Ep #286: Avoiding Referral Blind Spots

Stacey Brown Randall: Nobody wants to admit that they have blind spots, but we all do. In business, leadership, parenting, and referrals are no different.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 286 of the Roadmap to Referrals podcast, a show about helping you build a referable business. I’m your host, Stacey Brown Randall. My journey from a business failure to a successful business now 10 years in, I know generating referrals naturally and consistently has made all the difference. Working with clients around the world, we leverage the science of referrals, protect relationships above all else, and help you build a referable business.

Well, it’s the final month of the year. Seems like a good time to talk about referral blind spots. At the very least, what I’m hoping is that you’ll decide which of these blind spots you don’t want to carry with you into next year.

Now, unfortunately, these blind spots are pretty common. And I’m just going to hit you with a couple. But know this is not all of them. But I think these are the big ones you need to understand. So here they are.

Number one, not knowing what you have. What I mean by this is that you have no idea what is real and what is fantasy when it comes to referrals in your business. Just because your last three new clients came from referrals, it doesn’t mean your business is all by referrals.

I need to know, and you need to know, if you don’t want this referral blind spot, you need to know what your data says. Because frankly, it’s really all that matters.

In my coaching program, BRB, Building a Referable Business, or really with any of the clients I work with, even if you’re in one of my online courses or you do VIP with me, We track. Like there’s actually a lesson that provides to you a tracking mechanism.

Actually, it doesn’t matter how you work with me, whether you do a self-study online course, you’re in my coaching program, or we do VIP referrals in a day, like one-on-one working together, it doesn’t really matter, we’re tracking. And everybody kind of has the same tracker. And we’re actually tracking where your business comes from, and we’re tracking the referrals received.

I can’t tell you, and I’ve talked about it before on this podcast, but I can’t tell you how many people will tell me, I’m just not getting the referrals I thought that I would be getting. And I’m like, okay, let’s figure out what’s going on. To the data we go.

And I will never forget one time I was having a conversation with a client, and I was like, all right, let’s look at the tracker. And we pulled it up and thank goodness his marketing coordinator had been updating the tracker.

And I’m looking at all this business he’s brought in by referrals. And I was like, um, what were you expecting to see? Because here is a whole lot of referrals and you’re closing a lot of it and it’s worth a whole lot of money.

And he was like, oh. I guess I haven’t looked at this in a while. I didn’t realize how much of the business was actually coming from referrals. I just made an assumption that it wasn’t.

So this referral blind spot can work on the negative, like, hey, you’re getting referrals and you don’t realize it because you have a blind spot about not knowing what you have.

But for most people, it’s the opposite of that. Most people will tell me, oh, yeah, all my businesses buy referrals. And then I’ll start asking some questions or we’ll look at their data together. And they’re like, whoa, it’s not.

Sometimes you know. If you know you don’t get referrals, you’re probably not wrong. But it’s for the folks who get some referrals or what feels like a lot of referrals at certain times of the year or throughout the year, off and on, that they then do this anecdotal generalization that they get a lot of referrals.

And maybe you do, and that’s great. But a blind spot is you not knowing what is actually true. Like what is the actual results? What does the data say? You have to know what you have in your business when it comes to referrals. So just knowing the data clears this one up for you.

All right, so let’s talk about referral blind spot number two. Not working from where you are in reality.

The first plan or strategy you put in place if you want to get more referrals should get you to the results, you’re after as fast as possible. So if you receive referrals, but you barely close any of them, the first strategy I would be saying we need to talk about is, do you need to learn how to get better quality referrals, or is this a closing issue? Are you struggling to actually close the referrals that are sent to you?

So we’re going to look at your closing process. And we’re also then going to look at the quality you’re receiving. Because if you’re receiving a bunch of referrals, and we can get you to close more of them, that means more paying customers or clients faster.

So when you work from where you are in reality, it’s based on, I don’t know, blind spot number one, what your data says, because that tells us the first plan or strategy we’re going to put into place so we can get you the results as fast as possible.

But if your issue is, hey, I’m getting referrals, but I’m not closing them, or I’m getting referrals, but the quality isn’t great, we need to fix that first. It’s called a situational strategy. That’s what those two are. And we need to fix that first.

Which is very different than you actually not receiving referrals and needing to start with a different strategy. In this case, it would be Referring Machines, which teaches you to cultivate new people to refer you. Get new referral sources. And this one takes time. You need to start sooner rather than later. And that is always better.

But I’ll talk to people, and they’ll be like, I just need to get more referrals from the people referring me. I’m like, great, we can do that. And then I’ll look at their data, and they have like four people referring them. And I’m like, it’s not critical mass enough, actually, to worry about those four, unless you only need like two referrals a year. Most people I work with do not. Some people do. But it’s very rare.

When you’re thinking about this, when someone says, I just need to get more referrals from the people who are giving them to me, I’m like, you have four people giving you referrals. That’s not starting from or working from where you are in reality. Actually, what you need are more people referring you.

And then once we have more critical mass of people referring you, then we can focus on cultivating more referrals from your existing referral sources. So that’s kind of what people need to understand. It’s like, hey, you need to know where you are, like the truth, the hard truth, the reality, and then make sure that you’re working from there.

Because if you’re not working from where you are in reality, it’s just a blind spot and you’re probably wasting time and you’re probably not getting the results you want. Okay, I got one more referral blind spot for you.

Hey there, pardon the interruption. To make progress with referrals in your business, please don’t go it alone. If you want to double, triple, or quadruple your referrals, then let me give you the roadmap and show you exactly how to do it. It’s all waiting for you inside my coaching program, Building a Referable Business. Find all the details of the program and the link to complete your application at StaceyBrownRandall.com/referable. That’s right, we take an application to make sure you’re the right fit and that we know we can help you when you join Building a Referable Business the coaching program. Now, back to the episode.

Okay, here’s our third referral blind spot. Not planning to incorporate some referral strategy or plan if you want referrals.

I know that may sound silly, but you’d be surprised how many people I talk to, they’re like, I want referrals. And I’m like, great. What are you planning on doing to make that happen? Like, are you going to incorporate a strategy or a plan? And they look at me and they’re like, It’s almost like they’re like, wait, no, you don’t have a silver bullet easy button answer for me? Like, no, I do not.

Here’s the thing. If you don’t want referrals, then you don’t need a plan. But quite frankly, I’m not really quite sure why you’re listening to this podcast. So that being said, let’s assume you want referrals. Then you must be willing to map out what you need to do and then do the work.

There isn’t a shortage of people out there who can teach you how to generate referrals. I know, I see them out there in the world as well, teaching people, telling people how to get referrals.

I get comments on my post and even in direct messages with people telling me that they want to learn how to ask for referrals. And first, I mean, I sometimes I want my response to be like, what? Why are you following me?

Why are you trying to learn from me? Because if you want to ask for referrals, I’m not your gal. Like, I’m not going to teach you that. I think it’s terrible. I don’t want to do it. I sure as heck am not going to teach other people how to do it.

But my response to them sometimes is why? Why do you want to learn how to ask for referrals? Right? Because it sounds awful to me. But if it’s because the idea of asking for referrals gets you super crazy excited, okay, you do you. Do it. You really don’t need a script or a strategy. You just probably need to start asking then if that’s what you want to do.

But for the rest of us, like the people probably listening to this podcast episode on purpose and didn’t just stumble here, we’d rather receive referrals and lots of them without asking.

So if you fall into this camp, then you cannot suffer from this blind spot of not planning to do something about it. So you need to plan to put the right strategies in place, in the right order, and cultivate relationships with those who can refer to you.

Do me a favor. Don’t let these three referral blind spots keep you from the referrals you deserve in 2024.

Show notes page for this episode can be found at StaceyBrownRandall.com/286. And that’s for episode 286.

Okay, we’re back with another great episode next week, created with you and your needs in mind. Until then, you know what to do, my friend, take control of your referrals and build a referable business. Bye for now.