Referrals: How to do them, what we do with them

As a small business, most of our new members come to us through word of mouth. So we thought we’d write a brief guide on how to refer someone to us to make it easier for you when talking to people about this CrossFit thing we do, makes it more understandable for them, and provides us with qualified leads – i.e. people who are actually interested in trying out CFI and going to enjoy their time with us.

How to refer someone?

When you’re telling someone about CrossFit Ireland, tell them what initially hooked your interest. What made you decide what you were going to give it a go? What’s your experience like here? Don’t be afraid to let people know that it’s a bare bones facility with heavy weights and plenty of sweat. CrossFit isn’t exactly a relaxing day spa with gentle pan pipes playing softly in the background!!

Let them know what sets us apart for you, and what aspect of our service would appeal to them? Would they be swayed by the coaching, the craic we have, the challenge it is? All this will give the a really solid idea of what we do and whether it’s something they want to be involved in.

For a lot of people, it's the community vibe that makes CFI a fun place to train

What do we do with referrals?

Back in the olden days *shudder*, we’d just throw people into a class and let them feel it out. As you can gather, this wasn’t the best experience for a newcomer, as they whole context and philosophy of what we’re doing was lost on them. Now, thankfully, we’ve a much better system in place.

Firstly, we phone prospective members and have a 5-10 minute chat with them, see where they currently are exercise-wise, tell them a bit about our program, and see if they’d like an intro session.

Our intro sessions are a 60 minute one-on-one with a coach, and are completely complimentary. It’s our chance to go through why we started CrossFit, why we train the way we do and really explain how everything works with them. They also get to try out a CrossFit workout so they’ve a really good understanding of what it’s like before making the commitment.

After that, if they join, they get to experience the same great awesomeness all you get to experience. If not, at least they got a good workout in that day!!

Idea

Here’s a great idea, and like all great ideas, we didn’t come up with it, one of our members did! (They want to remain anonymous because they’re not fans of the limelight!). Take out your phone. Spend 5 minutes going through your contacts list. Find one person that you think would really love CrossFit Ireland and it would make a great difference to their life. When you do, get in touch with them and let them know about us. If they’re interested in taking an intro, we’ll give them a call.

It’ll be win-win-win for all of us!

What are your thoughts?

As always, thank you.

PS for other affiliates: This video by John Jantsch sparked this off for us, which was referred to us by reading Seth Godin’s blog. Tom is reading his book at the moment too.