Ep #359: “Why Don’t I Get This From Clients…”

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 am a card-carrying member of the Business Failure Club, have taught my referrals without asking methodology and strategy to clients in more than 14 countries around the world. And my mission is to help you unleash a referral explosion by leveraging the science of referrals and respecting your relationships.

Alright, before we dive in, guess what? It’s happening right now. Are you part of the spring training for referrals? No, don’t worry, it’s not too late.

But you need to join me for our three-day mini training. It’s about 30 minutes every day for just three days. And I help you tackle the fundamentals of referrals so you can go strong into this summer and the back half of this year.

Each day, I go live for about 30 minutes, and teach you what you need to know, what you need to think, and how you need to act to become a referral master. Sign up to join me, it’s free at StaceyBrownRandall.com/springtraining.

But if you’re listening to this episode on the day it is released, then that means we’re on day two of a three-day spring training. So it’s not too late, but you need to hurry.

Stacey Brown Randall: Alright, for the next few episodes, I’m gonna be doing what I’m calling the scenario series. So I’m gonna break down different scenarios that people ask me about.

And these that I’m gonna do, I’ve got a couple that I’m planning on doing for this scenario series. We’ll see how long it lasts, just depending on what you guys share, what questions you ask. And maybe if you hit me up with another scenario that you want me to tackle, then I definitely will.

But with this scenario series, what I want to accomplish is explaining to you how I walk someone through approaching different scenarios they find themselves in as it relates to referrals.

So, you know, a lot of times if you’re listening to this podcast or watching these videos on YouTube and you’ve been around for a while, you know that I teach a lot about the basics, the fundamentals of understanding referrals

 And I talk about the science of referrals. And I talk about where referrals fit in your overall business development or sales strategy. I talk about clearly making sure we’re all using the right lingo and we all define things correctly.

I talk about tracking and thank you process and creating plans or strategies around how you take care of the people who refer you and how you cultivate new people to start referring you.

I talk a lot about tactics. I talk a lot about strategies and what you need to know and understand to be able to have referrals without asking work for you and your business.

But where I really feel like what I teach gets good is when you find yourself faced with a scenario and then you want to know how I would approach it.

And I’m going to come at this, of course, from my perspective of having the science and this whole philosophy around referrals that we do not ask for and how I would approach different scenarios.

Because typically when someone comes to me, you know, they slide into my DMs and they ask this question or they just email me or sometimes they just talk to me when they see me live.

What I have found is when people have questions, they get really specific to a moment in time to the this is happening, this scenario is happening. How do I fix that?

What would you do, Stacey? How does this come across or how should I handle this if I don’t want to ask directly or I don’t want to look like I’m being desperate and begging for the business.

And so I always respond to those emails, and I respond to those DMs and those conversations. But you don’t always have the benefit of accessing those because those happen privately over a DM or over email or sometimes just in conversation with somebody at a coffee shop.

So I thought I would take a couple of the most recent ones that I thought were really good and relay them to you. So share what was asked. What was the scenario? What was the background?

And then provide you my thought process on solving it or fixing it, or in some cases, giving a couple of options so that the person can decide, well, these are some options. How do you want to follow up? How do you want to deal with this scenario?

So I hope you enjoy this scenario series. We’re going to break this down with this very first scenario. And I am calling this particular scenario the, ‘why don’t I get this from clients?’ So this is a good one. I am so glad you guys are here with me for this one.

Alright. So let’s talk about this from the perspective of the question that I was asked. So this is really, really important to knowing the question.

Now, most of the time you will find when I do these scenario series, I’m asked a question, and I go back with questions first because I need context.

Like I’m just trying to get the context to make sure I understand the question correctly. Because if I don’t understand the context or I think something that they don’t mean, it’s wasting everyone’s time.

So here is the question that I received. And this one came to me via email. OK, and I’m not giving names on this. I mean, it’s not relevant, I don’t think, to this. It’s not like any of these. Yeah, I don’t think any of these scenarios that I’m pulling are clients.

Because if it was a client scenario, I would be answering that inside either a one-on-one with my client, or inside a group call, or whatever it is, a check-in call, whatever it is that I have with my clients.

So these are not clients. But that doesn’t actually matter, nor does their name. It’s not relevant. So I’m not going to talk about name. But I am going to tell you what they do, because I do think that helps with context. And I’m a big believer in context.

OK, so this is the question. I’m a mortgage broker and the bulk of my business is repeat business and family referrals from past customers. But I’ve noticed I don’t see many referrals from my clients to their friends or their business associates.

Okay, so the question being, hey, I get repeat business, clients come back to me. Great. And I do get referrals from clients to their family members, but I’m not seeing referrals to like my clients’ friends and other people they know like business associates.

Now some context that was given here was I feel like it can be an issue because clients may think that the mortgage broker, that he’s going to discuss their personal situation.

Like, he’s going to mention something about their finances to their friend who referred them or who was referred to them. And so he was wondering my thoughts on this.

So okay, so I did ask for some context on this and the context that I asked for was, Hey, you bring up a great concern about referrals.

I think with mortgage brokers, conversations your clients are having about someone needing a mortgage or refinancing happens in more family friend conversations versus it actually happening with colleagues or like at a networking event.

And you’re going to see this unfold itself in the final answer that I give as well. But I am just kind of setting the stage here as like, I think when people are having conversations regarding, I need a mortgage or I just got a mortgage, or I need to refinance, or I’ve got to look into refinancing or thank goodness I just refinanced.

I think there is a time and a place for those conversations come up and there’s a time and a place where they don’t. And this is going to be key to what I advise this mortgage broker to do.

Okay, so first thing I addressed is, hey, that is a great concern, and it’s probably a time and a place.

So I said, have you focused on generating referrals from those who are more in contact with people needing mortgages, like on a more regular basis, like real estate agents and builders, where clients may need a construction loan, or with real estate agents, they need a loan to purchase, or what have you.

Those can be great places, of course, to cultivate the right kind of referral relationships. The problem is, and I think a lot of real estate agents listening to this can probably attest to this. The mortgage brokers usually do not handle cultivating that relationship well.

So I think they go about approaching those relationships wrong. But my first context was, hey, before you start thinking about getting referrals from clients from the people they work with, what about making sure you are getting referrals from other people who come across people who need a mortgage to move forward with whatever they’re doing with their client, like to buy a house or to get a construction loan.

And so of course, come back, this mortgage broker’s been in the business for a really long time, was like, yeah, I got that covered. So I was like, okay, good. He was like, realtors, and then he also said financial planners, they’re kind of a given, right?

And then he said, I’m trying to determine why we are not seeing more non-family referrals from actual mortgage clients. I said, okay, so then here’s how I dove into our ultimate solution.

Okay, I said knowing you have realtors and financial planners as a given, I never try to assume, that’s why that was my first response. The issue with generating referrals from your clients to their work friends and business colleagues is typically situational, meaning what actually comes up at work and what does not come up at work.

So I gave him some homework. I said, if you’re open to it, you might want to try gathering some intel, right? How you’re going to go about this is critical to get it right.

This intel gathering I want you to do, if you decide to do this the same way I told him to do this, right? How you go about this intel gathering is critical to getting what we want out of this and to getting it correct. And so specifically the language, and the expectation, like the objective to why we are doing it.

So here’s what I told him to do. There’s a couple of steps to this process. And so I’m going to go through each of these. It probably is going to be really helpful if you watch this part of the video again.

So if you’re on YouTube, like go back and watch this chapter that we have broken down. Watch this chapter at the steps I’m going to walk you through.

If you are listening to this as a podcast, head over to the show notes page, which is StaceyBrownRandall.com/359. That’s the show notes page link for this.

I mean, get the transcript. because it’ll just be easier for you to see these steps, because they’re kind of detailed. And what I say, and how I say it, and why I want you to do it, it matters to get it right.

So step number one, so I told him to pick four or five clients. I don’t care if you pick 10, 10 would be great, but I was trying not to overwhelm him.

So I was like, pick four or five clients who have referred a family member to you, or have referred a very close family friend to you. So we’re going to start with people who have referred a family member or a close friend. And, you know, four or five is a great place to start.

Then you’re going to reach out to them and ask them if they have time for like a 10-minute conversation. So we’re not trying to make this to be like some big like we need an hour and meet for coffee. That’s not what we’re doing here.

Like ask them if they have time for a 10-minute conversation about something you’re working to improve in your business. So, hey, do you have 10 minutes? I’d love to hop on a call.

There’s something I’m working to improve and something in my business, and I’d really like to talk to a client to get your perspective on it since you’ve worked with me. Do you have time for a 10-minute call?

That’s what you’re going to say, right? You’re going to say that to those four or five or 10 clients, whatever you pick. If they say yes, I want you to schedule a call with them.

Okay, that’s the first three steps. Pick four to five clients who’ve referred you a family member, reach out to them and say, do you have time for the 10-minute conversation? And if they say yes, schedule a call with them.

If they say no, that’s fine. Just move on to the next person. Not a big deal. Not everybody has time. It’s not usually personal. We always think it’s personal when someone’s like, no, but it’s not always personal. Sometimes they literally don’t have time and that’s okay.

So I want you to have four or five conversations. So if you need to ask 10 people to get to four or five who have time to schedule with you, so be it. But you can’t do this with one conversation or even two conversations. I really want you to get close to five conversations because it’s the intel we’re looking for.

I don’t want a one-person intel. I want feedback from multiple people. That’s why I want you to have at least a number of people you talk to.

OK, so this is what’s going to happen on the call. So again, you’re not trying to have a 30-minute call with them. We’re trying to keep it to 10 minutes. So we’re going to keep it short and to the point.

Obviously, on the call, you’d be like, how are you? Catch up on their life. Hopefully, you remember some things about them so you can ask about certain things.

And so have a conversation with them. See how things are going. Build your rapport as you should when you haven’t talked to somebody who was a previous client in a long time.

But I want you to also thank them for the referrals they’ve given you in the past. And I want you to specifically mention the relationship that they have to the person they referred. Now, remember, this is people who have referred family or super close family friends.

So you’re going to say, hey, thanks for referring your cousin and your mom to me. You don’t need to use the cousin and the mom’s name. They probably know their mother’s name, right?

So if it’s like the best friend from college, you may want to use the first name. Hey, thanks for referring Sally, your best friend from college to me.

What I really want you to say here, if you say the name of the person they referred, great, but I really want to make sure you say the relationship.

So in this case, it’s thanks for referring your cousin and your mom. There’s nothing better than knowing I’m worthy of a referral to a family member or a close friend. So it’s like, hey, thanks for referring them. That means the world to me. We want to make sure we’re making that connection. So that’s how you start this.

After you build rapport, that’s how you’re going to start this conversation. Thanks for referring. Give the connection. And then, of course, at that point, say, there’s nothing better than knowing that I am worthy of referrals to the people who mean the most to you, your family and close family friends.

Then you’re gonna pivot and you’re gonna say this. I’m trying to understand the psychology of the referrals I receive.

I know mortgages come up in family and friend conversations, which is why I receive them, which is why I receive referrals to my clients’ family and friends, like you have referred me, your mom and cousin.

But I’m curious to know if the topic of mortgages when someone needs one, comes up for you in business settings or conversations.

For example, does the topic of buying a home and the need for a mortgage come up during your networking events? Or when you’re talking to a colleague at work in the break room? Or if you are on a virtual chat with someone after a meeting has ended?

So the pivot here is like, hey, I’m just trying to understand. I know mortgages. And this is our example. I know the idea of mortgages come up when you’re talking to family and you’re talking to close friends. That’s why I get them. That’s why you referred me. I know that.

But I’m trying to figure out if the topic of mortgages ever comes up for you in other situations, in other settings, like at the water cooler, when you’re talking with your colleagues, riding in the elevator, and if you’re on a virtual chat with somebody after the meeting’s ended and then you’re just catching up, or if you’re at networking events, or if you’re at a team meeting.

So you’re just giving some scenarios that that person, based on what they do for a living, you want to give scenarios that that person would face.

So if you were talking to someone, a client of yours that’s in corporate America, you want to position those scenarios based on what someone in corporate America would experience.

It’s kind of important here, you know, if this person works in an office or from home, because then how you’re going to tweak the part of the question is like at the water cooler does not work for somebody who’s virtual, but saying, Hey, when you’re catching up with somebody after a meeting’s ended and you’re still on the virtual call chatting, right?

That’s not going to necessarily maybe work for somebody who sits in an office and sees people face to face all day. So just make sure you’re using scenarios that they can relate to because that helps us not to become a confusing conversation for them.

So once you ask that question, you’re then gonna close your mouth and be quiet. And give them time to think about your question and share what comes up for them.

Here’s the reality. We want referrals from everyone in all situations because we’re human. Of course, we want referrals as often as possible, as much as possible, as easy as possible. We are human. That makes perfect sense.

But all situations don’t lend to referrals, not only being given, but not even in the realm of what we’re talking about, not even in the realm of that conversation or that relationship, in this case, in that situation.

Real referrals, where somebody actually wants to talk to you about potentially hiring you, cannot be forced, cannot be manufactured. So in this case, what I want this mortgage broker to do is just focus on the intel that his clients will share.

Now, he may have suspicions that he’s like, I think this is what they’re going to tell me. And he may be right. So he may have his suspicions confirmed, or maybe he’s going to learn something new.

The point of this conversation is not to like, try to get them to refer you on the spot right then and there. We’re not anticipating that at all. Like that is not how we go into this conversation, right?

The goal is to understand if they find themselves in conversation with a colleague at work where that colleague would actually talk about needing a mortgage or at least buying a home or adding on or renovating to their house where the need for maybe a conversation of a construction loan or something or a refinance would come into the conversation.

Does your client ever find themselves in a situation where they’re having personal type conversations in their business setting?

Now, most of us, I don’t work in corporate America anymore, but when I did, I worked with my friends and we talked about stuff. But whether or not that kind of stuff’s going to come up all the time, Maybe, maybe not. I think it depends.

I’m not gonna make some assumptions on who the clients are of this mortgage broker, but this is the thing. It’s very important.

The goal is not to get referrals from your clients or from his clients through this process, but to really understand what’s happening in the work settings of your clients where you wish you were getting referrals.

This mortgage broker may learn that it never comes up for conversation. It’s never put out there. And so this mortgage broker may learn that that’s not necessarily as much of a viable option to generate referrals as he would prefer.

It’s okay that he prefers it. It’s okay that he wants it, but that doesn’t mean that that’s actually how it happens or what it looks like.

Now, I’m pretty confident I know what he’s going to learn if he goes through this process. But it’s really important that the mortgage broker goes through this process for himself.

Because here’s the thing. I don’t know his clients. I don’t know where they work. I can make some assumptions, just in terms of corporate America versus small business versus owning their own business.

So I can make some assumptions. But he needs to figure this out for himself. And it’s not a bad thing for his clients to think about these questions, too.

Will he find himself in a situation where there’s been all these referrals that he’s just missed? Probably not.

My inclination of doing this for over 10 years now, going on 12 years, is what I’m confident that he’s going to learn through this process, that there are some scenarios and some settings where you want referrals to happen, but it’s not even a part of the realm of consciousness, let alone conversation in a situation.

I do think that’s different depending on how close somebody is to a work colleague. If they’re actually like buddy buddies or like best friend at work, or I don’t know if they say this anymore, like the work husband and the work wife, like those tighter, closer relationships where there’s a friend at work, that may be more likely of a situation where the conversation, in this example, needing a mortgage, is going to come up.

But what I want this mortgage broker to learn, and maybe for you to learn too, is if you want referrals from your clients in their work settings, is what they would refer to you even coming up in conversation in their work settings. And getting really real on that is very important and may not like the outcome. I’m not really sure.

There probably will be some people who listen to this and they’re like, see, that’s where I think you can just go in and make it happen and make your clients refer their colleagues by asking them to do it. It’s a way. It’s also a way to burn up a lot of relationship capital.

And so I find that the best thing to do and the biggest blessing that you can give yourself is understanding where you should be spending your time to generate referrals and where you should not waste your time.

We all have people or groups of people in a particular role or a field or maybe they all belong to an association, that we think should refer us. Like, oh my gosh, they would be great to refer us. But that’s not always the case in reality. Just because we want it to be true doesn’t always mean it’s going to actually be true.

Now, I’ve worked with mortgage brokers in the past before, so I know where they should be spending their time. And mortgage brokers or marketing consultants, you’re a CPA, you’re an interior designer, you’re an attorney, you’re an IT consultant, you’re a business coach, it doesn’t matter.

There are people who can and will refer and those who won’t. And the trick is knowing who will so you can determine where to spend your time.

This process of identifying clients, reaching out, scheduling a call, and then following that script as I laid it out is really good for intel gathering.

I’ve actually used that type of scenario, not the actual language in different situations. When I have other people who’ve reached out to me and they’re asking questions, and I’m like, you truly need to gather some intel. And this is usually the process I send them through.

Sometimes hearing another person’s words, your client’s words, other people’s words, telling you the answer to that question is way more valuable than anything I’m going to tell you, which is why I want them to do that.

So that is why we have that information. That’s why I break this information down in this way. And here’s the thing. I know most people that I say that you should do this, won’t do it.

I don’t know if I’ll hear back from this gentleman. I don’t know if I’ll hear back. I don’t know if he’ll do the work. I hope he does. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. I kind of would love to be wrong. I don’t think I will be. That would be amazing if I was. But I don’t know.

Most of the time I give people homework like this and they’re not a client of mine. They have no skin in the game. I don’t usually hear back. But we will see. Some people will do the work and some people won’t. And that’s just kind of how it works. So, of course, I hope so.

Again, I would highly recommend you re-listen to those steps as I broke them down by finding the right chapter within the description below this video on the YouTube video.

Or if you’re listening to this on the podcast, definitely go get the transcript so you can just see this boop, boop, boop. There’s the steps, there’s the language that Stacey gave.

The resources mentioned in this episode can be found in the description below the video and the podcast show notes, which can be found at StaceyBrownRandall.com/359.

You can also find the link to join us for our spring training for referrals. Now we’ve started, we’re on day two, if you’re listening to this on the day this episode goes live on the last Tuesday of April. So we’ve started, we’re in the middle of it, but it’s not too late for you to join and catch up on the replays.

Alright, 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.