Ep #415: What Referrals Really Gave Me

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, do you love referrals but hate asking for them? Well, then you’ve come to the right place. This is the Roadmap to Referrals podcast, and I’m your host, Stacey Brown Randall.

Every week, I break down why you don’t have to ask, pay, be gimmicky, or network all the time to generate referrals for your business.

We take a science-backed approach with our methodology, frameworks, and strategies. The goal is simple, to help you take control of your referrals on your terms.

Most of you know my journey, and if you don’t, let me just give you a quick recap. Business number one, the first business I started was a human resource HR consulting firm, and it failed after four years.

It didn’t quite make it to the five-year mark, and I entered the business failure club as a member, and I also joined another club of 85% of small businesses that don’t make it to year five. That was the club I joined.

But I also didn’t let that stop me, of course, from starting this business. Now, after my business failed, I went back to corporate America for about 15-ish months, and then I was able to leave again and started business number two, which is this business.

But this business that you know, as someone, as from my perspective of me teaching people how to generate referrals without asking or manipulating or incentivizing, or any of that crap we don’t wanna do when it comes to referrals, right?

As you know the business to be that now, when I started this business almost 13, now 13 years ago, this business I started as a certified productivity and business coach.

Then I received 112 referrals in my first year as a productivity and business coach.

My fourth client in that new business, business number two, my fourth client that I signed on was referred to me, and that changed everything without me even realizing it at the moment.

Referrals gave me something, my expertise and expertise, that I was able to scale, which is why that’s all I do now.

That’s all my business focuses on is teaching people how to generate referrals and do it with using our methodology, so you never have to ask. And here we are, 13 years later.

The clients I’ve worked with that I have had the opportunity to help, that I’ve had the opportunity to change their business, and on some of their accounts, they have told me actually even changed their lives.

It makes the work I do so very extremely rewarding and personal. It’s very, very personal, the work that I do.

But even more so than the remarkable clients who have trusted me, is the life that I have been able to build by this business that I have and how I’ve structured it and what I’ve leaned into within this business.

Here’s just a few of the highlights that this business has provided to me. I’ve taken a five-week sabbatical. I did that back in 2017. I probably am due for another one, I would think.

Most years, I average five to maybe six vacations. They’re not always all full weeks, but yeah, pretty close to it.

I was able to completely fall apart for a number of weeks, maybe more like a month or two, after we unexpectedly lost my dad in 2018.

A few years later, I would take my mom on a European river cruise for her 75th birthday, something she and my dad always talked about doing, but they didn’t.

And so I did it because this business gave me the fortunate resources to be able to do that.

And my proudest accomplishment of all the things that I’ve accomplished that this business has contributed or allowed me to do in my life, of all of those accomplishments and including the books that I have published and probably the books to come and doing 400 plus episodes on this podcast, all of my business accomplishments, but the life that I’ve been able to live, those accomplishments matter the most.

And my proudest one, my proudest accomplishment is being able to be present as a wife and a mom to our three kids.

This is a reflection on what referrals has given me, not just the referrals for my own business, but for my clients’ businesses as well, but looking at it from this company that I own and that I run and what it has provided to me, it has provided me with so many amazing things.

But this reflection right now is pretty timely because it comes at a change heavy and highly emotional life stage for my family. And I think that’s why I’m just in a reflecting mood.

Both of our boys are graduating high school. One just graduated last week, and one will graduate in a few weeks. Our daughter is turning her sweet 16. We’ve already had her party, but her sweet 16 birthday is just around the corner.

And that also means both of our boys are heading off to college in the fall. So we’ll be a family of five, dropping down to a family of three for about eight months out of the year.

And that’s if they actually come home during the summers. We’ll see, right? I was not one who came home in my summers, but I’ll see if I get lucky and my boys do.

And here’s what I love about my business and what it’s provided to me is that I’ve been here for almost all of it, all of the baseball games, middle school, JV, varsity.

I’m gonna try really hard not to cry because I knew this was gonna happen. I probably should have preempted that and said, I may cry, which I really don’t have to cry.

I’ve been for all of the theater performances, running kids to every activity that they needed to do, spending that time in the car with them, which is so very valuable in the preteen and the teenager years, right?

But also when they were younger, right? When they were younger as well and being available to take them to soccer or ballet or barre or whatever it was, I was able to do all of those things.

I’ve been at the wrestling masters. I’ve been at the school events. I’ve been able to drop them off, been able to chaperone on different field trips.

I’ve been able to do it all and I’ve been able to do it because of referrals. For the ones that my business receives, for the referrals that my business receives and the ones that I show my clients how to receive.

Referrals have shaped everything about this beautiful life that I have built, that I have loved.

With the work that I get to do with my clients, to looking back and reflecting on knowing as my two boys embark on the next life stage for themselves, that I have been able to be there for all of it.

And it’s because my business grew with greater ease and my business grew in a consistent way that I could rely on, maybe not knowing that a referral was gonna show up this Tuesday and next Thursday, but knowing I was doing what I needed to do to have referrals flow into my business, that has allowed me to shift the process and the focus of my business.

And then when I went all in on referrals, that also allowed me and reminded me and showed me how very valuable I could build a whole business around teaching something that had become my expertise.

And that is my referrals without asking methodology and understanding what makes that special and unique and why you can’t find it anywhere else.

And others try to teach it and definitely some have tried to rip it off in the past and put it in their books and act like it’s theirs or talk about it on social media like it’s theirs.

Some of those even being past clients of my own, that I have built something, a way of thinking, a way of operating, a framework, a model, a way to do something in your business.

And it has served not only me with generating referrals in my business, but also for my clients and allows me to have this business that I have.

And this business has afforded us and allowed us to have the life that I’ve been able to have with so many sweet, beautiful, wonderful memories as I now embark on a different life stage.

With two boys not near the house, can’t come home for a quick weekend trip because one’s gonna be over four hours away and one’s gonna be over six hours away in a different state. But just knowing that referrals have afforded me all of that.

And I just wanted to take a minute and just reflect on that for you. Maybe there’s something in your business that has done the same thing for you, I hope so.

Maybe it’s what referrals should be doing for you to give you a level of consistency, a level of trust and understanding and knowing what you can do to control what that flow of referrals looks like.

And if that’s the case, if you want a little bit about what I’ve talked about and what referrals have looked like in my business and my clients’ businesses, we probably should talk and I would love for you to reach out.

Remember, you can always complete an application at staceybrownrandall.com/application, no obligation application, but it’ll give you an opportunity to think through what’s real in your business for referrals, what are your frustrations with referrals and what would you like to see moving forward.

Complete that application, then you and I can hop on a call, we can talk through it. And then you can decide for yourself if you want to move forward and work with me.

No obligation, you don’t have to. It’s most important that you know what’s next if that’s what you’re looking for.

But I know for me, referrals changed everything about the trajectory of my business. It’s why I do what I do today and it’s why I get to have the life that I get to have.

And I’m very, very thankful and I do not take it for granted. I am very blessed and I remember it every single day.

Lots of gratitude happening in my world. And I think a lot of it has to do with referrals. So complete an application. I would love the opportunity to talk with you and work with you.

And thanks for indulging me on my cry-y, kind of teary reflection on what referrals has really given to me over the last 13 years that I’ve been running this business.

If you’re looking for the links mentioned or the transcripts for this episode, remember the links are just below the video or of course they’re on the show notes page at staceybrownrandall.com/415.

Thanks for making it to the end. Until next week, take control of your referrals and build a referable business. Bye for now.