Ep #323: Managing Predictability with Referrals

Stacey Brown Randall: Lately, the word I keep hearing people stressing about is the need for predictability in their business. Let’s talk about what this means in business and with referrals.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 323 of the Roadmap to Referrals podcast, a show that proves you can generate referrals without asking or manipulation. 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.

Lately, I keep hearing business owners talk about the need, the desire, the anxiety for and around predictability. It is very much a desire and a want, and one that seems hard to find, not always, but at times.

That need or want or desire for predictability when you’re talking about business, seems to fall into three main categories. When I’m talking to folks, these are at least the three things I hear bubble up. You may hear something different when you talk to folks about predictability or you think about predictability in your own business, which is great.

You may have different opinions. I’d love to hear from you on this. But in the conversations that I’m having, whether it is in conversations with my clients, conversations with prospects who are considering working with me, my mastermind group, other business owners that I have conversations with, that need, that want for predictability falls into these three main categories.

One, leads. Two, clients. Three, cash flow.

So anytime you talk about leads, clients, and cash flow, there is an indirect link to referrals as a source for those leads who turn into clients and ultimately become cash flow for your business.

So before I dive into talking about this from a referral perspective, I first just want to talk about this from a business perspective. I think this is really important.

When you think about predictability, it means different things to different people. I mean, I think that everyone can agree on the definition of predictability, right? It’s something being predictable. Like, I can count on it. It’s coming every day, every week, every month.

But most of us know and that is great in terms of what we ultimately want and what we desire and what would be amazing to have. But the truth is, that’s not really how it works. They’re unfortunately in business, there’s not much in business that offers predictability.

Now, that’s not true. I guess there are some things that you can predict in your business. And my mind instantly went to like all the negative stuff. Like you can predict that those invoices you need to pay are going to show up and that credit card statement is going to show up every month.

Like there are definitely some things we can predict. I don’t mean that we don’t have predictability in our business. But predictability in business, when people want it and there is angst around it, it is typically wanting predictability for things they don’t ultimately control, meaning the outcome. They don’t control the outcome.

All they can control is the what they’re supposed to do, the actions, the activities, the behaviors, the mindset. All they can control is what they can do. And then they have to kind of let it happen for the outcome to ultimately happen.

And that’s hard, right? That’s hard when you are trying to make payroll for yourself or other employees that you have. That is hard when you are trying to grow your business, and you want to invest in other things in your business. That need, that desire for predictability.

So when I hear people talk about like the angst of predictability in their business, that’s what I mean when I hear folks talk about it from the perspective of leads, prospects, people who are interested in maybe possibly hiring you.

And then the clients who come from those leads are prospects, the ones who actually give you money. And then of course money, cash flow.

That seems to be like, I hear this comment a lot. I just want predictable leads. Or I just want to be able to predictably have three new clients every month. Or I just predictably want to know that I’ve got x thousands of dollars coming into the bank account every month.

And in those three categories specifically, because you don’t control the outcome, it’s not offered. That predictability of knowing exactly what it’s going to look like on Monday, September 1st. I have no idea if September 1st falls on a Monday, but you know what I’m saying here.

We can’t make it like, hey, in 30 days, I’m exactly going to be right here. And even when you do find predictability, when it comes to your leads or your prospects or your cash flow, it seems to be for a season at most.

Like I talked to folks who do SEO and there is a predictability that they promise their clients regarding based on how it all works that I do not understand in the world of like Google and algorithms and SEO and stuff that by keyword searches and things like that, that there are so many searches happening and if they can get you to where they need you to be, you can’t have so many eyeballs on you.

And there is, you know, an expectation of what that flow would then look like of leads into your business, until they change the algorithm, right? Until all of a sudden something changes and now, you’re running Facebook ads, and your pay-per-click was like, you know. $2 and all of a sudden, it’s $10.

So even when you find some level of predictability, something usually makes it change. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be doing things in our business and testing things and experimenting and seeing, OK, let’s see how this works or this works.

But it’s that recognition that even when we find predictability in a certain area of our business, sometimes it is only for a season because external forces happen that shift the game, that change the playing field. And we have to adapt.

And that’s where I see people have that angst of like, I just wish this was predictable, right? And I wish it were predictable every single day, every single month, every single quarter. And that’s just not how it works.

I believe what you control in regard to predictability is your repeated consistency of your actions and your mindset. So when you think about the things that you need to do on a repeated basis to have prospects or leads coming into your business, you don’t control the number that are going to show up.

Sorry, some of you promises that they can, they’re just at best guesstimating. So when you look at it from that perspective, you’re like that flow of those leads or those prospects.

I mean, even when I do this from a referral perspective with folks and they’re like, hey, how many referrals can I expect in a month? And I’m like, I don’t look at things on a on a daily, weekly or monthly basis when it comes to referrals. I look at things on a quarterly basis and then a yearlong basis.

Because I know, being in this and doing this for almost 11 years, even when you were receiving what we would call consistent referrals, meaning you’re getting referrals consistently, even I know that has some ebb and flow to it. Ultimately, that has ebb and flow to it.

You could get like one or two in the month of April and then get 10 in May because it’s not something you can just point your finger at and be like, give me that. Right? That’s not how referrals happen. Like that referral is going to show up today. Like that’s just not how it works.

And so I like to look things on a yearlong basis because I know there will be ebbs and flows on the ongoing months within those 12 months that make up that full year.

So when people say that predictability, even when I look at like, okay, I think about someone like Katherine, who’s an attorney who’s in my program and she’s been with me eight years now, I think we’ve been tracking her results. And I look at her growth.

She started out her first year with me, she went from averaging 12 referrals a year and we got her to 40 in her first year working with me. And then we moved her to like 52, and then it was something else in the 50s, and then she jumped to the 60s, and then she jumped to the 70s, and then she jumped to the 80s.

And that has been what we would now look at it as kind of like a predictable growth of referrals because she’s been growing by 10 or 20 every year. But what’s serving that, what’s making that reality is that Katherine is a master at doing the consistent actions that drive the potential for those referrals.

But if I looked at each individual month within those seven years of us tracking her results, I wouldn’t see five in May, ten in April, and it’s five every May, and it’s ten every April. It wouldn’t look like that. It could look like one year, year three, she could get none in March, and then in year five, she got ten in March.

So that predictability, I think, that we’re ultimately after is understanding how do you define it and how do you apply it to certain things in your business. But also in my world, what I believe is that what you control in regard to predictability is just the repeated consistency of your actions and mindset.

And if you have the right actions and the right mindset, then the producing of those results ultimately come. And if they don’t come, then obviously we know we got to tweak something. We got to change something. Right?

So what are those repeated, when we’re thinking about this, what are those repeated actions and that consistent mindset I think you need for referrals? Well, let’s break it down.

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, pardon the interruption. If you’re a long-time listener to the podcast, then you’ve heard me mention my Building a Referable Business coaching program. But did you know it is only one of the three ways to work with me?

If you are just dipping your toe into getting serious about referrals or wanting to see what I’m all about, then I encourage you to grab your seat in my starter course called Your Next Five Referrals.

If you have a small team and you want me to build your strategy for you, I do all the heavy lifting, and then I come to you with you and your team live and teach it to you and help you deploy it, then check out my VIP program.

Links to all three ways to work with me, the starter course, Your Next Five Referrals, the Building a Referable Business coaching program, and the VIP Referrals in a Day program are all in the show notes page for this episode. And of course, listed right on the homepage of my website, StaceyBrownRandall.com. Don’t forget, Stacey has an E. Okay, now back to the episode.

Stacey Brown Randall: Alright, so let’s talk about these repeated actions. There are, not to overwhelm you, but there are four that I want you to understand real quick. I’m not going to belabor these.

I have episodes where I talk about each one of these, but I just want you to understand the repeated actions that I tell my clients they have to be committed to doing so that they can have consistency so that there is some level of long-term predictability of referrals in their business, is number one, you have to have a plan for how you care for those people who are already referring you, who refer you right now.

And that’s a plan that is authentic, but also will trigger referrals. And it is a plan that you do year in and year out. You do it every year. And it’s not just you have to build the plan and then you put it on the digital shelf where it collects dust, you actually execute too.

That really should go without saying, but to be honest, I probably need to say it. So it’s a plan for how you care for those folks who are referring you now, that’s authentic and will trigger referrals. And it’s something that you do execute on year in and year out.

The second thing that I think you should be doing for repeated actions is you should be tracking what is happening as it happens. Track what is happening as it happens and then do quarterly reviews.

I love going into the master dashboard that my BRB and VIP clients have access to when they work with me and going in. And, you know, most people go straight to the tracker tab where they’re like, here’s all the referrals I’ve gotten. I love to go to the quarterly tab and be like, yeah, but what’s happening quarter over quarter?

Because, yeah, the tracker tab is really fun, too, because we can see what’s happening and how much money they’re making when they turn a referral into a client, because we track revenue as well as outcome. But the quarterly reviews, that shares the real picture, that shares, in my opinion, the real health of your referrals.

Now, I have an entire episode, episode 304, that walks you through how to do a quarterly review if you’re interested. So just go back to episode 304. We’ll link to it in the show notes. But go back and listen to episode 304 as I walk you through how to do a quarterly review of referrals in your business.

Now, here’s the thing. That quarterly review is only going to work if you’ve actually been tracking what happened in the last quarter or any previous quarter. So just keep that in mind.

Okay, the third thing I think you should be doing for repeated actions that can give you the consistency you’re looking for, and hopefully that predictability you’re looking for, is to execute on your repeatable, referable client experience.

Meaning that every client that comes to work with you, you have a repeatable client experience that really not only delivers amazing work but delivers a wow experience on the relationship side as well. It is both. It is so very important that you consider this from both perspectives. So that repeatable, referable client experience.

And here’s the thing about doing this consistently for every single client. It’s got to be a system and a process, and you will probably have to use some level of automation to get there. You can’t do all automation though. Let me go ahead and just tell you that for those of you who just love your automation and zero human interaction. That’s not going to work either.

But here’s the thing I want you to keep in mind is don’t let the busyness you have in your business or life cause you to cut corners on delivering this repeatable, referable client experience every single time to every single client.

Because to be able to get referrals, keep this in mind, you actually have to be worthy of them. You actually have to deserve them because what you do, the work you do is actually worthy of referrals. And that comes from your client experience.

Okay, and the fourth thing you need to be doing is you need to be consistently nurturing new potential referral sources. For some people, if you don’t have a lot of referral sources, this is like a lift that you do every month as you’re cultivating new people to refer you because you need to build up that bank of people who are referring you.

For others of you who have a lot of referral sources, it’s just that that thought process you have about when you’re meeting somebody new. So maybe you’re not actively looking for someone to cultivate into a referral source, but you’re open to meeting somebody new or coming across somebody at an event or meeting somebody on a panel that you guys are both on.

And you’re like, wow, that person could be a great referral source. And you instinctively have a process that you follow, and that instinctively probably comes from, if you’re a client of mine, because I’ve taught you what it is, of how to nurture that person into a new potential referral source.

And so that may just be being aware of opportunities, or for some of you it could be every month this is what I’m trying to do as I cultivate new people to start referring me. Okay, so those are the four.

There’s a couple of things I want you to understand about a consistent mindset. One, you need to believe that you deserve referrals, but you have to recognize you are not owed them. I talk about this a lot.

You do deserve referrals. We all do. As long as we do great work, build relationships, and we don’t do crappy work, right? And we don’t lie to our clients, and we don’t do subpar junk work, right?

As long as we’re doing valuable work for our clients, we all deserve referrals, and you need to believe it. In your mindset, you need to believe it. But you have to recognize that does not mean you’re owed them. So many strategies today are based on what you are owed, and that is so very wrong and backwards and not appropriate.

The second thing is I always tell folks when they come to work with me in particular is you got to trust the process and the process is not here to give you everything you want in the next 15 days.

You have to trust the process. We are dealing with humans here and we will always respect that. Never manipulate that. Period. I really feel like that’s all I should have to say there.

The other thing I want you to consider with your consistent mindset is, come at this from a place of knowing that you’ve got to put referral, excuse me, you’ve got to put others first. Can you imagine if I said it the other way? That would have been completely not what I meant to say.

You have to put others first, referrals second. Don’t go into a relationship, no matter who that relationship with is, clients, existing referral sources, potential referral sources, centers of influence, right? Don’t go into a relationship with anyone thinking about your referrals first. Be willing to put others first.

Then if you do the right things and you have the right language, referrals will follow. Not exactly how you expect it to and not from every person you expect it to, but they will follow because the processes I teach are proven to work. But you have to come at this from a putting others first mentality. So very, very, very important.

Okay, so there are some consistent repeated actions and mindset that I want you to do in your business that’ll help you control the small part of predictability that you ultimately control.

And the show notes page for this episode can be found at StaceyBrownRandall.com/323. And you’ll also find any links to the resources that we mentioned.

We are 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.