We LOVE referrals. Referrals are the best leads you can get, hand downs. But.

Yes, there's a but. It’s not good to put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak – if you have a referral dry spell, you need other strategies to fall back on.

Try these (usually underutilized) alternatives:

• Guest Blogging
  • Publishing your content on other sites opens you up to a whole new audience. Figure out where your prospective customers are online – you need to target the places they’re most likely to come across your content – and write blogs that fill the content gaps in those publications.
• Paid Online Marketing
  • Budgeting some money for paid/sponsored media will give your content a boost. Again, figure out where your prospective customers are online, and devote your money to those places; Google Adwords and social media platforms are good places to start.
• Conferences and Networking Events
  • Face-to-face networking might be “old school,” but it certainly isn’t dead. Brush up on your handshake, ice breakers, and networking skills, get your business cards out, and start attending conferences and networking events where you might find prospective customers and/or industry partners.

So even if you’re crushing it in the referral department, consider these other strategies as insurance. As they say, it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it – and in this case, having it is critical to your success.