The customers you already have could be your biggest lead source, and you may not even realize it.

Think about it this way, every customer you have, most likely has brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, and friends, so why not tap into it.

Here are a few ideas to draw leads out of your current customers.

1. Whenever you come in contact with one of your customers, give them two of your business cards, and tell them directly that one is for them and the other is so they can refer someone to you.

Send them greeting cards on their birthday and on holidays with the same approach, this will keep you in their thoughts and they will be happy you were thinking of them.

2. Once you have closed the sale with a new customer, be sure to send them a thank you to let them know how grateful you are for their business.

However, don’t send it to their home, send it to their place of employment. By sending it to their place of employment, all of their co-workers will want to know who sent it and why. So now your customer will be forced to tell all of his co-workers all about you! And don’t forget the business cards.

3. Every three months designate some time out of your evening, lets say about an hour or so. Put together a list of customers names that have become new to you in the last three months. Give them a follow up call to see how everything is going, and if they have any questions you could possibly answer for them. While you have them on the phone, inform them of the second reason you are calling, and that would be to see if they had anybody in mind that they could refer to you.

If they say no, than thank them and tell them to have a good evening. Don’t say things like “are you sure?” Or “would you like to think about it?” Just thank them and hang up.

Believe me, this technique works, for every twenty customers you call, at least one will refer someone to you.

Your current customers are by far one of your greatest referral sources, so don’t think of them as statistics only, go after more of their business, and that of their friends and family.

Jay Conners has more than fifteen years experience in the banking and mortgage industry as a loan officer and sales manager. He is the owner of http://www.jconners.com, a mortgage resource site. He also owns http://www.callprospect.com.