Participants:

Steve Wershing
Julie Littlechild
Stacey Brown Randall

Julie:              
Welcome to another episode of Becoming Referable, the podcast that helps you be the kind of advisor people can’t stop talking about. I’m Julie Littlechild, and on this week’s show, Steve and I are more than a little excited to be speaking with Stacey Brown Randall. Why? Because she teaches a no-asking, referral generation strategy. We think it’s a great message, and a great process.

Stacey is a three-time entrepreneur, the author of Generating Business Referrals Without Asking, and host of the Roadmap to Grow Your Business podcast. We talked to her about her five-step process to drive more referrals in a way that’s comfortable and reflects why clients refer in the first place. And she tells us the top three myths that get in that way of driving more referrals. What’s so interesting about Stacey’s approach is that it’s born of pure experience. The lessons she teaches were learned in the trenches as she grew her own business. And she’s very open about what worked and what didn’t.

And with that, let’s get to our conversation with Stacey.

Speaker 2:       
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And now, Becoming Referable.

Julie:
So Stacey, welcome. So happy to have you here with us today.

Steve: 
Welcome, Stacey.

Stacey:  
Thank you, Steve and Julie. I appreciate it.Julie:

Well, I’m so excited because it seems we all have a common interest in referrals. So that’s a good place to start this conversation. And I’m going to talk to you about some of the great work that you’re doing, and some of the methodologies that you’ve got for advisors, but can you just start by telling us a little bit about the work that you’re doing, just to give our listeners some context for that?

Stacey:    
Sure. It’s interesting. I started out as a productivity and business coach when I started my second business. And it was during that time with starting my second business that I realized there was a way to grow my business better than I needed and wanted to be able to do. And so I really stumbled upon referrals, and from there figured out some ways to do some really great work with clients and with my own company of growing my business on referrals. And I kind of shifted my whole practice into that focus of really helping people generate referrals without asking, through my online trainings, my VIP one-on-one coaching that I have, and really helping people dive in to understand how referrals work and then how do we make it work for us in a way that isn’t what is typically the advice we hear, which is how to ask. But I’m the exact opposite of that: focused on how you generate referrals without asking.

Julie:        
So are we. So we won’t argue on that point.

Steve:     
We’re in complete agreement there.

Julie:     
So that’s interesting. You actually switched gears because you were finding success in this other area. But I assume you also spotted a good opportunity or recognized that a lot of professionals were probably grappling with this same issue. What was the problem that you saw that you really thought you could fix?

Stacey:    
So I have to be honest, I would tell you that the problem I saw I wanted to fix for myself. I mean, that was ultimately why I started working and looking at referrals. And the problem that I saw was when my first business failed. It was an HR consulting firm. When it failed and I looked at how I generated business I realized I worked entirely too hard for every client that I did land. And there wasn’t anything easy about that business. And that’s not the only thing that led to its failure.

I had to get a job after my business failure. When I had an opportunity to leave my job, go back out on my own, I wanted to make business easier for myself. So ultimately that was what I was after. I was like, I need to find a way to do business development in a way that I’m willing to do it. Where I can be authentic, I can be somewhat happy or willing to do it. I wasn’t going to do tactics that wasn’t going to work for me. But I also didn’t want to go through another business failure, so I was willing to try different things too.

So when I looked back at my first failure and I realized, wow, I had no referrals in my first business. What does it look like to grow a business with referrals? That’s when I started doing all the research and being like what does this look like for me. And so that’s really how I stumbled upon I want to generate referrals, but wait, I don’t like that advice that I have to ask, can I figure out how to do it different.

My business was the guinea pig. I didn’t know if it was going to be successful, to be honest. It was successful, and I happened to be coaching what would become my ideal client, for my referral work. So with my small business owners and solopreneurs, a lot of professional firms that were focused on building relationships like financial advisors, insurance agents, realtors, CPAs, attorneys, those were also who I was coaching. So when I started talking about my business success around referrals, and how I was doing it, they just wanted to know more. And it’s then that I discovered what I had figured out isn’t specific to me. It isn’t because Stacey is who Stacey is that makes it work. Because when they started having success with it that’s when I realized I’m actually onto something here. There is a way to generate referrals in a different way for those that are open to it.

Julie:          
Tell us about that testing process. It’s fascinating that this is tested in the trenches in a way. How did you go about trying different approaches? Just talk us through that a little.

Stacey:      
I think the first thing you have to pay attention to when you’re looking at wanting to generate referrals is if you’ve been in business for any amount of time, usually more than two years, is looking back to the referrals you had received. When I started my second company, my coaching practice, I realized that very quickly my first couple of clients came on board because they knew me. Going out to have coffee with people that are in my network that knew me, and I was doing that just because I wanted them to know. This is what I’m doing now, so they could keep me in mind. What I was ultimately after was them just remembering what I was doing, but they became clients, which was unexpected. And then that’s where my referrals really started, from those first handful of clients and then it would snowball from there.

So I paid attention to when the referrals were happening. And that’s really what it was. I just started paying attention to why are they referring me and when are they referring me. And the why they were referring me is because I was doing great work and they were having success. And when people have success or transformations in their business or in their life, they are usually more willing to talk about it. And the second thing is is that I was paying attention to when. And it typically happened after I had done something for them. Not necessarily the work for them, like a coaching session, but when I was taking care of them and I was showing gratitude and thankfulness to them for being a client. And then for a while, thank you for referring me. Then I noticed that there was always usually a pattern to it.

And so as I started to take that pattern and apply it to my business, that’s when I realized there’s actually some steps here, there’s a process here. And then that’s what I ultimately ended up teaching to my clients. But that testing ground, it really was, hey, there’s something happening here, let me pay attention to it. Let me be open to it and pay attention to it. And then as I started teaching it, that’s when I realized, wait, it’s five steps and here’s what it looks like, and here’s the language you use, and here’s what you’re supposed to do. All of that came after I actually started teaching it to others. But in the beginning, it really was just what’s happening, when is it happening, why is it happening, and can I figure out a way to duplicate that.

Steve:  
And if I could there, there are a couple things I’d like to highlight from what you said because I think they’re really important. One of them is that you were looking for a systematic way of asking, because your first business failed because you weren’t getting enough. And one of the things we’ve observed about advisors is that a lot of them succeeded because they’re so good at selling and they don’t get many referrals and they don’t do other kinds of marketing. And you can succeed just fine doing nothing but selling, but you have to work way harder than you should have to. You made a similar point to that.

One of the other things I wanted to point out was one of the things that you did was look at how they’re coming in and paying attention to that and keeping information about it. You talk about it in your book, and Julie and I have found it in our research together, that the firms that get the most referrals also keep the best records about that. So that anybody who comes into the system, they get captured. And so I really want to highlight that because you made that point, and you make it in your book, and that’s one of those critical pieces.

Stacey:   
It’s also that piece that most people when I tell them, as you guys know when you see it in the book, but that first step is really keeping information on who’s referring you and always having that information. I remember I did some training with a group of advisors, and the CEO of the company, which was also the lead on this team, I was telling him what I needed him to do to go get this information, and he got upset. Not really at me, but he was like, I cannot believe we haven’t been tracking this. And this is a very successful firm. He’s like, I can’t believe we haven’t been tracking this, not the level of detail because there’s not a crazy amount of detail, but to a point where the data actually does us any good. And that was really his point.

Steve:   
And it’s funny because in our business mos advisors who do investment management track a lot of statistics about their investments obsessively, but they don’t translate that into I should keep track of some things in my business too.

Stacey:     
Right.

Julie:      
Part of it may be because we’re not always asking the question. Advisors are getting referrals. There’s a natural level of referrals that come, frankly, with limited effort. But just doing good work, which is, in fairness, not limited effort, but you know what I mean, it’s not intentional. And I think all of us are probably more interested in that question of what would happen if I was actually intentional about this and could go above and beyond. But if you’re getting a good referral every month or two every month, maybe you don’t ask that question. I just think it’s a huge lost opportunity.

Stacey:   
I would definitely agree. And I think there is a place in our business where we can track too much data and too much information, and the point is just making sure you’re tracking the things that actually move your business forward, which I think is the push for why this information should be tracked. I just don’t think people think about it because they’re just so happy to have that potential new client. They’re not always thinking about I’m going to want to know where you came from later so that maybe I can duplicate my efforts.

Julie:        
There’s something I wanted to ask you about, because it’s almost like the anti-tracking question here. Because we can get very detailed on the specifics and the systems, and I do want to talk through those steps, but you have an assessment, and we’ll put the link in the show notes. And one of the questions is do you believe you deserve referrals? Which I thought was a really interesting place to start. Can you just expand on that a little bit and tell us why you think it’s such an important question?

Stacey: 
Sure. And you’re right. So that’s in the Referral Ninja quiz that I have. And it is the very first question. And what I have found is that superficially most people will tell you that they want referrals and that yeah, they kind of think they deserve them, but they don’t actually know what it means to deserve them. Most people on some superficial level can say it’s because I do great work. And so I always ask that question because I don’t think people pay attention and actually understand what it means to be referable, and to truly understand why your mindset around it matters.

So one of the things I always talk about is nobody refers crappy work, but they don’t refer average work either. You really have to make sure that you’re going into your business mindset with this idea that you deserve referrals-

Stacey:    
Mindset with this idea of that you deserve referrals because you do excellent work and you care about your clients and you’re doing the right thing. It’s not a difficult mindset but it is the mindset you need to have, but the thing about referrals is you’re never owed them. You have to work for them. Having the mindset around referrals is one, recognizing that you think you do great work and the work you do matters. The second part of that is understanding that you got to work for this because you deserve them, absolutely, but you do not owed them. Making sure you are in that right mindset of deserving them is really a two parter and I find it’s an interesting question when I go back and I look at the assessments of how people answer that question.

Most will say yes because they do think they deserve it but when I have an opportunity to dig in with somebody, they don’t really know what that means, but I always tell folks that doing the work to deserve them and then recognizing that you are not owed them. You have to do some work to be able to worthy of them too.

Julie:            
Right. Right. Right. That makes a lot of sense. I just, I found it interesting how mindset can play a role and just pausing to look in the mirror for a moment and ask ourselves that question, maybe an unusual place for people to start but an important one.

Stacey:        
Yes. Absolutely. You know a lot of people will say I deserve them but I’m not getting any. I guess that means I don’t deserve them.

Julie:   
Right.

Stacey:        
I’m always like, no, no, no, no, no. You are not doing the things you need to be doing to generate them. There is hope for everybody. I tell everybody, people come in and there are just 3 levels in the quiz but people come in like the what we call the bottom level, the entry level or that middle level, and they are like, it takes so much work to get to the top and like it really, really doesn’t but you have to be willing to do some work.

Steve:   
Right. Right. Your work involves, you make the point that you need to work to bring them in and also that work should not be to just go out and ask them from your clients. Can you sort of give us an overview of the 5 steps that you have to get them going?

Stacey:      
Sure. It’s interesting and I love that you guys ask the question in the beginning. It kind of like the testing ground of my own business and how did you come up with these 5 steps and what does it look like, because I truly figured out that they were 5 steps in the process after teaching it a couple of times and I’ll never forget I was working with the Wells Fargo advisor and I was helping him understand one of the steps in the process and it wasn’t clicking. I realize I was like, right he needs a visual to see how this actually fits together.

Really it was like this information and these 5 steps that now I’ve done with hundreds and hundreds of students and we’ve been doing it for a couple of years but it really did start out as when you look at what these 5 steps are, breaking them down to their basic, basic level. They are supposed to be simple. I’m going to start out by saying they are not supposed to be complicated. They are not snap a finger easy, but they are not supposed to be complicated. When I talk about them just don’t allow yourself to get start thinking about them being more complicated than they are.

I call step one, ID’ing the who and that is understanding who refers us or if we don’t have a lot of referral sources, who do we want to be referring us. In the book I have an entire chapter on what does it look like to go back into our data and pull this information out about where did our clients come from and clients all come from a different number of sources.

For advisors though, the holy grail, for every business but particularly with advisors because I think their work is the hardest work and I do think that’s the hardest industry to get referrals in just because we’re talking about money and the choices that we’ve made, great or not so great choices and we’re having to bear our souls. It’s important to recognize where did these clients from and those that came from referrals, the people who sent them to us, those are our referral sources.

The first step is just gathering who are your referral sources because what we are about to do is take them on a journey what I call the referral experience and we need to know who they are, we know who we are building this experience for. Again if you don’t have a lot of referral sources.

Once we have identified who are our referral sources are, once we have ID’d the who or who we want them to be, then we move in to step 2 and step 2 is just making sure that we have an immediate thank you process that we follow after someone has sent us a referral. It’s the easiest step to be honest of all 5 steps but it’s a really important foundational pieces because why should I send you more referrals if you cannot properly thank me for the one I just sent. You don’t have to tell me that they become a client or not a client depending on confidentiality and things like that but you have to acknowledge that I did refer someone to you.

Step 2 is pretty simple. It is literally making sure that you always write a handwritten thank you note to each person whose sent you a referral, each and every time they send you a new referral.

Steve:    
And we do, it’s not just them not feeling the gratitude but it’s also when you thank somebody they get that little reward, right? They get that reinforcement. It’s more than just you acknowledging it but it’s what happens inside of them when they get that thank you.

Stacey:        
It does and what happens inside of them is that we are actually that them being acknowledge and feeling like wow, Steve, really cares about me. Then I’m bought in more to Steve, right, and then I’m bought in more to Julie because they thanked me for that referral and what I’m doing is being able to start building a habit within you to think about me in that term and in that way.

That’s really critical as we move in to step 3. Which step 3 is great, you’re going to thank when you receive referrals and it’s not going to be an email and it’s not going to be a text message. It maybe a phone call but it has to also be a handwritten thank you card because a card shows time in which the other 3 don’t. It’s really important that it’s a handwritten card.

Step 3 is great, you’ve gotten this follow up process but what are you going to do to stay top of mind with me as your referral source in between me sending you referrals, like in between you actually being able to thank me for referrals. I know you’re going to thank me every time I send you one but how are you really staying memorable and meaningful to me when you are staying in top of mind so that I’m thinking about you in that way in between actually receiving a thank you from you.

That’s where we build the referral generating plan and I call step 3 of my 5 step process, I call that the meat and potatoes. That is truly the part where we are going to develop how we are going to show gratitude and thankfulness to our clients, excuse me, to our referral sources throughout an entire year. Does not mean we are doing something every month. It does not mean we are doing something that cost a lot of money. It does not mean it’s all gift based. Like they are different things we can do to really make someone feel like we appreciate them and we are going to group them by categories in terms of how many referrals they have sent because somebody who send you 10 referrals probably deserve a little bit more tender, love and care than maybe someone who sent you 1 only.

We are going to look at this from a strategic perspective but at the heart of it we are building what we are doing based on making sure that we are being memorable and meaningful and we are staying top of mind with our outreach or as I call touch points to our referral sources in between of receiving referrals. That’s the.

Steve:            
Go ahead Julie. I’m sorry.

Julie:        
I’m just going to ask if you could give us some specific examples of that and what you’ve seen work effectively.

Stacey:  
Yes. Okay. Definitely. When people think about what can I do to be memorable and meaningful. Like what does that look like and what does that mean. I always teach it through a few platinum principles that we have to apply and one of them is, listen at the end of the day, this isn’t about what you want to do, this is about what your referral source would like to receive from you. You have to think about it being all about them which means putting on a seminar about some strategy or tactic in your world. They probably don’t want, right, but for an example what I did for my referral sources. Knowing your referral sources is really important.

I know that about when I was a business and productivity coach, about 80% of my clients were parents that owned businesses or they were working parents, which meant when I look at my referral sources they kind of married my clients, it doesn’t always work that way. It just did in my business. I knew that I had a majority of my referral sources were working parents. I recognized Mother’s Day and Father’s Day for my referral sources. One year and this is a couple of years ago now, I sent all of my female referral sources at Mother’s Day a Wonder Woman water bottle. Again not everything you do is a gift, I’m just using this as an example because I know you can visualize it. Bright red, Wonder Woman water bottle. On the card it just said, “Never forget you are a hero. Happy Mother’s Day. Stacey”

What that said to them was that I see you and I recognize what you are doing, right. I recognize it being a work as a working mother, I recognize that it’s hard and I want to give you something that’s all about you. My logo was nowhere on that card. My logo was nowhere on that water bottle. It was truly something for them. If I had slapped my logo on the other side of the water bottle, it would have been about me. It’s not about me. It’s about them and it’s about recognizing the fact that hey, you’re a great referral source for me, it’s Mother’s Day, you are a mother and I want to recognize that.

For those that are my female referral sources that are not mothers. I did something different. I didn’t do it necessarily around Mother’s Day but its that idea of like what is it that I can provide to them, whether through my time, through my expertise or through a gift in some cases, that really allows them to say, “Hey, Stacey she recognizes us.” Right, like she sees us, she knows who we are and it was great because the women that I sent that to they would snap pictures of it and they would put it on social media and they would be, Look what I got, and then sometimes… One send me a picture, she was like I need another water bottle, my daughter who is like 3 has already taken my water bottle.

Steve:   
That’s great.

Stacey:    
That’s the important piece.

Steve:   
Let me ask sort of the other side of that. I think that’s an incredibly important message that the referral, the thank you, the gratitude needs to be all about them and that’s a very important message. At the same time with financial advisors, one of the things that Julie and I preach and one of the things that we think is so important is making sure that you’re getting referred to the right people, that you’re getting referred to people in your target market. Is there anyway that you would respond to people who want to give you referrals and may give you referrals but have a tendency to give referrals outside your target? Is there any kind of message you can incorporate in that, try to sort of nudge them gently in the right direction?

Stacey:    
Sure. It’s interesting we talk about this inside the program, growth by referrals, we talk about this with once people have been through it for a full year, I always tell them, stop worrying about the types of referrals you receive