Ep #349: The Referral Must Knows (Part 3)

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.

Welcome back to part three of the referral must-knows. These are the things I just want you to know and understand when it comes to referrals, and particularly when it comes to understanding how you can really start generating referrals in your business.

It all starts with, first, your foundational knowledge, and then you can take off like a rocket with the things you need to start doing. But first, it starts with the things you’ve got to know.

This is the part three, so this is the third part in a series. You can certainly catch the first part of this with episode 347 and the second part of this with episode 348.

You can listen to them in any order, but technically, as I realized as I was recording these, I’m actually kind of building on them as I move forward. So maybe go back and start with 347 and work your way to this episode 349.

Okay, so with everything that we’ve been talking about, I want to get into a little bit more nitty gritty. And I think this is the thing that people forget that where it feels nuanced, it is actually very, very pertinent and almost like a requirement to you having referral success.

And that comes down to knowing the players. That comes down to understanding who are the players, and then deep diving into one part of the players.

So let me first walk you through who are the three players. Now you heard me say last week in episode 348 that you really, when we’re talking about the science of referrals, that you really need to know your place. And your place is third most important out of three.

And first most important is the referral source. Second most important is the prospect. And third, of course, is you as a solution provider. And those are the players you need to understand.

When you’re thinking about referrals happening, there is somebody, your referral source, talking to someone else and discovering that that person has a problem.

And in the moment, they get to solve that problem, they’re like, whew, happiness trifecta goes off in their brain. They’re like, I get to be the hero by helping you. This is how I’m going to help you, by referring you to, insert your name.

So you need to understand who the players are and their order of importance. And it starts with your referral source. That’s the person you maintain the relationship with, because they’re the people who are going to come across people they can refer to you.

So they are number one. Number two, of course, is the prospect they’re going to refer to you, because it may be someone you get to help. And that’s amazing too.

But a lot of times when I ask folks, I’m like, okay, the three players are the prospect, the referral source, and you as a solution provider. Who’s most important?

Nine times out of 10, people are going to say, if they have never listened to me before, they’re going to say the prospect, the person who’s going to become a client and pay me money. But that’s actually not true.

The most important person when a referral is happening is the referral source, because so much is tied up in them to give you more referrals. And you need to understand that. And so you need to know your place is third most important out of three.

But that prospect is not more important than your referral source. The referral source is most important. So understanding the players.

The other thing is that when you’re trying to get someone to start referring you, that’s never done it, so they’re not yet a referral source, an existing referral source, they’re a potential referral source, you kind of understand that it’s just you and them as the two players when someone hasn’t ever referred you because there isn’t a prospect as part of the triangle, right?

It’s just the two pieces is you and the referral source. Of course, it makes sense in that moment that the referral source is way more important than you. And that’s when you’re trying to cultivate someone into a referral source. They’re a potential referral source, and they are most important.

Well, it makes sense that that carries over, even when they’re now an existing referral source, and they have a prospect to refer to you, they still stay number one. They still stay the hero. They are still most important in the referral source triangle.

That is your players or your cast of characters, however you want to think about it. And there is a starring role. There is a lead. There is the lead actor. There is the award for the best actress, and then there’s some supporting roles, right? So we gotta make sure we understand that.

Okay, but let’s dig in a little bit deeper, because I want you to understand a few things about these humans that we call referral sources.

You may call them referral partners or whatever, please don’t call them the refer-ee. I think when you start saying refer-ee and refer-er, I’m sorry, don’t call them the refer-er. See, I even got it confused. I even know what I’m talking about.

Don’t call them the refer-er versus the refer-ee. Like, it’s just, those words are so similar. I always want people to have, like, very different language. I mean, within reason, of course, when you can.

So when people say, oh, that’s the refer-er or the refer-ee, I’m always like, yeah, can we just call the refer-er the referral source or the referral partner? I prefer referral source because referral source is one of your sources. I think it just kind of makes it all simple and keeps the lingo together.

But when people say refer-er and refer-ee, I think usually they have to stop and think about what they’re saying, and it just creates way more potential for confusion.

So the referral source is the language we use to talk about the person who is referring to you or that you want to refer to you. There’s a couple of things I need you to understand about them.

So I’m going to talk about who they actually are, and then I’m going to talk about how we categorize them, and then, of course, how we type them out. So super, super important.

Alright, so as we dig into more about these referral sources, as we dig in, these are the things you’ve gotta know and understand.

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: All right, first up, referral source is always a human, meaning they have a heartbeat and a first and last name.

The running joke I always say is that unless Madonna is referring to you, your referral sources have a first and last name and you need to know it. You need to be capturing it. Okay, you’ve gotta be capturing it.

But they have a heartbeat because they’re a human. That means you’re not referred by a networking association or a group that you’ve joined. You’re referred by someone in that networking association or in that group that you have joined. There’s always a human that’s referring you.

Now, a little bit different when you are part of a list that people are then given when, like, I see this sometimes with attorneys, right? They’ll get a case that comes in. It’s either they’ll do a conflict check and they can’t take the case or it’s not what they do, and they will refer it out to another attorney.

In that case, if you’re on a short list, right, I think this is something really important to understand. If you’re on a short list, whereas the intake team may be the one providing your name, ultimately you got on that list because the head attorney put you on that list as someone that they trust to send cases to that they cannot take.

And so you’re still being referred by a person, either the original attorney or now the person in charge of the intake process, you’re still being referred by a person. So it’s not like that firm referred you.

Somebody in that firm initiated that referral to happen. And that’s important that we know the name of that person, right? Because a referral source is always a human.

I’ll sometimes hear people say, hey, I got referred by this lead generator thing that I’m buying leads for. I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. Those leads that you just bought were not referred to you just because they came through a third party.

Those are leads you purchased. They were not referred. There’s not a human that made that referral happen to you. It was generated through some type of software or something online.

So it’s just really, really important that we don’t use the word I was referred or referral and apply it to the wrong situation.

A referral source, a referral will always come through a referral source, and that referral source will always be a human. They will have a heartbeat and a first and last name. Okay, so that’s understanding like kind of who our referral sources are.

Now let’s dig in a little bit and make sure we’re talking about categorization. Your referral sources are going to fall into two categories.

They’re either existing, meaning they’ve referred you before, or they are potential, meaning they haven’t referred you, but man you would love for them to. They are our soon-to-be referral sources, is how I like to think of it.

Now, the strategies of how you cultivate more referrals from your existing referral sources is different from how you cultivate referrals from someone who’s never done it before, never even considered referring you before.

So that cultivation absolutely will look different. So that’s how we categorize our referral sources. One is existing. That means they have referred you before. And two is potential, meaning they haven’t yet referred you, but you’ve identified them as someone that you want to refer you.

And of course that’s not everybody you know. Usually there’s a strategy behind who becomes a potential referral source that you would like to start referring you. Or at least there should be a strategy behind it.

Do not take the spray and pray model to identifying referral sources and trying to cultivate them. You’ll be exhausted because it’ll be a ton of work. Alright, so that is the categorization.

The next thing I want to make sure you understand about our referral sources is really digging in and understanding the type.

There’s four types of referral sources. There is the client. Of course, your clients can refer you. Not all industries have clients that will refer to them, right? But some of you, the majority of you listening, will probably have clients that refer to you.

The second type is the centers of influence, right? I mentioned that a little bit ago, but centers of influence are people who they know what you do. They are very clear as to what you do, right?

It’s not like you’re an architect and they think you’re an interior designer. They know what you do. They do not do what you do. So there’s no competitive overlap.

And, and it’s the and part of this is why this is so important and powerful, and they come across your ideal client with some level of regularity.

There’s a lot of people out there that know that I teach referrals without asking. And there’s a lot of people out there that know that I teach referrals without asking and have nothing to do with referrals.

So there is, they know what I do and there’s no competitive overlap. But they don’t come across my ideal client so I wouldn’t consider them as a COI that has the potential to refer me. Okay, so really important to keep that in mind.

So the who can refer to you of our four types, we’ve got clients and centers of influence. If you were taking notes while I was walking you through this, I would tell you to draw a line and focus on the above the line folks first and foremost.

And the clients and COIs would be the two groups above the line, the two labels above the line, the two types above the line.

Below the line would be the other two types of referral sources and we don’t focus on them as much because in some cases we don’t need to and in other cases it’s quite impossible. So what am I talking about?

The third type of referral sources is your family and friends. If you’ve ever heard me give a presentation before, you’ve probably heard me say this. So my husband is in sales.

When he is out and about and having conversations with attorneys or financial advisors or people who are running companies like IT consultants, and he has a conversation with them, and they’re talking about growing, and they need referrals, of course he’s going to be like, I have a book I need to give you, and I have somebody I want to connect you with, my wife.

As long as Norm and I are married, he’s probably going to keep doing that. Probably going to keep referring people to me. He does not need to be a part of some plan that I put in place to cultivate referrals from him. He’s just going to do it because he’s my family.

So your family and friends that love you and want to see you be successful, if they have those opportunities to refer to you, then you don’t need to usually do anything special or different to get them to keep referring to you.

Now, I did have, at one point, I was working with a mortgage officer or mortgage broker, and he was like, hey, my aunt’s a real estate agent. And whereas she’s my aunt, and I know she’ll always refer to me when she can, I want to cultivate referrals from her.

I want to pull her from the family label and move her up to the COI label just because of what she does. And I’m like, then do it. It’s your list, right?

I could easily take Norm, my husband, and move him above the line. And even though he is family, he’s my husband, I could move him up to the COI label, and I could cultivate more referrals from him based on the fact he’s a COI.

But when we’re cultivating referrals from people, it’s a time and a resource and a dollar equation. So I want to be really smart with that. So in my case, I would never include Norm in that strategy. I would never take money and energy and time.

I sound terrible saying this. I’m like, oh my gosh, it sounds like a terrible thing for me to say as a wife. But because I know he’s going to refer no matter what. And so I want you to keep that in mind too.

So family and friends, it’s just what we say, they’re below the line because they love you, and they’ll refer to you when they can, and sometimes they can do it a lot, and sometimes they can’t, right? I will never expect a referral from my mother. Just not something I ever see coming.

Okay, and then the last type of referral source is actually a stranger. Now, you’re probably thinking, wait a minute, hold the phone. Stop the bus.

You just said, Stacey, that referrals come from relationships, and relationships have to be maintained. And you need connection to do that maintaining. So how can a stranger refer to me?

Here’s the thing, you may never have a stranger refer to you, but it will happen for some people. And what that actually means is that you’re not a stranger to them. They know who you are. You just don’t know who they are.

So if you ever have somebody refer to you and you’re like, I don’t know who Billy Bob is, or I don’t know who Sarah Adams is, it’s because for whatever reason, they know you, and they trust you, maybe without even having a relationship with you.

Because they know somebody else who trusted you, or they had a friend of a friend of a friend who had a great experience with you.

Or they read an article where you were quoted and they thought, oh my gosh, that Sarah Adams is so freaking brilliant, right? Like, I’m just gonna refer to that person, right? Now I realize I’m mixing my names in my stories here, so sorry.

But the idea is that they decided even without having any type of relationship with you, that something about you that you said or did or a relationship that they have in common with you, put you in their brain to where when that comes up, they think to refer to you.

But strangers are not common. Most time, people never have strangers referring to them. Sometimes you will.

Here is a pro tip. If you ever have a stranger refer to you, you need to do some Google stalking, and you need to figure out who that person is, and you need to make sure you write them and send them a thank you note.

And then you try to cultivate them into a referral source who can keep referring you if you believe they’re not a one-hit wonder. And that’s really important too, okay?

So again, with our referral sources, always a human, have a heartbeat, first and last name.

The categories are either existing referral source or potential referral source.

And the label of our referral sources, the types of our referral sources, whether they’re existing or potential, client, COI, family and friend, and stranger.

Alright, there you go. That is part three of the things I need you to know about referrals, particularly if you want to start cultivating more and more referrals this year and every year forward.

Alright, the resources mentioned in this episode can be found on the show notes page at StaceyBrownRandall.com/349. That is 349 for episode 349. And Stacey, don’t forget, 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.