How to Generate Referrals Without Asking – In Just 7 Minutes with Stacey Brown Randall

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• Discover how to get referrals naturally and without manipulating and incentivizing
• Learn what are the old school referral triggers and how to avoid them
• Understand the science behind why referrals happen in the first place

Resources/Links:

• To learn more about your referral ability and how to get referrals naturally, click here: referralquiz.com

Summary

Do you struggle with generating constant and stable referrals for your business? Do you want to find out how to generate referrals without the ick of asking?

An important factor in achieving an effective and continuous business growth are referrals. It’s the winning combination in growing your business while establishing a promising relationship with your consumers and prospective clients.

Stacey Brown Randall teaches business owners how to generate referrals naturally– without manipulation, incentivizing, or even asking. She’s the award-winning author of Generating Business Referrals Without Asking and the host of the Roadmap to Grow Your Business Podcast.

Get a glimpse of how Stacey changes the gameplay for business growth through generating constant and promising referrals without the ick of asking and the old-school referral trends!

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:38 – Stacey’s ideal client: They are small business owners in the professional services field. I talked about them being experts, right? They typically have a lot of acronyms or alphabet soup after their names.
• 02:05 – The problem she helps solve: It really is teaching people that there is a different way, a better way, to generate referrals. And it can be done naturally which is without that manipulation, without feeling like you have to incentivize, and, definitely, without ever having to ask for those referrals.
• 02:52 – The symptoms of the problem: At the end of the day, it’s like we’ve been beaten over the head, not just for decades, but for generations, that there are only a few ways to generate referrals. And you have to do it this way. And if you don’t do it this way, then you just don’t get any referrals.
• 04:01 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Stacey’s: If they don’t know that there’s a better way to generate referrals, they kind of take that ick advice, like the asking and being promotional, and networking, didn’t know a ton of people, and they just modify it, right?
• 05:20 – Stacey’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): So, here’s the thing to keep in mind. At the end of the day, when you’re thinking about referrals, there is a brain science piece to it– Psychology, Sociology, and even Behavioral Economics.
• 06:36 – Stacey’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): To learn more about your referral ability and how to get referrals naturally, click here: referralquiz.com
• 07:25 – Q: What are the results? What’s actually happening and how long does this take to work? And what does it look like? A: I always tell folks, when you’re working with me, we’re going to establish a goal of how many referrals you want to receive in a year based on where you are. And typically, you can expect to double or triple your referrals from what you’re averaging now in your first year.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings, everyone, and a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland beaming out to you from the very, very sunny Sunshine Coast here in Australia, joined today by Stacey Brown Randall. Stacey, a very warm good day from Down Under. Where are you hanging out?

Stacey Brown Randall 00:25
I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina in the States. So, thanks for having me today.

Tom Poland 00:29
You’re in Charlotte, North Carolina, and here I am in Charlotte Drive, Queensland, Australia. How about that, huh?

Stacey Brown Randall 00:37
It was meant to be!

Tom Poland 00:39
Is it as pretty over there as it is here?

Stacey Brown Randall 00:42
It’s very hot over here. Is it- 90 degrees? Yes. We were not prepared.

Tom Poland 00:48
Wow, that’s amazing! And you’re kind of only just at the cusp of summer. So, a hot summer to come, maybe. Folks, we’ll get off the climate and geography and on to marketing. Stacey teaches business owners how to generate referrals, but not sort of in that stressful, “Ooh, I don’t ask for referrals” way. She teaches you how to generate them naturally without any manipulation, incentivizing, and get this- drumroll- without even asking. She’s the award-winning author of Generating Business Referrals Without Asking and host of the Roadmap to Grow Your Business Podcast. The title today, another drumroll, please, is, “How to Generate Referrals Without Even Asking”. Stacey, our seven minutes is going to start now. Question number one, who is your ideal client?

Stacey Brown Randall 01:38
Yeah, so, typically, they are small business owners in the professional services field. I talked about them being experts, right? They typically have a lot of acronyms or alphabet soup after their names. So, think attorneys, CPAs, accountants, also real estate agents, and interior designers, but they are experts in their field. And they also have to learn how to bring in clients.

Tom Poland 01:58
Perfect! Thank you for that. And six and a half minutes left. Question two, how would you define the problem that you solve for these experts?

Stacey Brown Randall 02:05
Well, you kind of already said it in the intro, but it really is teaching people that there is a different way, a better way, to generate referrals. And it can be done naturally which is without that manipulation, without feeling like you have to incentivize, and, definitely, without ever having to ask for those referrals, that there is a better way, you just have to learn it.

Tom Poland 02:27
And when you’re talking about asking for referrals, I mean, we kind of already all know we should be asking for them, but a lot of us feel awkward and uncomfortable. This is partly the answer to question number three, which is what are some of the typical symptoms that people are experiencing when they’re facing this problem of asking for referrals? Would you add any other symptoms too that other than feeling it’s a bit kind of icky? Six minutes left.

Stacey Brown Randall 02:52
Yeah, you know, it’s at the end of the day, it’s like we’ve been beaten over the head, not just for decades, but for generations, that there are only a few ways to generate referrals. And you have to do it this way. And if you don’t do it this way, then you just don’t get any referrals. And those, we call them old school referral triggers. There- you’ve got to ask, right? You’ve got to pay. You’ve got to be overly promotional and gimmicky, like put in your email signature or the greatest compliment you can give me as a referral, or you have to network to know a ton of people. And the reality of it is those are tactics that work for some people, they’re not the ones that work for the majority. And I always teach people that you don’t have to do it those ways. But you do have to recognize that there’s work involved with generating referrals in a different way. And I think that’s the piece that people miss. It’s like, they hate asking, so they do nothing. And that’s the biggest mistake I see them making.

Tom Poland 03:40
And that is question four, some of the common mistakes that people make. So, they hate asking, so they do nothing and a big common mistake. Are there any other mistakes that you- we’ve talked a bit about “There are only a few ways to do this? You have to do it this way, but I’m uncomfortable with that’s why I won’t do it.” Any other mistakes that you see people making, other than the ones we’ve just mentioned?

Stacey Brown Randall 04:01
Yeah, if they don’t know that there’s a better way to generate referrals, they kind of take that ick advice, like the asking and being promotional, and networking, didn’t know a ton of people, and they just modify it, right? So, they’re like, “Oh, I’ll just send out a monthly e-newsletter. And that’ll keep me in touch with my people who want to refer to me” and that’s not what triggers a referral at all. And so, they miss kind of the basics of psychology behind why referrals happen to begin with, when they try to take that other old school advice and water it down just enough to work for them. They’re really not doing anything that’s going to generate their referrals, so they just hope they happen. And that’s the worst thing, of course, that we can do is just hope that someone will refer you. And it’s true because they’re lost, really, because they’re like, “I don’t want to do it this ick way, this uncomfortable, uneasy way. But I don’t know if there’s anything else so I’m stuck.”

Tom Poland 04:52
Alright, so let’s pray marketing. Let’s just put it out to the universe. So, let’s flip this now. Question five, we have three and a half minutes left, one valuable free action that someone could take. Tell us more about how someone will get started with. Because you mentioned the word psychology, with the right psychology and figuring out what the right method is for them. Give us a top tip. It may not solve the whole problem, but it might take them a step in the right direction. Three minutes left. Now I won’t talk so much.

Stacey Brown Randall 05:20
Absolutely! So, here’s the thing to keep in mind. At the end of the day, when you’re thinking about referrals, there is a brain science piece to it– Psychology, Sociology, and even Behavioral Economics. There’s a science behind how we make referrals happen. But at the heart of it, like science is great, and it’s right, but at the heart of all that says it’s relationships. So, the number one thing you can do, and I call it your low-hanging fruit strategy, the number one thing you can do is identify your current referral sources. If you’re receiving referrals now, you need to identify your referral sources because once you identify who they are, you can start paying attention to how to go about generating referrals from them in a natural way. But you got to know who they are. So, I tell folks, get a list of your clients. And then maybe over the last couple of years, pull out a list of your clients and then determine how that client learned about you. Did they come through a Facebook ad? Did they meet you at a networking event? Were they referred to you by someone else? And look for those clients that were referred and then capture the referral source’s name. And that will give you your list of referral sources. And that’s an empowering step. Because when you know who, then you can start figuring out what you want to do.

Tom Poland 06:25
Perfect! Thank you. Great top tip! Two minutes left. Question five is can we direct people to a valuable free resource that’s going to help them more with this referral thing?

Stacey Brown Randall 06:36
The best place people can go is actually to take a nine-question quiz. We call it the referral ninja quiz, you go to referralquiz.com. And it’s nine questions that are going to help you figure out exactly what you are doing in terms of your level of ability to generate referrals without asking for them and to generate referrals naturally. And then based on where you land, and I guess you’re going to land at the referral ninja beginner level, it’ll also give you a roadmap of what you need to do to get to the master level, which is ultimately where I want everyone to be.

Tom Poland 07:05
Oh, very cool. Very cool! So, folks, that’s, if you’re looking at the video, it’s underneath this video, the link. Referral, it’s R-E-F-E, double R, A-L, quiz, hope you know how to spell that, .com. And question seven, we got 65 seconds left. Stacey, what’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t?

Stacey Brown Randall 07:25
You know, I think the big thing is when people are first hearing about, “Wait, I can get referrals totally differently than I’ve ever thought? This is amazing!” The question that really needs to be asked is, “Well, what are the results? What’s actually happening and how long does this take to work? And what does it look like?” And I always tell folks, when you’re working with me, we’re going to establish a goal of how many referrals you want to receive in a year based on where you are. And typically, you can expect to double or triple your referrals from what you’re averaging now in your first year. And in reality, multiple years, though, I expect you to quadruple that number. So, I have an attorney who started with 12 referrals a year before they started working with me. We got him to 40 referrals in their first year, then 60, and then 70. And then last year, she got 82 referrals and it’s a sustainable piece of how she runs her business. She does it every year. it’s a process and she just executes it every year.

Tom Poland 08:15
I love that! It’s sustainable. Wonderful. Stacey, thank you so much for your time. We’re out of it, but I appreciate your insights. Cheers!

Stacey Brown Randall 08:23
Thank you for having me.

Tom Poland 08:25
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.