Christine (4:14)

So here are the questions that Christine submitted to me, the answers that she submitted. First, I said, what do you do? What's your business? Right. Because I want to understand what industry you're in because that always will. Tell me some things about your business and then I want to know how long you've been in business. So Christine is a family law and estate planning attorney in Tampa, Florida, and she has been in private practice for five years. Years. Okay. So the questions I asked were, how many referrals do you receive on average? What you guys just answered, and how many referral sources do you have? Right. And so based on her numbers, and then I asked a question that's a little open ended, and that question is specifically, what's your biggest frustration with referrals? Because that tells me where your pain points are and the gaps you want to Solve. All right. So when I looked at the average number of referrals that Christine gets, she gets 35. The number of people she has referring her is 51. But it's really key. Not many of them are sending her ideal clients, Right? So, like, I'm hearing things already. I'm like, okay, we can solve some of these issues. And some of her biggest frustrations with referrals, some of it is that she works in divorce, right? And so there is this perception that maybe people are hesitant to share who referred them. So I'm going to talk through that. She's also not great at tracking. So that's an admitted. Which I think everybody I work with at some point was like, I'm not great at tracking. It kind of just happens. And so she has a little bit of head trash into what's possible and who should be referring her. But she has identified that therapists would be great referral sources for her, but she doesn't know how to reach them except for cold calling. And she doesn't want to do it. And Christine, I'm with you. I wouldn't want to do it either. But she does know when she meets with them, they connect and that she can build relationships, which is key. What I want to hear. So based on that flowchart, and I'll go back to that flowchart in a minute, that shows all the colored, green, blue, and gold boxes that I showed you guys, that is the flowchart of the 1920 strategies that I teach. This is exactly how I would stack for Christine. Now, if Christine and I had a conversation, I asked a few more questions, I may change this up. But doing this in, like, back of the napkin, right? Just kind of getting through this. So we have time for a couple. Number one, the number one thing I'm going to want to know is, is it true that she averages 35 referrals in a year and that she has 51 people referring her? Now, those are specific numbers. So I'm going to go with. Christine probably knows her numbers, right? She's probably like, yep, 35 and 51. Those aren't ranges. When people are like ranges, I'm always like, you don't know.

Stacey Brown Randall (6:45)

Which is fine.

Christine (6:46)

We can figure it out, right? So the very first thing I would have her do is actually identify her existing referral sources. That's one of those foundational green box strategies. We're going to identify your existing referral sources. What is our data show? Right. And then we would build out a plan to get more referrals From hopefully those 51 people. Then we're going to make sure we shore up the tracking and the intake process. That would be the second thing that we would do. We'd work on tracking and intake. It's actually technically two separate strategies, but I always do them together. The third thing I'm going to have her do is we're going to address the quality issues. She knows she's not getting referrals that are quality. There is a right way and a very wrong way to handle a conversation with a referral source who is not sending you quality referrals. You have to know how to have that conversation correctly.

Stacey Brown Randall (7:33)

So the next thing I would have.

Christine (7:34)

Her do is address her quality issues by learning the quality conversation script and having that, that conversation with people who have shown a repeated pattern of not sending ideal clients. Then after she's making some progress, we're going to deal with her head trash. We're going to dive in, we're going to deal with her head trash. Now, there's not a strategy in the flowchart that's like deal with your head tr. This would be in a one on one that Christine and I would have because in all of the things that I offer and all the ways that you work with me, there is a one on one option. And Christine and I would just dig in there and dig into the trash. And then the next thing that we would look at, right, this would be the fifth thing I would have for her in her strategy stack is she needs more people referring her more potential referral sources. So then we would dive in at that point and she would learn the strategy. Another green box foundational strategy of how do I get those therapists, how do I connect with them and then get them to actually start referring me and other people as well. This is how we take where you are to where you want to go. And there are five things I just mapped out. This would be my goal for her to accomplish, right? If she was in the coaching program within the first 90 days, if she could do it faster, great. But we're all running businesses too, so we like to do things on a measured approach, right? So it's looking at, here's our numbers and I instantly say this is the order we're going in, right? We're going to identify existing referral sources, build a plan to take care of them. Then we're going to do your intake and your tracking. Then we're going to address our quality issues and deal with that. We're going to deal with your Head trash. We're going to teach you how to generate new people referring you and how to nurture those relationships. So that is what it looks like for Christine. I believe Christine is here. So if you want to unmute yourself just I just down and dirty this really quickly. But how, like what was your response to that?

Unknown (9:21)

Oh, I loved it. It makes a lot of sense to me. I will say that I think when I put this together, I was going on the referral sources I've had since I've been. Since I hung my shingle. And so I have had. So I would say it's more like 10 referral sources per year instead of 51 this in one year.

Christine (9:41)

So perfect. I would add a six thing to our strategy stack which would be any of those folks who they haven't referred you and more than. It's been more than two years since they've referred you actually call them inactive referral sources. And we have a re engagement strategy that I teach of like how do you get them back in conversation to see if you should be re engaging them as a referral source to make the inactives active. So we would definitely not be. That's your low hanging fruit right there, Christine. If you have 10 people referring you right now that are active, but we're leaving 40 other who have done it in the past, I would actually be like, we're going to go there first and then we are going to do everything else because that is your low hanging fruit. So thank you, Christine. Thank you for taking the time to submit the information and being willing to like unmute yourself and chat with me.

Stacey Brown Randall (10:26)

Okay. I hope you enjoyed that hot seat. One thing I don't think people realize about the work that I do with my clients is helping them deal with head trash. A lot of people who come to me, they come with what they think they should be doing to generate referrals or some bad advice that they've been told they needed to do. And most of it they don't want to do. It doesn't sound right. And they build up this head trash about why they can't do it and why it won't work. And a lot of times they're right because what they've been told is the wrong stuff. But other times what I found is that they take pieces of good referral strategies and pieces of bad referral strategies and they just kind of mix them all together and then they determine that to be what they're supposed to do. And whatever that is, it makes them really uncomfortable. And so they don't do it. So they have this, like, angst. And I saw it in Christine's answer. She had, like, this angst between what she thinks she should be doing, but what she's just quite uncomfortable doing. So it's this ying and a yang that says push and a pull. Right? Like, you feel like I'm supposed to be doing these things, but this thing feels really, really awkward. And there's got to be a better way.

Christine (11:39)

Of course there's a better way.

Stacey Brown Randall (11:40)

Thank goodness, right? But a lot of times what I will spend time doing with my clients, in addition to them learning the strategies and putting things in place.

Christine (11:49)

Right.

Stacey Brown Randall (11:49)

And understanding how we do all the different strategies I teach is we're going to spend some time talking about what's going on between their two ears, what's going on in their head, dealing with their head trash. It's one of the reasons why, in particular, when you're inside my coaching program, building a referable business, you have this thing called unlimited milestone calls, usually for folks. I find that when we get on a milestone call, when they schedule one, maybe they schedule one every couple of months, whatever, whatever they need, that usually we're going to end up talking about something they think they're supposed to do or something they're stuck on not doing or something they're stuck on doing, but it's actually they're thinking about it wrong. And I have to unpack that for them and have them see it differently and in some cases be like, you're right, that's terrible. Don't do that. I wouldn't want you to do that to me. Let's find a better way. And so we do that a lot within the programs and how I work with folks. But that head trash one was a big one for Christine because I'm like, oh, you were holding yourself back because you think it's supposed to be one way and it doesn't. And you can have results and it still feel good, which is super, super important.

Christine (12:48)

So I don't like it when, when.

Stacey Brown Randall (12:50)

People, when my clients, they get stuck in this vortex of thinking and doing nothing because they're uncomfortable doing what they've been told to do. So I always try to fix that as soon as we can. And that was definitely the case that we would do something with Christine. All right, so I hope that you enjoyed this hot seat. Guess what? We got more coming up. Of course, the resources mentioned in this episode can be found in the description below, the video, and of course, on the podcast show notes page. @staceybrownrandall.com 357 we're back with another great episode next week. We've got one more hot seat from that March workshop coming your way, and it's 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.