Because John Jantsch writes well, The Referral Engine* is a deceptively quick read. Deceptive because, if you’re like me, you’ll want to pause, bookmark, and/or go back and make sure you’ve absorbed all the information Jantsch’s book contains.

At the start of his new book, Jantsch cites an informal survey of  small business owners:

Unsurprisingly, I found that 63.4 percent felt that over half their business came by way of referrals. But, of the same group, 79.9 percent readily admitted that they have no system of any kind to generate referrals.

Sound familiar? If this sounds like you, take heart. It will probably turn out that you’re doing some (or many) things right–but perhaps not as systematically as need be.

The Referral Engine is a terrific book. It’s filled with:

• Nuggets of business sense (i.e., “every business needs to create or capture their simple strategy, differentiator, or process that allows them to communicate their unique difference in thirty seconds or less).
• Homework (such as identifying your “secret sauce or way of doing business that you plan to use to drive your content strategy”).
• Examples from businesses that are walking the walk.

This book has energized me to revisit some of what I’m doing to generate referrals in my business. Unless you’re drowning in work and the phones are ringing off the hook, you might want to check out The Referral Engine too.

*Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book in exchange for agreeing to review it–but without any restrictions on what I might say.