Welcome and today we’re talking about recommend a friend and referral schemes. We all know that recommend a friend schemes and referral schemes make excellent business sense. So why do I hear from so many Salon Owners that they’re not getting excellent results. Well I think I’ve identified three fundamental flaws which I would like to share with you: 1. They don’t maintain customer interest. I’ve seen two things going wrong here; I don’t think many of your recommend a friend schemes are generous enough. The other thing is I’ve seen people rewarding their customers with something that just don’t interest them. 2. Some schemes fail to maintain the team’s interest. There will be some people that need recommend a friend, but there will be other Stylists or Technicians or Therapists that actually don’t need recommend a friend. So it’s very hard to get traction with your recommend a friend scheme. 3. We get time scales wrong. I think you should be taking your recommend a friend scheme out of the Salon; you need to be reaching people at home by either writing to them or emailing them. I hope that’s been useful to you, have a look at your recommend a friend schemes and see if you can identify in those three categories where you’ve been going wrong. I have put together a paid for training package which is available at http://buildyoursalon.com/referrals. Have a look at that, I expect there’s a cheeky discount over there for you as well! Otherwise I'll see you again next Monday. Take care.