Ep #303: The BEST Referral Thank You Card

Stacey Brown Randall: A critical step in the process to receive more referrals and receive them more consistently is to nail your thank you card. In this episode, I’ll show you how.

Hey there and welcome to episode 303 of the Roadmap to Referrals podcast, a show about helping you build a referable business. I’m your host, Stacey Brown Randall. My journey from a business failure to a successful business now 10 years in, I know, generating referrals naturally and consistently has made all the difference. Working with clients around the world, we leverage the science of referrals, protect relationships above all else, and help you build a referable business.

All right, I am ready to dive into this episode with you guys today. Before I do that, real quick, want to make a note, you may have already noticed, depends on when you’re listening to this episode, maybe you haven’t, but our 30 Ways To Take Control of Your Referrals is live.

It is April. And that means we are taking control of our referrals. And so it is live where you can go learn every single day one small, tiny tip, one small, tiny action that you can take to help you start taking control of your referrals.

There is a small, tiny tip provided every day for 30 days. Now, where do you find this? You got to join us on social media. That’s right. This doesn’t come through your email. It only exists on our social media platforms.

The preference we have for social media being LinkedIn and Instagram, but we also post on Facebook as well. So make sure you join us on my social media platforms, which you can find me everywhere at Stacey Brown Randall.

But definitely check out LinkedIn and Instagram every single day for our daily tiny tip to help you take control of your referrals. We’re going to do this for 30 days.

There is one episode from the five plus years I’ve been doing the podcast that I reference a lot. Like people ask this question and I am constantly referencing this podcast episode to them. It’s because of this, I really thought it was time for a refresh of the episode because it is from way back. Like way back first year, way back.

So I went back to listen to that episode. Sometimes when I have a topic that I want to expand upon or I want to talk about it differently, I’ll go back and listen to an old episode and that’ll help me kind of create a new take on it or different opinions on it or build on it and go deeper in a certain area.

But when I went back to listen to this episode, just so I could take a few notes, so I could do a refresh of the episode, I realized after listening to that episode, I may not be able to say it any better than I did way back then. And this is way back then on episode 52. So that’s the final episode of the first year that I did my first year of podcasting when I started way back in 2018.

So, because I know I probably can’t say it any better today than I said it back then, and everything that I say about this one specific topic is still true, because that is the power of referrals, being evergreen, baby, we’re just going to play the episode for you again. We’re going to cut out the fluff at the beginning and the end and just get straight to the heart of the episode.

But a few things to note before we hit play. Some things have obviously changed, right? Like you’ll hear me reference the ages of my children and I’ll talk about, in that old episode, I’ll talk about my kids being all three of them. in elementary school. That is obviously not the case anymore. I’ve got two in high school and one in middle school. So obviously some things have changed.

You’ll also hear me talk about my Growth by Referrals, my GBR online program, which at that time was my signature program. I had some of the other ones, but I didn’t have the coaching program that I have today. BRB, Building a Referable Business, or my VIP option.

And so it was just interesting to me to listen to me talk. It was interesting for me, excuse me, for me to listen to me talk about just GBR as like it was the thing, the only thing. And I’m like, oh my gosh, how far have I come? So that was kind of cool.

But to that point, GBR at that time, way back then, when we first recorded this episode you guys are going to listen to, it was my main signature program. And it’s actually been updated twice since the recording of that older episode. So the modules that I reference and some details that I reference and things, they’re just not necessarily correct. So keep that in mind.

But that is not why you’re listening at all to this episode. You’re listening for the meat of that episode. But I did just want to bring a couple things to your mind.

Alright, so let’s do a little blast from the past with information that is as true today as it was back then. Let me show you how to write the very best referral thank you card.

Okay, let’s dive in to the purpose of today’s episode. We are talking about how to nail your thank you card.

So I want to talk about this in two ways. I’m going to talk about first kind of like the hardware, the questions I always get around the thank you card, right? That are hardware specific. You’ll see what I mean in a minute. And then of course the questions that I get specific to the software.

So I’m going to break this down and telling you what I believe that you should be doing and what I have seen that works not just only for me, but for the hundreds of students who’ve gone through my Growth by Referrals program. The hardware, and then the software.

And I’m gonna finish up a little bit with just some kinda quick tips that you need to know, and then I already can feel it in me, there’s a slight rant coming. Like, I just know it’s coming. Because I get some questions sometimes that drive me bonkers, and I’m gonna address those as well towards the end of talking about this thank you card.

Alright, so let’s dive into the hardware, which is effectively, in my opinion, the type of card you’re going to use. You know, this card has to be handwritten, which means it has to be on paper, cannot be in a text, cannot be in an email, cannot be in a voicemail. I’m not saying you can’t do those things, but you have to also do the handwritten thank you card.

So let’s talk about the type of card. First and foremost, let me first just say this, the card you send is secondary. It is so secondary to what you’re actually going to write, that message you’re going to write inside the card. So that handwritten message matters most. The card that you write it in, it’s a little bit more secondary.

Now, here’s what I’m also going to tell you, that if you have cards that have your company’s logo on them, it’s fine. You could definitely use a logo card if it has your logo on the front of it.

Now, if you’re thinking to yourself, wait a minute, Stacey, I listened to episode 19 where you talked about how promo swag is killing our referral plan or killing our referrals. It’s true. I don’t believe you should be giving people as part of your referral plan as a way that you take care of them.

Or if you wanted to give them some gifts, if you give them your logoed item, that’s not a gift. Your water bottle to me is not a gift to me. That’s marketing for you and you’re just hoping I carry your water bottle around.

But on the thank you card, and you’ll hear in that episode, it’s the only thing I talk about that’s fine to use with your logo on it. Because lots of us have cards printed with our logos on them. It’s fine to use. You know what else is also fine to use? A generic thank you card that you bought at the grocery store or at Hallmark. Those generic thank you cards are fine too.

But I will tell you, if you want to add some additional impact, then I would suggest you create a card for your referral thank yous. When you’re gonna sit down and thank someone who just sent you a referral, I would say for some added impact, you can actually have a card that is specific, a specific thank you card just for your referrals that you have received.

Now to my Growth by Referral students, you guys get a few designs. I think there’s like four of them inside the Growth by Referrals program. So to my Growth by Referrals members, just look at, I think it’s module three or module six, where you can actually download that packet of three or four, maybe it’s five, the designs are the front of those thank you cards, right?

But for everyone else, I still have one that I want you to be able to grab. I want to put it into your hands, and I want to do it for free. And it is one of my two top favorites. And it’s the Keep Calm and Referral On card.

So you may have seen it before. I talk about it in one of my articles on my StaceyBrownRandall.com website as well. Of course, to my Growth by Referrals members, you guys have this Keep Calm. It’s one of the pack of four cards that you receive.

But I want you to know that you can download this Keep Calm and Referral On, it’s just the image for the front cover of your card. You can download it on the show notes page for this episode, which is StaceyBrownRandall.com/52. That’s the number 52. And don’t forget, Stacey has an E.

This card is very referral specific because it literally says Keep Calm and Referral On, on the cover of the card. But that doesn’t mean all of your thank you cards for the referrals received need to be that specific.

Like I said, if you really have a specific card that you send just for your referral sources because it has that little referral impact on it, it just has greater impact. Not necessary, but it’s just an extra added bonus if you want to consider it.

And remember, when you’re downloading this card, guys, you’re just downloading the front image. You can have it printed at your local printer, or you of course can have it printed online. If you want to add a message on the inside, you can. I like leaving them blank so that I have room to write whatever it is I want to write.

That’s what’s coming up next. Going to tell you what to write, but I have room to write my message. And then of course you can always add your logo to the back or your name to the back of the card if you want to. There’s easy ways to do that online, or if you’re using a printer, they can hook you up with making sure you have the back of the card that you want.

So you’re just downloading the front image. I get questions about that sometimes. They’re like, where’s the rest of the card? I’m like, no, it’s just the front image. You’re going to put it on a card, and then whether you put it on a postcard or a card or whatever you want to do, you’re going to have to create the rest of the card, which inside should be blank, in my opinion, because it gives you more room to write. You can put whatever you want on the back of that card.

Okay, so that’s the hardware. That’s the type of card that you’re going to use. And again, the card is secondary to the written message, and that matters most. So let’s talk about the software.

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, pardon the interruption. Ever wondered how a current member of my Building a Referable Business coaching program would describe their experience working with me? I did. So I asked them. And here’s what they had to say.

Client: If I had to describe BRB in one word, it would be transformative. It really changes the way that you look at your interactions with the people who can provide business for you.

Client: I would define BRB in one word as a community. It’s always a positive experience. She’s extremely, well, she’s very organized. She makes everything seem easy, even when it’s not actually easy. And she’s extremely motivating.

Client: Defining BRB in one word would be relationships.

Client: BRB, in one word, effective. If you’re looking for an effective program, BRB is it. If you’re looking for a great, knowledgeable expert and cheerleader, then Stacey’s definitely the person to work with.

Client: If I could define BRB in one word, it would be elevate, because it’s certainly elevated my business.

Client: BRB means progress to me. What I would say to someone, the reason to join BRB, is if you’re in a business that’s a referral business, and that’s the most important piece of your business, then I can’t think of a better way to invest in it than invested it in the best authority when it comes to referral business. Stacey.

Stacey Brown Randall: Want to join us inside the coaching program, Building a Referable Business, or BRB for short? Then go to StaceyBrownRandall.com/referable to learn about the program and click on the link to submit your application. Okay, now back to the episode.

Stacey Brown Randall: So let’s talk about the software. And the software of your thank you card is what you write, what you’re going to say. And this matters most. What you write, when you think about it, what you write, that’s the real magic.

This card has a main objective and two secondary objectives. The main objective for this thank you card, is to thank your referral source or the person, once somebody refers you somebody, they’re now an official referral source. But if this is the very first referral you’ve ever received from that person, it’s the same thing. They’ve now become a referral source, but the thank you note you’re going to write to the person who just sent you a referral, right?

The first objective and the main objective for after is to thank them for the gift they have just given you. That gift being the potential new client that they just dropped into your lap without you having to do a whole bunch of work for it. So keep that in mind. The main objective of this card is, of course, the thank you. Is the thank you for referring me so-and-so, right?

OK, the secondary objectives, of course, is an opportunity for us to plant a referral seed. And in this case, a couple of them, depending on how you write the card and what your front cover looks like. And it’s also this other secondary objective is, OK, so yes, to plant a referral seed so they start thinking about you in terms of giving more referrals. And then, of course, an offer to help them so that you can make it about them and mean it.

I cannot stress this more. I mean, I don’t even know how much more I can actually stress this, but everything we do within our referral plan, from the plan that we build, to how we take care of our referral sources, to the language we use, we actually mean it.

This isn’t we’re trying to manipulate somebody, right? This isn’t something like, haha, I’m telling them I care about them, and I really don’t. Like that, no. That has no place in this world. It has no place, of course, in the Growth by Referrals world or generating referrals, but it has no place in this world in general.

So we’re going to obviously plant referral seeds, right? We’re going to, first and foremost, thank them for the fact that they just sent you a potential brand-new client. We’re going to plant some referral seeds, so they think about us a specific way moving forward. But also, we’re going to offer to help them so that they know we care about them, which means you better mean it when you offer to help them.

So here’s a very simple, easy script I’m going to give you. And this script, guys, I’m going to actually put it on the show notes page as well so you guys can go grab it from there. You’ll just be able to go grab this script.

I’m going to encourage you to print it out and keep it in your desk drawer or keep it on your desk or keep it folded up with your thank you notes. If you have your thank you notes in a box, print out this language I’m about to give you and stick it in that box so that when you go to write a card, the language you’re going to use is right there.

So here’s a very simple, easy script you’re going to use. Again, you don’t have to be writing notes on this. It’s going to be on the show notes page at StaceyBrownRandall.com/52. Okay, so here it is.

So you put their name in, right? Dear so-and-so, or just their name, depending on how formal or informal you are typically with your writing. Don’t be formal if you’re not. You’ll never get a card from me if you refer me someone, right? You’ll never get a card from me that says, Dear Tom. It’s going to say Tom. Okay, so just write how of who you are and how you are.

So let’s just say I’m going to use Tom in my example. Tom, thank you for referring so and so to me, I was going to come up with a name, but I did not come up with one very well. So let’s do this.

So Tom, thank you for referring Sally Referral to me. I am grateful for your support to help those you know and care about, please let me know if I can do anything for you. Warmly, Stacey. Love, Stacey. Whatever. I mean, maybe you don’t say love to people, right?

So maybe that’s not appropriate, but maybe it’s Warmly. Maybe it’s, Thanks again. Maybe it’s, Sincerely. Whatever’s appropriate for you for a sign-off. I’m not going to tell you how to do your sign-off. You’re a grown adult. You know how to do your own sign-off.

But there’s three sentences I just talked about. I talked about thank you for referring me to so-and-so, and I used the first and last name of the person they referred. Then I told them how grateful I am to have their support to help those that they know and care about, and to please let me know if I can do anything for them.

So I thanked them, objective number one. I planted two referral seeds in this card. The first referral seed is actually using the word referral, or thank you for the referral to, or thank you for referring me to. The actual use of the word referral can be definitely a seed that you can plant. It’s very obvious, so we don’t want to overdo it. We don’t want to belabor that point, but that’s one seed.

The other seed was when we said that we’re grateful to be able to help the people that they know. That’s a more subtle seed that we just planted. And then please let me know if I can do anything for you. The third objective, of course, is they offer to help. Really super simple, guys. It’s three lines that go into this card.

Now, you can add other stuff, of course, but those are the three basic lines I want you to have inside your script. So again, you can download this script at StaceyBrownRandall.com/52. Print it out, please. Put it with your thank you cards so you always know the right language to use and you’re not looking for it in that moment and you make sure you get it right.

Now, some other questions I’ll get regarding the software is, okay, we get that this is a handwritten card, and we understand what we’re saying, most important. Then the next question I always get is, well, who writes it? And then when are we supposed to send it?

Okay, guys, here’s the thing. Who writes it? You do. Okay, here comes the soapbox. Let me just go ahead and prepare you guys. Here comes my rant.

You write it. Your assistant doesn’t write it. A third-party robot that you are happening to use online doesn’t write it. I know you can use outsourced tools in other ways, but this is not that way. This is the sit your bottom down and write the darn card. It’ll take you I don’t know maybe two to three, four minutes max. Maybe five minutes if you have to go look for their mailing address, right?

Seriously guys. Who writes it? You do. You don’t outsource this to your assistant. You don’t give this to your spouse to write. You don’t give this to your child to write or somebody else in your company. You get off your lazy bum and you write the card.

Like, this person just handed you a brand-new client. I mean, I have had clients handed to me that a client has been referred to me and that client has then been responsible for 20, 30, 40, $50,000 worth of work over the years and the additional referrals that referred client sent to me.

That is worthy of my two to three minutes to freaking write a handwritten thank you note to the person who sent them to me. Like, this is crazy that people actually ask me this question, right? Like, do I have to be the one that write it? I mean, seriously, how lazy can you be?

I mean it is, I’m sorry I don’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings and if you’re listening to this on like first thing in the morning I don’t mean to set you off on the wrong tone for your day or if you’re headed to bed I don’t mean to like make you be like, wow, Stacey just yelled at me like I don’t want to make you feel bad.

But seriously guys, I have zero patience for the, I’m too busy. I have been handwriting, right? I just, I just didn’t have time to get around to it. The truth is you chose not to get around to it. You chose to decide to be too busy and not write this card.

And for those of you sitting there thinking, but Stacey, I promise you, I have the worst handwriting. Trust me, you’re not the first person to tell me you have the worst handwriting. I hear it every single time I get on a stage, or I talk to someone.

I have, members inside my Growth by Referrals program, that’ll tell me the same thing. They’re like, oh my God, Stacey, my handwriting’s the worst. And my answer is always the same. I don’t care. Write slower.

If you have bad handwriting, write slower. And print, don’t try to write in cursive because it’s only going to be that much worse. So take your time, write the card, thank the person for the fact that they just dropped a brand new client in your lap.

Have some common decency to recognize how awesome and amazing that is and write the darn card. Again, zero patience. I need to get off this rant because I could go on forever and ever and ever and nobody wants to really listen to that. I think my point has been made. You write the card, right? I’ve given you the language and now you’re the one who’s going to write it.

Now the next question I’ll always get is like, when do I send it? That’s a great question. Here’s the thing. I would prefer you send it the same day you receive a referral, but that’s not even actually reality for me.

Sometimes I’ll receive a referral and I am going full tilt with my day. And you guys know, I talk about this. I’m a married woman with three small children under the age of 11, still all in elementary school. Well, at least for a few days. When this episode comes out, maybe they won’t all be in elementary school. I’ve got two boys headed to middle school this fall.

So the truth is, it’s crazy, right? I mean, I may go full tilt in a day, back-to-back to back-to-back to back stuff. And then I don’t know, I don’t just get a break. Usually, it’s racing home to make dinner time, right? And then it’s, oh, we got baseball. We’ve got play practice. We’ve got you know, trapeze. We’ve got Cub Scouts. Like, it’s just like, right? Like, I live in this crazy world.

So I’m not even telling you that I get a thank you card out the exact same day I receive it. But guys, within 24 to 48 or 72 hours, you should be able to get a thank you card in the mail. But for the love, just get it in the mail, even if it’s five days later, even if it’s the next week. Get the card in the mail.

So when to send it? As soon as possible. Don’t be like, well, it’s been seven days. I guess it’s too late to send. It’s never too late to send it. Okay, that was probably like rant number two. Sorry, I didn’t see that one coming.

All right, now, for those of you in my Growth by Referrals program, for my Growth by Referrals members, just remember, like some of you guys will ask me, hey, what if I receive referrals again and again and again from the same person? Do I write the same card over and over and over again? The answer is no.

So just as a note to my Growth by Referrals members, remember, if you’re sending multiple thank you cards to someone because they’re sending you multiple referrals, right, we do have different language for that card.

We still basically follow the same formula, but we just want to change it up because we’re not going to write a carbon copy of the same card over and over and over again. We’re a little bit more sophisticated than that. And so there’s additional language inside module six for when you’re writing multiple thank you cards to the same person.

Because maybe every week or every month they’re sending you a referral, we want to have a different card that we’re going to write that still hits the formula but is changed up so it doesn’t look like you only can say the same three things in a card over and over again. All right. Rant over, take a deep breath, Stacey. I’m calming myself down.

So this episode gave you what you needed to nail your thank you card for every future referral that you will receive. I told you what type of card to use. I gave you options for every budget. I talked about what to say. I gave you the actual script. I even gave you the image for a very referral-specific card if you want that.

So you got ideas for cards. You’ve got a card you can download and use. You can borrow mine, right? You steal it, borrow it. I’m giving it to you, right? So take it. You’ve got the script to put inside that card. You know who’s writing it. You know when you’re sending it. You understand the objective of this card, the multiple objectives that this card has. You have everything you need now to nail your thank you card for every future referral that you will receive.

Which means, my friends, you now have no excuses. Zero excuses for not writing a killer thank you card every time someone sends you a new referral.

Now, here is my disclaimer. You will not, under zero circumstances, you will not produce a referral explosion, and increase your business the way I talked about at the beginning of this episode with Doug, with that awesome review he left on Amazon for my book, right? And he talked about that you will see your business blow up.

You will not have your business blow up, air quotes using Doug’s words, or the referral explosion that I have seen people have just by sending thank you cards for referrals. It is one step of an overall process that you need to follow, but it is a critical step.

So please do not think, well, I wrote the thank you card, Stacey told me how to write, and I mean, that’s wonderful, but where are all my referrals? Where’s my referral explosion? My friends, that doesn’t work that way, but it is a critical step in the process.

So if you have any questions about that, then I suggest you go back an episode to episode 51, when I talk about one of the rookie mistakes people make, and one of those is actually not knowing you have to have a plan and a process to develop your relationships with your referral sources, and it can’t just be these handwritten thank you notes. So go back to episode 51 and make sure you are not committing any of the referral rookie mistakes.

All right. And remember everything I’ve talked about. Download the image, the Keep Calm and Referral On thank you card to download that image, to download the script and print it out and put it with your thank you cards. All that can be found on the show notes page.

The show notes page for this episode can be found at StaceyBrownRandall.com/303. That’s for episode 303. And at that link for the show notes page, you will also find the link for the resources that I mentioned in the episode, like where to download the thank you card script that you’re going to write every time you receive a referral. And of course, the front image that you can borrow, basically just take from me for your perfect referral thank you note.

So remember, everything you’ve learned in this episode was to help you understand how to write the very best thank you card you can every time you receive a referral.

Because remember, if you can’t thank me for the referral I just gave to you, why should I think about referring you again? And that is the power of why this is a lesson everybody should nail if you want to increase your referrals.

I hope you found this episode as jam-packed with goodness and resources and information as I had intended. 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.