Should you spend your marketing entertainment dollars to cement relationships with your referral partners or with your customers? If a good referral partner represents 10 new customers a year and a customer represents one new purchase a year, the answer is obvious.

A Michigan business owner, Johnna Goodwin of Changing Places Moving & Services Inc., had to make the choice of spending entertainment dollars on Realtors or past clients. She reasoned that past customers would move again in about five years, while the typical Realtor with whom she worked sent her six new referrals each year. (more…)