Ep #331: Introverts, Extroverts and Referrals

Stacey Brown Randall: So you’re an introvert, or maybe you’re an extrovert. Do you identify with an ambivert? I don’t even know if I’m saying that word right. Regardless, introvert, extrovert, does it really impact the referrals you’ll receive?

Hey there and welcome to episode 331 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 11 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.

Back in episode 253, I interviewed a client from my coaching program, Building a Referable Business. Her name is Fabi.

And as part of our interview, we had a quick discussion about how, as an introvert, Fabi felt what I teach, my methodologies, my strategies, the philosophy, the tactics, worked really well for her as an introvert.

Actually, worked really, really well for her. You should have to go listen to episode 253. I’ll link to it in the show notes, but you got to go listen to it to hear how well it worked for her in her first year and her ongoing years as well.

But I was reminded of this recently, this like little, tiny snippet that she and I had this conversation around being an introvert and what I teached works really, really well for her as an introvert.

And in that interview, I was reminded that a lot of times when there are sales strategies being taught or promotional strategies or marketing strategies or prospecting strategies, whatever those strategies are in terms of like growing your business, it really does feel like they’re just built for the extroverts of the world.

They’re just really built for, oh, just go network a ton. Well, that may not sound awful to an extrovert, but it probably does to an introvert.

And when she said it in that interview about how what I teach worked for her really well as an introvert, it gave me pause of like, wait a minute, there are people probably who are wanting to generate referrals.

And the reality of it is they feel like that means they’re going to have to always be on. They’re going to have to have a ton of relationships.

And so the question comes down to will referrals and specifically the way that I teach referrals, do they work for introverts the same way they work for extroverts?

And when I was asked this question recently, I had a flashback to that conversation with Fabi, and I was like, wait, I kind of need to dedicate an entire episode to just talking about this.

So here’s the bottom line. Generating referrals without asking, without manipulating, without incentivizing, and without networking all the time works regardless if you are an introvert or extrovert. Period.

I really could stop the episode right here. They really don’t need more than just a couple of minutes I just took to say that. Because it’s true.

Now, you may need to hear a little bit more as to why my strategies work, regardless if you’re an introvert or an extrovert. So let’s dive into that. But truly, the strategies that I teach are not personality based.

They’re not, hey, the most energetic person in the room gets the referrals and everybody else does not. Because they’re based on relationships. So it has absolutely nothing to do with your personality.

Now, let me just go ahead and say this as my disclaimer, and I’m probably, I can already hear it in my own head. I’m going to say this a couple of times throughout this interview.

When I say this is not based on your personality, what I mean in that is, is that you can’t be dead inside, or you can’t be a constant taker and think that, well, quite frankly, anything’s going to work for you long term or even in the short term.

So when I say that introvert, extrovert doesn’t matter, what I mean is, and then I also say that it is not, this is not based on your personality. What I mean is, is that you actually care, like you’ve got a heartbeat, and you care, and you care about how you treat people.

If you’re dead inside or you’re only a taker and you only care about yourself and you see everybody and everything as dollar signs, well then nothing’s really gonna work for you. And quite frankly, I would say that obviously you should assume that what I teach is not gonna work for you and quite frankly, nothing else will either.

But let’s dig into this just a little bit, alright? For those of you who really need to hear a little bit more about the fact that the strategies that I teach around referrals do work, whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert.

Okay, so by definition, I mean, I just pulled these off the internet, let’s be honest. The extrovert, right, outgoing, overtly expressive person is how they’re defined.

An introvert is usually a shy or reticent person. I think I’m saying that right, reticent. Actually, I’m gonna be honest, I had to look up what that meant. I’m like, what does that mean? It means not revealing one’s thoughts or feelings readily.

So we got our introverts and our extroverts, and of course, a couple years ago, okay, probably way longer than that, maybe a few decades ago, the idea of an ambivert came out, and that’s a person whose personality has a balance of extrovert and introvert features, which let’s be honest, I think we all are that. At some level, we are all an ambivert.

I know for me, most people are like, oh, Stacey, 1000%, you’re an extrovert. Except when I’m done being in crowds around people, and I need some alone time, I’m done. And I need some alone time. And I need to, you know, re-energize myself, like quietly, sitting on my back deck drinking a cup of coffee. Well, you know, my frou-frou-y fancy lattes.

But I think most of us are ambivert, or what I actually feel is probably more true for me is that I’ve grown into being one. I do think being around people got me going, got me energy, and that served me well through my school years, my college years, my early 20s and stuff.

But I do think as I’ve gotten older, I have definitely taken on more of that ambivert, and I feel like I have a very good balance of extrovert and introvert.

Now, some people would say I’m an introvert 1,000%, some people would say I’m an extrovert 1,000%, and I don’t know, I don’t know the science behind this, but I do know that a lot of folks fall into the category of an ambivert.

Again, I don’t even actually know if I’m saying that word right, I’m just gonna assume that I am. I have a whole episode full of words I don’t know if I’m saying correctly. But you love me anyways, right? Okay, good, let’s just move on from the fact that I may not be getting things right.

Alright, so why referrals work despite your personality. And specifically, what I’m talking about when I say why referrals work despite your personality, I’m talking about the way that I teach you to go about generating referrals.

I am not talking about all the other old school advice that is out there about generating referrals. I’m talking about the way that I teach you to generate referrals. So why does it work despite your personality?

Well, the first thing is, is that my strategies for generating referrals are focused on building relationships. And both introverts and extroverts do that really, really well. They may do it differently, but they do it very well.

So this question of like, I remember one time I was working with an attorney, and she was an introvert. And this is one of the very first people that I worked with. And we were having a conversation.

She was like, look, if your strategy and your process means I got to go network all the time, or I’ve got to go like, take 15 people to like coffee, like all at one time, or I’ve got to like host all these crazy big events, she was like, I’m out. Because I’d rather pull out my fingernails.

And I was like, okay, that’s graphic. Nope. What we do, is building relationships is how you decide to do that gets to look different. The focus is on building relationships. The how you go about that, you can absolutely do to fit for who you are. You still have to do it, but you can definitely do it for who you are.

The second thing about why what I teach works, despite your personality, is it’s focused on putting other people first.

Like I said earlier, like you can’t be dead inside or be a taker all the time or only see people as a number because what I do, why it works, why the outreach that we do, the objective that we take, the strategy behind it, the language that we use, the time we’re willing to give it, all that works in terms of my strategy because we are always putting the other person first.

Yes, I know we do want referrals at the end of it, but we are putting the other person first and releasing the outcome from that moment. And that’s really important. And again, introverts and extroverts, all kinds of humans are really good at putting other people first if they choose to be really good at it.

The next reason why it works despite your personality is because it’s helping you stay focused on having a process to stay top of mind and be meaningful and memorable.

So, you know, if you’ve read my book, Generating Business Referrals Without Asking, we talk about the minding your M&Ms, right? That’s the meaningful and memorable.

This is not your newsletter. This is not mailing a card for every major holiday that you never sign. This is not trying to take someone to coffee every single month. Nobody, including yourself, has time for that.

But it’s having a process where you’re staying top of mind and you’re being meaningful and you’re being memorable. And that works despite your personality. You do the things that works for you.

You know, one of the things I talk about is these platinum principles of referrals. And the second platinum principle is it’s got to be authentic to you.

It’s got to feel good doing it, which means introverts may do different things than extroverts, but they’re still capable of doing the things that work as long as they’re willing to do the work to stay top of mind and be meaningful and memorable.

And here’s the other thing I really wanna make sure that I say. Extroverts don’t have the market cornered, so to speak, on building relationships.

Let me say that again. Extroverts do not have the market cornered on building relationships. Introvert, extrovert, ambivert, outgoing person, shy person, I don’t care how you define it. No one group of category of humans has cornered the market or is like the only group that knows how to build relationships with others.

So if you’re capable of building relationships, then you’re capable of generating referrals because that’s where referrals come from is from relationships. So if you can build relationships, you can generate referrals.

Now, you can’t just have a ton of relationships and think that’s somehow magically going to make the leap over to generating you a bunch of referrals. There’s a strategy behind it. There’s the what you do, the how you do it, the when you do it, and the language that you use when you do it. But it can work for you regardless, regardless of your personality.

But I don’t want to leave this episode without talking about who this doesn’t work for, because I think that’s important.

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, pardon the interruption. Do you want to know how to work with me? You can get started by implementing the basics of referrals with my online starter course called Your Next Five Referrals.

Do you want to learn all of my referral strategies with access to me as you build and implement them? Well, then you should apply to join my Building a Referable Business 12-month coaching program.

Or maybe you have a small team, and you want me to build your referral strategy for you and then show up onsite for two days helping your team implement. Then apply to see if you and your team are a fit for my VIP Referrals in a Day experience.

Link to all three ways to work with me can be found on the show notes page for this episode. Alright, let’s get back to the episode.

Stacey Brown Randall: Let’s have a conversation about who this doesn’t work for. Now, spoiler alert, I’ve kind of already talked about it a little bit. Who this doesn’t work for are truly those folks who are dead inside.

They are takers. They care only about themselves first. They’re willing to put other people first for a very short amount of time. And then when it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, they’re kind of like, bah, forget it. This isn’t working. I just need to go back and tell people to give me what I need, right? Or whatever their mentality is in their heads.

Because the truth is your personality isn’t going to impact whether you’re going to have success. Your mindset does, though, and what you truly believe about people impact your success as well.

If you believe that people are just a number and you’re just supposed to show up and get yours and not worry about anybody else, well, what I teach is definitely not going to work for you. I’m not quite sure, frankly, anything will work for you.

But the other thing is, is that your willingness to put other people first, it can’t be time bound. I know that’s really hard because you’re like, hey, I just want referrals. But when I see my clients having success, it’s because they’re putting the strategies in place. They’ve removed the outcome.

Even though we have goals for everything, they’ve removed the outcome from any particular one thing they’re going to do. And they’re trusting the process. And they’re coming at it from a mentality of, I am going to put this process first. I am going to put other people first. And I’m gonna trust that it’s actually going to work.

Because you cannot say, I’m gonna do these three things and then that person’s gonna give me a referral. It doesn’t work that way. I know people want you to believe that it does but think about the last time you gave a referral.

Did you give 14 referrals in the last seven days? No. Okay, maybe one random person did. But most of you guys listening to this podcast didn’t.

For some of you, you’re thinking back, it’s been months since you’ve actually given another business a referral or been in the opportunity because you’re helping someone to give a referral to someone else.

And some of you, if you think back, you’ve had opportunities to give a referral to somebody that you know and trust, and you let the moment pass while you’re in conversation with the person who said they were talking about a problem they had to solve.

It’s really, really important that we remember that when we want referrals to work for us, we have to be willing to trust the process, put other people first, build relationships and release the outcome expectation that we would have because it’s based on some timeline we’ve created in our head or that it’s based on the idea that, you know, I just do these three things and then boom, I’m going to get referrals.

You may do these three things for one person and then it takes six things for somebody else. And guess what? Some people, even if you really, really, really badly want them to refer you, they still never will. And that may have absolutely nothing to do with you, my friend.

It’s important for you to recognize that your ability to generate referrals, it’s not based on your personality. It’s based on what you believe about other people, how you’re willing to put them first, you’re willing to take the time to invest in relationships, and you understand the right strategies that are authentic to you and are really about what the other person, the referral source, needs, and then understanding the right language to use.

This stuff is not complicated. You probably haven’t thought about it the way that I teach it, but it’s not complicated. You do have to be, of course, willing to do the work. That is very, very important and not something I can do for you.

So again, we didn’t need a 30-minute episode to talk about referrals work, introvert or extrovert doesn’t really matter because referrals are from relationships. But the truth is some of you may be sitting out there thinking to yourself, I’m not like you, meaning me, right?

I’m not like you, Stacey. So will referrals work for me? Yes, absolutely. They will. Doesn’t matter. Introvert, extrovert, ambivert, doesn’t matter. As long as you come to referrals with the right intentions and the right expectations, you’ll be fine.

Because again, let me say, while you deserve referrals, you are not owed them. So there will always be some work to do.

The show notes page for this episode can be found at StaceyBrownRandall.com/331.

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.