Ep #346: Your Referral KPIs
In this episode, I dive deep into the importance of establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) specifically for your referral business. Let’s break down the main points from this episode.
Understanding KPIs
Key Performance Indicators are measurable values that show how well a company meets its business objectives. In terms of referrals, KPIs help you monitor the health of your referral system, identify areas for improvement, and make informed strategic decisions.
The Importance of Historical Data
I encourage analyzing referral data from the last three years. This historical perspective prevents you from setting unrealistic goals based solely on one year’s performance, allowing you to establish a more accurate baseline.
Key Referral KPIs to Track
Here are four essential KPIs that every business should consider tracking:
1. Number of Referrals Received: Tracks the volume of referrals over time to help set realistic future goals.
2. Number of New Referral Sources: Measures how many new individuals are referring you, indicating your cultivation efforts’ effectiveness.
3. Number of Closed Referrals: Assesses how many referred prospects become clients, reflecting your sales process’s effectiveness.
4. Revenue from Referrals: Tracks revenue generated from referrals, indicating the financial impact of your referral strategy.
Additional KPIs to Consider
Beyond the core four, I also discussed several additional KPIs that can provide deeper insights into your referral process:
- Referral Source Closing Ratio
- Word of Mouth Buzz
- Quality of Referrals
- Client Journey Referrals
Tracking Your KPIs
Consistency is key. Establish a routine for data collection, ideally tracking KPIs monthly to stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. Remember, the more you know about your referral performance, the better equipped you are to make strategic decisions.
Conclusion
I encourage you to implement these KPIs in your business, starting with the four essentials and adding more as you grow comfortable.
I’d love to hear about your referral KPIs this year, so feel free to contact me on social media or reply to any of my emails if you’re on my email list.
Links Mentioned During the Episode:
Episode #345: Deep Dive on Your Referral Reality
Episode #344: 4 Referral Tasks to Do Now
Episode #258: Understanding Power Referral Sources
Episode #252: A Peek Inside a Referable Business Part One
Episode #204: Client Interview: Measuring Metrics
Want to work with me so I can help you 2x, 3x, 4x your referrals over last year? Then apply to work with me inside my coaching program, Building a Referable Business. Please submit your application now.
Next Episode:
Next episode is #347 which is another episode created with you and your needs in mind.
Download The Full Episode Transcript
Read the Transcript Below:
Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, and welcome to the Roadmap to Referrals podcast, a show that proves you can generate referrals without asking or manipulation.
I’m your host, Stacey Brown Randall. I’m a card-carrying member of the Business Failure Club, have taught my referrals without asking methodology and strategies to clients in more than 14 countries, and my mission is to help you unleash a referral explosion by leveraging the science of referrals and respecting your relationships.
Alright, in last week’s episode, that was episode 345, we did a deep dive on your referral reality by looking at a few key data points from last year, and at least a year or two past that if you did the whole assignment.
I mapped out last week’s episode as if you were doing it from last year’s data, but I did at the end ask you, hey, now can you go back another year and then maybe possibly go back one more year?
Three years of data is always the place that I like to have people start because I think it shows us nothing that is, like if you had a crazy high year or a crazy low year, it kind of like levels everything out when you pull more than just one year’s worth of data.
And it also, a lot of people are like, hey, a lot of referrals last year. And then we look back to years previous, and there isn’t a lot of referrals. And so I don’t ever want them setting goals based on that one great year, unless we’re pretty confident we can duplicate it.
Because sometimes you just have things that happen that you didn’t see coming and that you could not replicate in the future. So that’s why I like three years’ worth of data.
But OK. So I’m going to give you a quick rundown of a couple of pieces that I asked you to pull from last week’s episode and episode 345.
Because for today’s episode, I want to make sure you have the right KPIs in place for your business. And I mean referral KPIs in place for your business. And you’re going to need a little bit of the data from last week to be able to do that effectively.
Now, real quick, if you’re not familiar with what a KPI is, that stands for Key Performance Indicator. So I always think about KPIs as the things in my business that when they are happening, the business is running well in terms of I am bringing on the clients that I need to bring on in the course of a year.
So if I’m hitting some key things that I’m tracking in my business, making sure those things are happening, then I know from that, based on the numbers in my business, that I’m going to bring on the number of clients that I ultimately want to bring on.
Now, it’s not a perfect science, but I also know if something I’m tracking that’s one of my indicators, one of my key things that I’m tracking, if it’s way off, I know, uh-oh, that’s going to impact maybe not the next 30 days, but it’s probably going to impact six months within my business.
For example, let me give you an idea of something in my business that is not a referral KPI, because I’m about to talk to you through all of them. So I don’t want to use that as my example.
But KPI, for me, a key performance indicator, a KPI in my business, would be like the number of applications in a year on a month-to-month basis that I receive for my 12-month coaching program called Building a Referable Business.
If you’re a longtime listener, you’ve heard me talk about this thing all the time because I love this coaching program and I love the community that it creates. But you have to complete an application to be able to gain entrance into and be invited into the coaching program because it’s very specific for people that we know we can help make successful.
So for me, a key performance indicator that really, while it’s tied to referrals, it’s not really about referrals. It’s how many applications did I receive on a month or quarterly, and then, of course, I look at everything overall in a yearly basis.
And I can tell, based on the number of applications, there is a percentage of those folks who will then become, of course, a client and will join the coaching program, or they will opt to move up to my premium program, which is my VIP Referrals in a Day, depending on when they kind of see how the coaching program works, they may be like, nope, I want Stacey to do it for me.
And so I know there’s a percentage of those that will move up to a VIP perspective. It’s a smaller percentage. I mean, that is a significant jump to go from the coaching program to the VIP in terms of you got to have a team and it costs, like it’s just a larger investment. And you have to know that I’m coming to hang out with you for two days and you got to give me that time and space.
Or in some cases, people apply for the coaching program and they’re not quite ready. It’s not quite the right next step for them. And so I know some of those folks, the percentage will actually become, they’ll join the starter course, Your Next Five Referrals.
So that’s just a key performance indicator in my business. You probably have different ones in yours.
It could be the number of intakes that you take in, right? It could be the number of people who get on your calendar to have a conversation with you on a monthly or a quarterly basis because you know after so many calls, you’ll eventually get those folks, or so many, a percentage of those folks to become clients.
You could have other key performance indicators. This isn’t everything you do. This is not every activity you do. The key word here is KEY, key performance indicators.
So what I want to do as this relates to your referrals is I want to give you a couple of key performance indicators. There’s four that I really think you should have. And then, of course, I want to give you some others that you can consider just based on where your business is right now.
OK, but before I do that, I do want to make sure you understand KPIs, so you know that’s a key performance indicator. I just gave you an example.
We’re going to talk about these specific and only specific to referrals now for the rest of this episode. And these should be, you should have a few established that you are tracking throughout the year.
Now whether you decide to track that on a weekly, I guess a daily or a weekly or a monthly or quarterly or every six months basis is completely up to you.
I like to do things on a monthly basis because let’s be honest, if I leave things for longer than a month, it is so much harder to make myself go back and do it because it’s so much more work. So I try to do this a little bit more consistently, like on a monthly basis.
But first, before I give you these established KPIs that I think you should add, and then of course some others that you could choose from, I wanna make sure that you understand and have a quick overview of the deep dive I did on last week’s episode, episode 345.
I gave you seven points for you to review as you were looking back over last year in that episode. So if you haven’t listened to that episode, I am gonna encourage you to go listen to it.
And to be honest, it builds on the episode before it, episode 344. We try to keep these, as you’re listening, in some type of order. If you’re coming back to me every week, I like to honor those folks that are coming back to me every week and listening to this podcast by showing you how things connect together when we’re in one area of a theme.
And so this is all about looking back on last year. January always is. It’s always about looking back on last year and planning and preparing as we move forward into the next year, the new year.
So when I tell you that there are seven points that I went over for you to review as part of your deep dive that I did in last week’s episode, episode 345, just know that some of that was mapped to the episode prior to it as well, which was episode 344.
If you’re a brand new listener to this podcast or you’ve missed a couple of the episodes so far out this year and you’re just starting back with me and it’s the end of January and you’re just starting back with me and this is the first episode you’ve listened to this year, I’m gonna encourage you to go back and maybe just start at the beginning of January for those episodes as we kind of move you through because they’re all interconnected in some small and then some larger ways.
Okay, but from the seven points I gave you in last week’s episode for the deep dive on your referrals, like what happened, right? From last year and years prior, we only actually need four of them to help us with our KPIs from this episode.
Now, these aren’t necessarily the KPIs that you’ll ultimately end up creating. It just kind of helps knowing that you have this information. So real quick, I’m not gonna go, I’m not gonna explain these. I’m just gonna hit them point one through four. Just make sure that you have them.
Okay, so they are, from last week’s episode, how many referrals did you receive last year? This must be an exact number, not a range.
The names of those referred prospects. So remember, a referral is technically a referred prospect. So the names of those referred prospects. And again, that’s where episode 344 will help with that.
Number three, what are the names of the referral sources who referred those prospects?
And number four, of those referrals, those referred prospects, how many of them became clients? And if they became a client, meaning they paid you money, how much revenue or commission was that?
And there probably are some of them that are still in process, right? So you need to also know like, hey, some of these aren’t no’s yet, and they’re not yes’s yet. They’re still in process. And then, of course, you’re going to want to know how many said no or not yet, and maybe they’re on your list to follow up with this year.
Because here’s the thing, if you receive a referral in like December of ‘24, there’s probably a good chance you didn’t close it prior to the you going on break for the holidays. And there’s a better chance you’ll probably close that this year.
So just kind of knowing the referrals that you’ve received throughout the year is also an indication of kind of what flows into the next year. Like when I look back on the clients that I worked with in 2024, many of them were actually referred to me in 2023.
But then by the time they worked through the process, made the decision, or they were referred to me at the end of the year, but whatever it was, by the time they were ready, it had flipped into a new calendar year. It was 2024.
So I always denote that just because I track this stuff to the minutiae, but you don’t necessarily have to do it that way, but it’s just really important for you to understand that when you look at that, of the referrals, those referred prospects, how many became a client, and then how many are still in process, so there’s still potential with them, and then how many of them said no, or not yet, not now.
Okay, so those are the four things I want you to have. Go back to episode 345 if you need a better refresher and you need more information to pull that data.
Okay, so the next thing we need to do is determine what your KPIs are going to be. And then the second thing we need to do is figure out how you’re going to track them.
So let’s start with the possible KPIs. Now remember, these are referral only KPIs. You probably will have other KPIs that you’re tracking within your business.
Like I gave you the example of the BRB coaching program application number, right? So you should have other KPIs for your business. I’m only giving you the referral ones.
Now, if you don’t have any KPIs for your business, because this is a new concept and you’ve never heard of it, that’s totally fine. You don’t need to like jump in and try to have like 15 KPIs that you’re going to start tracking. Maybe just start with these referral ones and then add KPIs as you figure out what’s best for you.
Okay, but here are the four that I typically would encourage you, probably strongly encourage you to consider having that you are tracking because these things are going to indicate dollars in your bank account.
These things, these KPIs, these four are going to indicate revenue, cash flow, all good things, right? The main thing that we’re looking for. That’s actually not the main thing we’re looking for, but you guys know what I mean.
Okay. So here’s what I would say. Number one is obviously the number of referrals received. That should be a solid standalone. If you track nothing else as a KPI for referrals, you should be tracking the number of referrals that you have received. on an ongoing basis, right?
Now, we haven’t done the goals episode that we always do, don’t worry, that’s coming up, but when we set goals, and we set like, hey, I want 50 referrals this year, or I want 25 referrals this year, or I want 10 referrals, or 75, or 110, or 150, whatever the number is.
When you set a goal for the number of referrals you want, it is typically based on the fact that you have previous data that you’ve been paying attention to and you’ve got an average and you know, okay, if I do something different and I get better cultivation of referrals, I can take the average and I can double it or triple it or quadruple it, right?
That’s always my goal to do when I’m working with a client. But if you don’t have any of that data tracked, you’ve got to start somewhere. And so these KPIs is a great place to start. And this is a key one that you could start with tracking as a KPI in your business.
But it’s not like you’re just tracking how many referrals I received. There’s a few more things I want you to be tracking as a KPI, because it’s going to indicate, obviously, how you’re doing with referrals. And that will always ultimately impact your cash flow and your revenue and your number of closed clients.
So the second KPI I recommend is actually the number of new people referring you, aka referral sources, that you have added. So it’s the number of new people, new referral sources that have started referring you.
So that means they’re going to refer you this year and they’ve never done it before. If that’s the case, you need to be tracking that because there is always the ability to go back and pay attention to the type of year you had based on how many new people started referring you, particularly if you need people referring you.
And you can pay attention and measure if what you’re doing to cultivate those people into referral sources is working. That’s a huge thing that we teach in one of our main foundational strategies, is like, hey, is what you’re doing actually cultivating new people into referring you? That’s a biggie.
And then, of course, it kind of lets you know if you’re not cultivating new people into referring you. Because no matter how many referral sources you have, your ability to have new people start referring you, even if it’s just a couple a year, that’s an important skill that you need to know how to do, and you need to develop within yourself and within your business.
Okay, number three. This is the number of closed referrals. So of the referred prospects, the referrals that you received, how many of them did you close? Because that’s going to ultimately indicate to you your closing ratio.
My goal with my clients is when we can say this. Now here is the thing. There are some industries I work in where this is not a legitimate percentage. So we don’t look at it.
But on average, if I took away the industry and I didn’t pay attention to the industry at all, I would want my clients all to be at a minimum of a 50% closing ratio.
Some are just based on the nature of their industry and what they do and who their clients are, they’re going to fall in the 20%, and that is incredible for them. Or sometimes even 15%, and that’s incredible for them.
But if I removed any like the ‘yeah, buts’, I guess I would say, like the except for the fact that they’re in this industry or this or they’re brand new in business or right, there’s always things that are the reason why you’re closing ratio is where it is, particularly if you’ve done nothing to improve it.
Because how you close a referred prospect is just different than how you close a prospect who like found you through SEO Google search. And so you should have different sales processes is my point. They all follow the same kind of system and strategy or process, but there’s different things you say and do when you have a referred prospect.
And so you should know what that closing ratio ultimately is, but it helps by tracking the number that you’re closing, then you can figure out your closing ratio. Because again, not everybody is always going to hit 50%.
Some years you’re going to be way over, some years you’re going to be below. I mean, sometimes when I look at my closing ratio, I’m like, oh, I didn’t hit 50. I got really close. I was in the 40s, but I didn’t hit 50. And some years I’m well over.
And sometimes that doesn’t have anything to do with you and your abilities, right? Like my closing ratio, while my referrals were great last year, my closing ratio was off. It was not at where I wanted it to be.
And I know some of that was attributed to the prospects that I was talking to having a lot of concern regarding election fear. And that pretty much started in 2023. Started hearing about election fear in 2024.
It ramped up in January of 2024. And as you can imagine, as we got closer and closer to November, it got worse and worse. Now, it stopped some people from saying yes to working with me? No. Some people were like, I need to get ahead of this, regardless of what’s going on in the world.
And others were like, I need to make that decision after the election. And so some of those referred prospects from last year, they’re now coming back to me. They’re like, OK, let’s have a conversation. We’re ready to restart this conversation.
And that’s fine. I think that’s great. I think when you’re ready, you’re ready. And you can’t make yourself be ready before you’re actually ready. But I do think it’s important for you to note that.
I’m glad that I tracked my closing ratio. Now, regardless that my closing ratio was down, it was my best revenue year ever.
So I’m not saying one thing necessarily is going to be a direct correlation to something else. It is this idea that that closing ratio just being a little bit lower than where I wanted it to be. But it’s something for me to note. It’s something for me to say, oh.
Like, I didn’t look at my closing ratio being down, because I didn’t know, right? Let me explain it this way. Best revenue year ever, right, would tell me, wow, everything was great in my business. But it’s not.
I mean, there are a lot of things that are amazing, but there are things I want to fix and solve. And the closing ratio was down, which led me to kind of really hone in and focus on something that I want to get better at as a business owner.
And I know I don’t know how to do it on my own, so I’ve hired someone to help me do it. And I’ve decided to make that investment because I had the data in my business to support that investment in working with this other consultant.
And so when I look at decisions like that that I’m going to make in my business, I also know I’m making this investment in this person. And I know exactly what the impact is that we are planning on making in my business.
And it will impact some of the things that I do from a closing ratio perspective. So I know exactly how much more ROI I stand to gain by working with this consultant. It makes the decision so much easier.
Instead of it being a scary, scary big number that I’m investing in my business, it’s like, yeah, and I’m going to do it. I’m going to do what this consultant tells me to do.
And I’m going to show up to our time together. And I’m going to do the work. And I’m going to tweak it. And I’m going to do the best I can. And it’s going to impact a key performance indicator that I have in my business.
And when it does that, I know exactly how much more dollars it’s going to make me. And I know exactly what the ROI looks like. And I know what it looks like on a good level, a better level, and a best level. So then it makes it really easy to make those decisions.
I talk to a lot of prospects. And I find that when I talk to prospects who are considering working with me at any level, it doesn’t really matter what the investment dollar amount is, those that like know their business and know their numbers, they are much more emotionless, I guess.
We all buy emotionally, but they are a lot less emotionless in terms of knowing what they need to do, deciding what it’s worth because the dollars or actually the numbers tell them what it’s worth, and then making the decision to invest, and then getting into it.
And what I really find is those are the people who actually dive in and do the work. If you’re not 100% sure, you may dilly-dally, let’s be honest, in terms of getting down what you’ve just invested in, or you may not invest in it at all.
Knowing what something is worth is very, very important. And the only place where you can determine what something is worth, the ROI of an investment you’re going to make in your business, you have to then know actually what it’s going to impact in your business. And I find there’s a lot of business owners out there that don’t always know that information.
OK, sorry, I totally went down a little rabbit hole there. Let me pull myself back, because where I was was talking about the four KPIs I think you should definitely consider having. And I’m going to go through a few other add-ons if you wanted them.
Let me just go back to the beginning really fast and make sure you guys are on the same page with me. So number one was the number of referrals received. Number two was the number of new referral sources, meaning new people referring you, that you added.
Number three, which is kind of where I got stuck, is the number of closed referred prospects, because that helps you determine your closing ratio. So that means the ones that became clients.
And number four, of course, is the amount of revenue. That’s just a nice key performance indicator to track, no matter what, in terms of that. But I like to track it from the understanding it from my referral sources specifically.
Now, we’re not done yet. I have a couple other KPIs I want you to consider. And then I want to make sure we talk about how you’re going to track them. And so you just have some baseline to start with before you leave this episode.
So all right, let’s talk about other key performance indicators you can consider, though, first, before we dive into tracking.
Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, pardon the interruption. I would love the opportunity to show you exactly how I can help take you from where you are in your business with referrals and show you exactly how we can double, triple, or quadruple your referrals.
We do that every single week inside the Building a Referable Business coaching program. It is a 12-month coaching program where you get to take a measured approach, go at your pace, customized based on what you need to be implementing at the right time in the right order, and have weekly access to me as well.
I would love for you to consider completing an application and letting me review it to see if I can help you double, triple, or quadruple your referrals this year.
To complete an application and learn more about the Building a Referable Business Coaching Program, please go to StaceyBrownRandall.com/referable. That’s StaceyBrownRandall.com/referable. Now back to the episode.
Stacey Brown Randall: Okay, so let’s talk about just a couple of other key performance indicators you can consider. These are not must-haves. These are a you can have, right? You may not want any of these, and that’s totally fine too, right?
We had the top four that I think are most important, but here’s some other ones. Another key performance indicator that you could consider tracking is the closing ratio by referral source, meaning if you’re tracking the number of referrals that close into paid clients, so the number of referrals that close into paid client, that’s like an overall number.
Referrals come from lots of different people. You’re just tracking of the referrals you received, how many closed into clients.
To go one step further, you can actually track the closing ratio by individual people, individual referral sources. Those people who are referring maybe what I would say usually more than one is where you want to start paying attention to the closing ratio.
Now, not everybody needs to do this from a key performance indicator. You can look back at this at the end of the year, and it can be a part of your process to see how you did. But that doesn’t mean it needs to be a KPI that you’re tracking throughout the year. So keep that in mind.
You can still do this and it not be a KPI that you’re tracking throughout the year. But I do find that if I have clients who have what I refer to as a power referral source, if they have a power referral source, I always tell them we need to be tracking this a little bit more than just once a year.
Because power referral sources are people who refer you a large and usually your largest amount of referral sources or referrals, excuse me, referred prospects.
So a power referral source refers you usually more than anybody else. It’s sometimes because they get your ideal client and they can’t help them and they need a place to send them. So you’re an ideal person for them to send them to.
So you just kind of get, it’s not like getting lucky, right? But it’s that idea that they need you as much as you need them. And that is a beautiful relationship. But that’s what we refer to as like a power referral source.
Sometimes it’s just somebody who, when they’re digging into whatever it is your client does, they uncover this problem all the time and they need that problem fixed. They need that problem fixed so that the client can do whatever they need to do with them. Sometimes that’s the case.
Other times it’s just somebody, like I had a real estate agent one time who had an earlier client in her career that they just hit it off and had this great connection. And that one person funneled a ton of business her way because that one power referral source for that Realtor was very well connected in their area.
And when that power referral source moved out of state, it created a massive vacuum in that real estate agent’s client list because they were not receiving nearly the volume of referrals that they were. So I talk about Power Referral Sources in two previous episodes. It’s episode 258 and episode 252.
So if you want to go check those out, you can listen to episode 252 is actually where I interview someone who’s in my Building a Referable Business coaching program and has a Power Referral Source. So we talk about it a little bit there. But then episode 258, the entire episode is dedicated to Power Referral Sources.
Now here’s the thing. I haven’t always had one. I’ve been in business almost, what am I going on, 12 years? I haven’t always had one. I have one now, and it’s one that I’ve been cultivating for a long time, and there is some ebbs and flows to that.
But if you don’t have a power referral source, it’s not that you’re doing anything wrong. Sometimes you just don’t have them. They’re the hardest to duplicate. Usually when somebody loses a power referral source, I’m very clear with them.
Like I told the real estate agent, we’re not looking to replace that one power referral source with somebody else. We’re looking to replace that one power referral source with multiple other people because we don’t want the vacuum to last too terribly long of you not getting referrals.
Now, if we can cultivate somebody into a power referral source, yes, we will. but nobody walks around with a neon sign on their forehead that says, I make an excellent power referral source. So this isn’t something you can just snap your fingers and have them appear, and you can’t make someone be it either.
Okay, so something else to consider is closing ratio by referral source, particularly if you have a power referral source.
Alright, number six, another KPI you can consider is if you receive a lot of word-of-mouth buzz, like, hey, I told someone about you, or introductions, like you two should meet each other, but we don’t know why.
If you receive a number of word-of-mouth buzz or introductions throughout the year, and you were able to flip them into a referral, that is actually something, a KPI that you could consider tracking as well.
You can also track the number of times that someone says, hey, I told someone about you and who said it, right? You can track the number of times you hear word-of-mouth buzz, or you receive an introduction, but you don’t know why you were connected. You can, by all means, track that information too.
But I think if you’re going to do it as a KPI, you want to track what you’re actually having to flip into a referral. Because for me, that’s going to indicate some areas where I want to make sure that we are doing some different conversations with your referral sources.
Are these folks who are trying to become referral sources because they’re giving you word-of-mouth buzz but not actually a referral because we define those differently? So that to me, it’s just for me, that always indicates to me, oh, there’s some work to be done here with this referral source.
We’re not going to train them on how best to refer you because your referral sources are not dogs, and nobody wants to be trained by you. But there is definitely some guidance that we can do.
And there’s a way that we can do that without making anyone feel like they’re doing something wrong and get them to the point where there is a comfort level of them actually connecting you to the referred prospect over email or text message or whatever it is versus just giving somebody else your contact information. So that is a potential another KPI.
Another one is if you have consistent quality issues. Now, not everybody gets somebody that they can help. Like not every referral you receive is going to be your ideal client. I expect you to have some folks that are referred to you that you cannot work with.
That happens to me every single year. It is not a big deal. It happens to all of us. But if you have consistent quality issues, particularly coming from the same referral sources, that may be something you want to track as a KPI.
Because again, for me, that tells me that’s something we can solve and fix. You just got to do the right thing the right time. But it also indicates, if you’re having a ton of quality issues, that means it doesn’t matter how many referrals you’re getting.
If you’re not getting good quality, they’re never going to turn into clients that are going to give you revenue, right, that are actually going to hire you and give you cash flow.
Number eight would be a referred prospect. Okay, so I’m sorry, my numbers were based on one through four at first, and then five, six, seven, eight, nine. So, in this section, though, this is technically number four.
So, the others to consider, right, would be the closing ratio by referral source, particularly power sources, the number of word-of-mouth buzz or introductions that you flipped into a referral. The next one, number three, would be consistent quality issues.
Number four, what I just called number eight, because that’s how I have it numbered in my notes, number four is actually the referred prospects that became came a client who then referred you, and at what point in their client journey did they refer you?
Now this one, you’ve got to be really good at tracking. I’m going to be honest; most people don’t do it. But man, it is great to know and to understand, hey, when I have a referred prospect that then becomes a client who refers to me, A, that’s a brand-new referral source and someone you can continue to nurture more referrals from.
But it also shows you like what’s the process if you back up to it, if you like reverse engineer like how did that happen, what did that look like. Was that because they hit a hot spot or what we call a hot zone or was that just because they were the right person?
Which those are all things I teach in my Referable Client Experience training, and my book will be out on that later this year as well in the fall of 2025.
But knowing when a referred prospect that became a client then referred you, and when in their new client journey did they refer you, that is always some interesting indicators in terms of where you can do some duplication process.
And then the last one that I would say, which is number five, is when referrals are received from clients within the client experience, like throughout it. Do you get most of your referrals in the alumni stage when they’re done working with you?
Do you get most of your referrals when they first come on board and there’s the anticipation and they’re all excited and it’s in the new client stage?
Or do you get most of your referrals at transformation when whatever they hired you for, you’ve delivered on, and they see it happening and they get really excited?
There’s always these moments within your client experience where referrals are more likely to happen. We call those hot zones. But do you even know what yours are?
So when referrals are received from clients, at what point the client is in the client journey, in the client experience, when they make the decision to refer to you. That’s another KPI you can track.
But again, this, like these five, now we’re getting in the weeds. And most people would tell you KPIs do not get into the weeds like this. But it is really valuable stuff, and I just wanted to give it to you in case you wanted to have that information.
OK, now that you’ve determined your referral KPIs, whether you’re just doing with the first four I gave you or any of the final five I just gave you, let’s talk about tracking them.
Alright, now here’s the thing. I always tell this because folks always ask me this question. I am software agnostic. It depends on what industry you’re in. There is typically some leading software with some competing software that you can decide to use.
And I don’t ever say, you need this one. I don’t have my own software that says, you need to use this software. You got to use my CRM. You got to use my database. Nope. I am software agnostic.
Because I learned early on that if I could, whatever I was having my clients pull for me and track for me, if I could show them how to use it and do that within their existing software, they were much more likely to do the things I needed them to do because I wasn’t asking them to then go get another piece of software.
So I don’t care what software you use. I don’t care what database that you are using, what client relationship management tool that you are using. If you’re an attorney, to me, it’s like Lawmatics, Clio, doesn’t matter to me. If you’re using something like CloudLex, it doesn’t matter to me what you’re using.
In the real estate world, well, I’m not even going to name all the ones in the real estate world. There are so many. And there are also so many that are then white labeled as well, right? I mean, just pick an industry, financial advisors, financial planners, like there’s a whole host of things they can use.
Same thing with attorneys, same thing with real estate agents, same thing with interior designers. Are you using Mydoma or are you using something else?
Again, it doesn’t matter to me what software you’re using to track your incoming data about prospects and clients. But you have to be tracking this stuff somewhere to be able to pull a KPI.
So the data itself, like the hard data, like the new prospect’s name and who they came from, yes, that has to be within your database. You have to be tracking that stuff on an ongoing basis right when it happens.
Then your ability to track and keep up with whatever your KPIs that you are tracking. Whether that’s because you have a fancy, colored, pretty graphs, pie chart, bar chart, kind of KPI system that you use, that you have created, or someone’s created, or that you’ve purchased, that is amazing.
But I’ll be honest with you, I’m kind of partial to a spreadsheet. I’m kind of partial to a spreadsheet to create as a database to track your KPIs. Because it’s just easy.
And as long as you create a checklist or a process of how you pull that data every month into one place, maybe that’s that spreadsheet, the KPI spreadsheet, as long as you have a checklist and a process of pulling that data every month into one place, and as long as you’re doing it, or someone on your team is doing it, then you’ll have that information to look at.
Can you make it prettier? Yes, I’m sure if you’re really good at Excel, you can do a lot of fancy, fun things. And if you’re really good at hiring someone to come in and hey, make me some pretty dashboards and then connect my data pieces together and then show me how to do it, that’s awesome, too.
I had an episode, oh, I do not have the number because it just popped in mind. I did not think about referencing this episode that I did. And we will find it and put it in the show notes. Let me just say that.
But I did an episode with a guy that I call Pineapple Jack. I mean, that’s actually what he goes by in some cases, because his logo is a pineapple. But he does database and KPI type tracking.
Like, he shows people how to pull their data together and make it something that you can actually understand and visually read, and then making sure that information is getting pulled every single month. Like, that’s his company that he built. He’s a consultant. He’s amazing.
So I will definitely link to Jack Tompkins’ episode in the show notes. I do not have it for you right this second. So you’re gonna have to go to the show notes episode for this page.
But that is actually a perfect segue because I wanna give you the show notes link for this episode because there’s a lot of other information we talked about that you’re gonna wanna pull from it. And we can wrap up here as well, right?
So here’s the thing. I’m partial to a spreadsheet. You need to do monthly tracking. That’s gonna be the best way to do it, but you do you. If you wanna do it every Friday, great. If you want to do it once a quarter, great.
Please do not leave this for six months at a time. It will be overwhelming at some point. And the moment six months hits, you’re going to be super, super busy and not do it. And then it’s going to all, the wheels are going to completely fall off.
Alright, so here’s your next step. Number one, get to work. At least start with the four key performance indicators, KPIs that I gave you. Build out your database, build out your tracker, build out your software, whatever it is, and start tracking.
And then number two, I would love for you to share your KPIs for 2025 with me. Would you please head on over, when you go to the show notes page, you can certainly link to my LinkedIn or my Instagram or my Facebook.
I will tell you LinkedIn and Instagram are my favorites. In terms of direct messaging me, shoot me a message and be like, hey, Stacey, here are my KPIs for 2025, my referral KPIs for 2025.
Or if you’re on my email list and you get my weekly emails, just hit reply on any of those emails and let me know what are your KPIs, your referral KPIs for this year. I would love to hear from you and let me know if you need my help.
Alright, the resources mentioned in this episode, like the details on the Building a Referable Business Coaching Program, all the episodes I mentioned that will help you understand this KPI process better can be found on the show notes page, which can be found at StaceyBrownRandall.com/346. That’s for episode 346. And don’t forget, Stacey, has an E.
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.