S2E4 | How to Grow Your Creative Business with Referrals | Laura Creative Business Success

Welcome to Season 2 Episode 4 of the Creative Business Success Podcast! I'm super excited to introduce you to Laura today. In case you missed the Accelerate Your Creative Biz Summit in spring 2019, Laura was one of the speakers and she had so many fantastic nuggets of wisdom that I knew I needed to have her on the podcast as well. Today, she's going to be giving you her best tips for increasing referrals - aka essentially free advertising! - to get new clients in your creative business. It may not be what you immediately think of, either, so don't miss this one!
Here's a cheat sheet of some of the episode highlights:
Laura's intro, 1:04
Get access to Laura's summit session, 2:12
Laura's secret to increasing referrals, 2:59
Laura's story of increasing photography referrals, 4:27
How client experience helps increase referrals, 7:12
Can a neutral client experience decrease referrals? 9:08
Client communication is key! 10:32
Why you need a standardized client experience, 11:58
Do you use your clients' first names? 14:55
Do you struggle with email marketing? 16:19
Why managing your energy is crucial for referrals, 16:54
You can transfer your energy to your clients! 20:23
You need to create a referral program, 22:14
Be proactive and not reactive in your creative business, 25:20
Give memorable client gifts after a project, 27:35
Laura's closing thoughts on increasing referrals, 29:42
Where to connect with Laura, 33:15
Let's dive deeper into a few of these key takeaways...

1 | Client experience is crucial to referrals!No matter what kind of creative business you run, a good client experience can make or break when it comes to getting referrals. If someone has a bad client experience, you'll get negative word of mouth, but if they have a so-so client experience, they just won't talk about it at all! As Laura's experience shows, having a stellar client experience can net you dozens or even hundreds of additional referrals than you would get otherwise.
You can start with something as simple as addressing your potential clients by name. Do this in email, in person, and when referring to them on social media or to other people. That little bit of personalization can go a long way!
Do you provide a fantastic client experience for your customers? If it's not the kind of experience that they HAVE to tell their friends about (and thus send you referrals!), it's time to step up your game and make it outstanding!

2 | You need a standardized workflowAgain, no matter what kind of creative business you have, this is key. Without a standardized workflow, it's a lot harder to provide a stellar client experience! You end up scrambling, forgetting things, and letting your clients down. And no one wants that!
If you don't have a workflow in place (and hopefully at least partially automated!), Laura and I strongly encourage you to get that set up. If you're a photographer, Laura has workflow guides, email templates, and more in her shop.
Bonus tip: if you're an artist, photographer, or designer, I highly recommend Dubsado to help you automate your workflows. It's a tool created for creative entrepreneurs by creative entrepreneurs that helps you with everything from lead capture to invoicing and workflow management. It can be a serious sanity saver!
Take a moment to create or update your creative business workflows today! Taking that time now can increase your referrals tenfold down the road.

3 | Get a referral program set up!It's easy to think that referrals will be organic and 'just...