Stacy Brown Randall (0:05)

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, Stacy Brown Randall. I'm 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. Every year, without fail. There are a few tips I teach my clients to do specifically because it's the beginning of the year. There is something magical about January, specifically if you have things that work best when done at the beginning of the year. So these tactics or tips that I teach always help us kick off a strong start on cultivating referrals. That doesn't mean it'll kick off an avalanche of referrals headed your way. I mean, it could, but that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is it's gonna help you kick off a structure strong start and focus on cultivating referrals and give you the opportunity to start planting those very important referral seeds right now at the beginning of the year. So if you're hearing this in January, get started. If you happen to be listening to this episode and it is later in the year, that's okay, you can make some modifications to it and do it anyway. I actually, there's one of these tips and I'll talk about which one that is that I actually tell my clients, you can do this one multiple times throughout the year, but it always has a certain, I don't know, like it always has a certain ability to have a longer leverage or a longer lifespan, I would say when you do it at the beginning of the year. So there are four things on this list. As I go over this list, I want you to notice which ones maybe you already do and you already have in place, which kudos to you. Let's do a little happy dance. And then of course, I want you making a list of the ones that you need to do because maybe you're not doing them or quite possibly you've never thought about doing them. Well, that's okay. That changes now because now you'll know. All right, let's talk about these. Number one. Number one is to reach back out to all referred prospects from last year who didn't become a client and reference who referred them to you. So this means anybody that was referred to you. Now this only works with Prospects that were referred to you, not ones that came in maybe because they heard you present or they heard you on a podcast, or maybe they were part of your SEO, right? And they happen to fill out a form on your website. It's not for cold leads that maybe you did cold outreach to. You did a cold call or cold email. This only works for those prospects that were referred to you. Okay, so you're going to reach out to those referred prospects from last year, the ones who, of course they didn't say yes, because had they say yes, they would have already be a client. Right. And they didn't say a flat out, no, I'm going in a different direction. These are the prospects that were referred to you that you don't know what decision they made. They either said, no, not yet, or talk to me later or nothing. Maybe they ghosted you, or maybe they were just like, they went silent. So you don't know the decision they made. You don't know if they made the decision to solve their problem. You don't know if they decided their problem was no longer a problem. You don't know if they went with a competitor. You don't know what happened. And in that case, this is who you want to follow up with. Okay, so hopefully you've got a list of who these preferred prospects are. I mean, one of the foundational things that I teach, and it's even in my, your next five referral starter course is you need to be tracking this stuff. You need to be tracking every referral received. And you need to start a new tab in that Excel tracker. If you're not using a CRM, some type of software, you need to start a new tab at the beginning of every year. So open up a new tab for 20, 25 and start tracking anytime you get a prospect. But definitely make sure you're tracking the ones that are referred to you and. And who referred them to you. Okay, that's like basics. You can do this. All right, so if you're tracking, then you have this list. If not, you're gonna have to go compile this list. But you wanna reach back out to all the referred prospects from last year who didn't become a client. That's who we're reaching out to. And you're gonna see, hey, is it time? Right? They didn't make a decision last year. Maybe they'll make one this year. And just make sure you reference who referred them to you as well. Okay, number two and okay, let me just go back and say quickly for number one. That can absolutely be done in an email. I know that's a question I'm going to get, so let me go ahead and answer it for you. So, yes, reaching back out to your referred prospects, you can certainly do that in an email. All right, let's move on to number two. The second one I want you to do is I want you to send a New Year card to all of those new connections you made last year that you identified could be a good new referral source. So if you work with me, this is known as your running five Keeping Warm. And it's taught within one of my foundational strategies called referring machines. It's the process, and I would really say the system behind how we take someone who's never referred you and move them through a process to cultivate a better relationship with them and to have them thinking about referring you where that's not what they're actually feeling like you're doing. Right? And so this is a very specific process that I teach about how we cultivate someone who's never referred you to actually refer you without you telling them to do it. Because, you know, I am completely against you asking people or telling people that they should refer to you. That's really bad. So if you are following some type of process where you are meeting with new people or maybe you're reconnecting with people you just haven't seen seen in six months or a year or four years, and you identify them as like, wow, this person actually probably has potential to refer me. First of all, I hope there's a process that you follow that you're staying in front of them, right? You're staying in touch with them throughout the year. You can't just go to coffee with somebody once or virtual or in person or whatever, meet up with them at a networking event or an event, and things like, that's all it's going to take for them to start referring you. So, like, we all know that's not how it works. So what I want you to do is if you have a list of folks that you did meet with last year, whether you went to coffee with them and never talked to them again, or hopefully better that you actually did something to continue to cultivate and nurture that new relationship or that reconnecting of a relationship, and you did something throughout the year, it's a great time now to reestablish that connection as well. And a great way to do that is to send out a New Year card because it's the new year. That's why we're doing a New Year card, right? It's to send out a New Year card to all the connections that you made last year that you're like, hey, these folks have good, strong potential to start referring me. Now, you can't just send out a New Year card and think that, of course, is going to unleash a whole bunch of referrals from that person. But it is a step in your system. It is a step in the process. But please, for the love of pizza, do not reference in that note you're sending them that they should be referring you. Don't do that. That's bad. Like, so bad. Just please don't. You're above that. We're all above that, so don't do that. Okay, so that's the second thing. You're going to send out a New Year card to all the new connections you made last year. Of course, you don't have to send it to every single person you connected with. Some people you probably met with and you're like, they're awesome, they're amazing. But they probably can't refer me. This is for people we've identified can refer. That's the person we're. That's the people we want to make sure we're staying connected with. Now you need more. I just. I'm sorry, I got to say this again. You need more than one card sent in January for them to actually start referring you. But it is a great place to start. Okay, number three, finalize your outreach plan to your existing referral sources. And existing referral sources are those who have referred you before. You're going to finalize your outreach plan to those folks. Now, Your aim is 5 to 7 touch points within 20, 25. So within one calendar year, 12 months. And please keep in mind your cadence of when you do these five, six, or seven touch points throughout the next 12 months. Your cadence of when you're doing them matters as much as what you do and what you say. So you can't be like, okay, I've got motivation, and I'm gonna do referrals differently this year. And I'm gonna take what I've learned from Stacy by reading her book or listening to the podcast, and I'm gonna create a plan, and you go out, you come out strong out of the gate. You're like, woo, we do something in January, then we do something in February, then we do something in March. And then maybe you're like, wait, is it working? I don't know. Maybe I should stop doing it. That's the first thing you'll think, or maybe it will work for you and you'll get some referrals, and then you'll get busy. And then you'll be like, I'm too busy now in April to do the next touch point. Couple of things happen here. Number one, the cadence matters. Yes, to you and your ability to keep it going. Because if you had to do everything the first five months of the year, like, you would become overwhelmed. We all would. So on some level, it matters that the cadence allows you to make this manageable. But that is not the most important piece of this. The most important piece of this is the experience that your existing referral sources feel when they're receiving these touchpoints. And an experience, well, it unfolds. And so you need this touchpoint plan of these five, six or seven touch points, whatever it is for you, you need these to unfold over the course of a year. Here's a tip. Knowing now what your 5 or 6 or 7 touch points are going to be throughout January through December of 2025 will make your life so much easier. You'll be more likely to do it and have consistency with your actions so that the cadence can work for for you. Now you're going to have to figure out what it is that you're going to do, and that's going to be important. And of course, what you're going to say throughout those touch points, too. All that's really important. But please just remember what I'm asking you to do with this tactic. Number three is just finalize that outreach plan. Like, what are you doing? What are the things you're going to do? Sit down and make a list. This is what I'm doing this month, and then I'm going to do this a month or two later, and then I'm going to do this, and then I'm right. That's what I'm talking about. What is it that you're going to do? Right. Okay, so you've got those first three tactics. Let's move into the fourth one. Number four, determine your referral goals for the year. I recommend tracking at least two things as a goal, and then that's the metric you track throughout the year. But I recommend two goals. Number one, the number of referrals you want to receive this year. And number two, the number of new referral sources. New, new people you want to start referring to you. Okay, so two goals. The number of referrals you want to receive, and of course, the number of new referral sources. New people you want to start referring you. Those are two key goals my clients track every year. We have a spreadsheet. Get in. We like that in January they all got brand new spreadsheets. They start tracking this stuff. They have their 2025 dashboard. It is in a spreadsheet, if you're wondering. Yes. And they have it. And they have their goals that they've also set for 2025. All that's really important, that is if they're in their first year with me or they're in their eighth year with me. We do this religiously every single year because it matters. And if we're tracking it, we can see it working and then we will keep it going. And that is most important to me is that it's working and then that helps you keep it going so you can keep having success. Here's the thing. This list is a great place to get started. Of course, it's not everything you could be doing. It's not everything you would be doing if you were a client of mine, but it is a great place for you to get started and turn your focus to a strong start with referrals. Now, I do want to dig in a little bit more to each of them because there's a couple of things I want to bring to your attention, particularly if you've never set referral goals. I want to walk through the math really fast on that too. Okay, so stick with me. Here we go. For the first three tasks or tactics that language you use in your outreach to the referred prospects in your card to those potential referral sources you connected with last year and within the touch points you do for your existing referral sources throughout the year, your language is really important. We call that referral seeds or planting referral seeds. Knowing how to do it and when to do it and when not to do it, it's really important. So you need to spend some time on it to get it right. Think through the messaging, the language you would use in each of those moments. Again, outreach to the referred prospect in the card, to the potential in the new year card, to the potential referral source that you connected with last year and within those five to seven touch points you're going to do for your existing referral sources throughout the year. The language is important, so spend some time with it to get it right. Now, if you want my help, you can consider joining me for the in person workshop I'm hosting in February called the Referral Accelerator. Speaking of the referral accelerator, let's just go ahead and do the Pardon the interruption now. Kind of get it out of the way. Hey there. Pardon the interruption. If you've ever wanted to receive my best referral strategies in the quickest amount of time, complete with what to say, the answer is the Referral Accelerator. It's being held in February over two days in Charlotte. All details can be found at stacybrownrandall.com Referral Accelerator Again, that's staceybrownrandall.com Referral accelerator the Referral Accelerator is a small group in person workshop where we'll design a full, fully functioning referral system to grow your business with referrals without asking, manipulating or incentivizing. The accelerator includes two seven hour days in Charlotte, North Carolina. Your workbook, templates, all the scripts you need including checklist, no video trainings to watch. I will teach it to you and then you will workshop to build out what I just taught and you will learn and build as you go. Make plans now by registering to join me for the Referral Accelerator. The most affordable shortcut to getting your referral machine up and running done in a small group setting. Find all the details on the show notes page for this episode. Staceybrownrandall.com 344 or go to staceybrownrandall.com Referral Accelerator now back to the episode. Okay, we talked about the first three tactics. We've talked about why they're important and what you need to do. And we talked about tactic number four, which is setting referral goals. But if you've never done it, I just want to quickly walk you through the math behind it so you can understand, like we're not just pulling numbers out of the thin air here. Like there's a rationale to them, right? There's a way that we do this. So the best way to set referral goals for this year is based on your results from the last few years. Three years is ideal. But again, not all of you have been in business for three years and for some of you, tracking this is going to be hard because you haven't been doing that very well. So you just work with what you have. But you want to find your average number of referrals over the last couple of years. For example, let's say you counted up your referrals and here's what you came up with last year. In 2024 you got 18 referrals and 2023 you got 20 referrals. And in 2022 you got 15 referrals. Now if you take those numbers 18, 20 and 15 and you add them together, divide by three. Your average referrals per year are 17. Now, to set your 2025 referrals received goal, I want you to double that number. So double 17 and your goal would be 34 referrals this year. That is your new goal. Okay, so we take the 17 and we just simply double it. How does that sound? What difference would that many referrals make in your business? Now, of course, I mean, your number may not be 34, but you totally get the point. It's whatever your number is, your average is just simply double it as a starting point. Now, here's the thing. You can't just double your numbers to set a goal and do nothing different. As with all metrics, you need a plan in place to make the goal a reality. So if 2025 is the year you finally take control of your referrals, then let's do a happy dance. You've got four tactics you can start with right now. And if you do these, future you is already celebrating. You've got this. And if you need your. If you need my help, just remember I'm here. All right? The resources mentioned in this episode, like more details on the Referral Accelerator Workshop can be found on the show notes page@stacybrownrandall.com 344. 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.