3. Plant referral seeds, such as “Don’t keep me a secret,” as often as you can without becoming obnoxious. The combination of a value-seeking question and a referral seed can be highly effective.
4. Start asking for referrals by “practicing” on clients who like you. They might not be your biggest or best-connected clients, but they’ll be happy to brainstorm on who else should know about the work you do.
5. After a bit of practice, start asking clients who have already given you a referral. It’s an easy conversation.
6. Then identify your top 20% — the “A” clients who you’d want to clone. Ask them for referrals to people much like themselves.
7. Start identifying people who’d make great Centers of Influence and work on forming strong relationships with them.
8. Always be clear on who fits your practice best and who doesn’t. Only take referrals that fit, unless the prospect is a close family member.
9. Always keep your referral source in the loop and always say “thank you” for your referrals with a small gift (such as a lottery ticket, pen, mug, etc.).
10. Get a copy of our Unlimited Referrals Action Guide. This tool will help you put the entire system into action over time.

To get good referrals, you have to ask for referrals. Jump into the water and practice. All the books and tapes (as good as they are) won’t help you until you’re willing to trust yourself and try these strategies.