The getting referrals without asking part 2

When I was starting out in the business way back in the days when the iPhone was first launched (back when I was green), I was being told that the way to get referrals was to ask for them. And, I’ll tell you. It made sense to me. If you wanted something you’d ask for it.

I remember someone (I liked and trusted) sitting down with me (who was looking for referrals) who wanted to go through my LinkedIn connections and contact them. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to LinkedIn (at least in those days when I wasn’t on there all day posting), I barely knew some of the connections. Others of course were friends from school and other places. Being green as I was, I said no problems, I’d help them.

BUT…then it came to actually doing the work. “Can you introduce me to this person?” And, I wanted to say yes (and I did in that moment), but I had this sinking feeling in my stomach. Why did this feel so weird? Well, I realized later that it was because of unwanted advances. I started to think about the other side of the coin.

What if one of these people messaged me or called me and demanded to know why I’d given their name to this random person to start calling about insurance and becoming an Insurance Advisor? Would they unfriend me? Delete me? Did I care? I realized for the most part I did not, but it caused me to stop.

It wasn’t until years later I realized why I felt so weird in this whole process. Because it’s unnatural. We don’t want to put our friends, colleagues and family members in situations that cause awkwardness, especially if it was caused by US.

And then shortly after this whole event, I remember seeing a presentation by an Advisor who I had the upmost respect for (and still do to this day), a guy named Marc. And Marc was and is a successful Advisor and he was giving a presentation on how he has built a referral business.

Essentially, he would set up a referral meeting with one of his good clients and walk them through a package he would send out to potentially referrals, and it all looked good and dandy. But, at the end of the day, he wanted to get a few names that he could use to prospect them for business. It seemed to work for him, so I guess that’s how it’s done. Or, so I thought…

Anyways, flash forward a few months, I end up working with a different Advisor also called Mark. And this guy is amazing. A complete breath of fresh air. He’s the kind of guy that everyone loves, loves talking to, loves working with, a great conversationist, smart as a whip and was growing his business incredibly fast. I loved working with this Mark, still do. He calls me occasionally to pick my brain on various things. But, I learned an important lesson from him.

One day not too long after I saw the referral presentation by the other Marc, I asked this Mark:

“Do you ask for referrals?”

“NO”, he said almost immediately. And then he said some words that I’ll never forget:

“That would be so awkward. I’ve never asked for a referral. I’ve never done it, but I get lots of referrals coming in anyways.”

Think about this for a second, this second Mark who was amazingly successful was getting a massive amount of referrals coming in, but he never asked for them and didn’t want to do that. I had to dig further, I needed to know what was happening. Because, I was being told too many different conflicting stories that just didn’t make sense. Now I know that there’s more than one way to skin a cat and all that stuff. But, I had to understand how Mark approached this whole process.

So, at the time, Mark (#2 in our story here) had just got 6 referrals from one his clients. Turns out (and this is circa 2013 if you’re keeping track) had worked with the owner of a Tim Horton’s and the guy loved Mark. I believe Mark was using Corporate Class Mutual Funds (since disbanded I believe) and insurance to minimize the tax impact and so this owner of the Tim Horton’s loved the ideas so much and of course, loved Mark (who didn’t?) and started telling his friends.

I remember being in Mark’s office when another email popped up on his screen and he said:

“Oh my god, another referral. C’mer Andrew, let me show you this.”

And, this Tim Horton’s owner had just sent over his 6^th referral to Mark, all other Tim Horton’s owners. Turns out he was going out of his way to call his friends to RAVE about Mark. You have to remember at this time in 2013, Tim Horton’s was a hot commodity, to get a franchise was essentially a license to print money (not sure what happened in recent years, the corp that owns Tim Horton’s really ran than company into the ground and they are nowhere near as profitable as they once were).

I was blown away that he was getting all these referrals. But, he wasn’t asking for them. His clients (or at least just this client) was going out of his way to find more business for Mark.

What in the world was going on?

In the years since that event, I’ve realized that there are clients that you work with who are “natural connectors”, these are people (and you probably know them) who will go out of their way to help connect people. It’s almost like a calling. They are helpers and they want to add value to anyone they meet. Not for personal gain or anything like that, its just who they are. You’ll want to cultivate those folks in case you’re not already doing that.

But, not everyone is going to refer you business. In my research, I think only 20-30% of your existing clients would ever refer you business, even if they had the opportunity to do so. Some people just aren’t wired for referrals. They don’t do it. They don’t think about. They aren’t proactive like that. It’s not that they view your service as bad, they might be raving fans of you. They just don’t feel the need to share the message.

But, there are other people like this Tim Horton’s owner who is the opposite, he’s a connector (probably how he was able to own multiple Tim Horton’s franchises back in the day) and was obviously a fan of Mark’s work and he just started recommending (and aggressively in some cases) Mark to his friends.

I say all of this to get you to understand one core truth: When it comes to referrals, you simply need to find the right people and unleash them on the wild.

There are people that want to make referrals and can make referrals into your business. You have to identify who those folks are and do something very important:

Stay Top Of Mind

See, each day people you know, who are in your network, who are your clients and who are the COIs (Centers of Influence) that you want to cultivate come across potential clients for you. And these potential clients have issues that you can solve, but the referrals are never made.

Sure, some of the times these people are talking to the 70% of the population that won’t refer them no matter what (it’s just not in them), but that means there are still instances where the 30% that does refer business could send them over to you. But the problem you have is:

They Just Ain’t Thinkin’ About You

Well, that Chuckles is something I can help you with. I can help you create a situation so that when one of these clients or COIs has an opportunity to refer you, they THINK of YOU and only YOU.

Now, I want to go over this one more time. We want to get referrals in the most natural way, which is when people have a problem, YOU are the solution to the PROBLEM. And, no one feels weird about making this referral because, you can actually HELP this prospect/client with said problem.

For example, if someone was having a heart attack and you were a doctor that could save their life. They wouldn’t feel weird about calling you over to save their life. Because, they know you can help (and save their life in that case). No one is doing YOU a favour in this case, they are making the referral to save someone’s life (or in our case, solve a major problem). You are the solution to the problem.

Sorry to beat a dead horse on this one, but I want to make perfectly clear what we are trying to accomplish with all of this.

So the questions we need to answer are the following:

1.      How do we identify the people who are in the best position to make referrals into our business?

2.      What activities do we need perform to stay top of mind?

In today’s email, I want to talk about identification, and next week we’ll get into the meat of the process…patience my friend.

Who do we want to go after with this process?

Well, we know that we won’t be asking for referrals. Our goal is to allow this process to unfold organically. We aren’t trying to change anyone, just trying to identify the people who will naturally make these connections.

Let’s get into it. There are two types of people who can refer us business: clients and COIs.

Before I get into it, I just want to say. You can build a referral business 100% with existing clients. Or, you can build a referral business with 100% COIs. Or, you can have a bit of both. All of them work.

It’s up to you to figure out where you want the referrals to come from. If you are in the family market and want to move upstream (like some of you are probably hoping for), it would probably make sense to target COIs as they might have different (and better clients). But, I’ll leave that up to you.

Either option you choose, you’ll want to target the low hanging fruit first.

And remember, our goal is to create desire with these individuals so that when an opportunity to refer appears, they will think about you first.

In order to do this, you’ll create desire with a series of touchpoints (which I’ll detail in the next chapter). But, we can’t control opportunity, which is why we will add a large amount of referral target sources to our pipeline (don’t worry, once you get a few referral sources going, it will get much easier). You’ll have to dig through a lot of, you know what until you find some gold. But, once you do, you’ll be able to come back to that well again and again (like my friend Mark with his Tim Horton’s client).

I’ll talk about clients first.

As I mentioned, only 20-30% of people will ever even consider referring business. So, to make this process streamlined, you’ll have to try to identify who those folks are. You won’t get this 100% right, so don’t even try. But, we can spend our time where we think this could work.

First, as I mentioned, you’ll want to look for those that are natural connectors. You know the folks I’m talking about. They always know a guy who can help you or are trying to connect you with various people. They also know a lot of people. I think Malcolm Gladwell in his Outliers book called these people “super-connectors” and that’s what they are. They get a lot of enjoyment in helping connect people.

These people could send a ton of referrals your way. I can speak from personal experience, because I happen to be one of these connectors. I’m always connecting people to help solve issues. You’ll want to identify these people and put them on a short list. They tend to be scatter-brained a bit, as they are always doing so many things. So, you’ll have to do things to keep top of mind with them (more on that next week). But for now, just jot down any names of your existing clients where you see traits of the “natural connector”.

The next group you’ll want to look to are clients in your practice that have had a great experience with you. I know you might say that all clients have loved working with you. But, maybe there are some that have had a great transformation in their finances. You know the type I’m thinking of, they were financial basket cases before they met you and you got them on solid footing. I’m sure you have a few in there that fit that bill. They’ll be your raving fans, because without the work you’ve done, they wouldn’t be where they are today. Now, they still might not be connectors, but the power of your work might outshine their connector attitude.

Just a side note, if you want to see this in action. There’s this great movie that came out I believe in the late 90s called, “Analyze This” with Billy Crystal and Robert DeNiro. Billy Crystal plays this psychiatrist who ends up helping Robert DeNiro’s who’s some mafia boss in NYC who keeps having panic attacks. And, after one conversation, Robert DeNiro feels better and is thankful of Billy Crystal’s job. You know, because he’s in the mafia and has to keep the crime business going. But, essentially, you have this incredible client transformation from DeNiro. If you want to see what I’m talking about, watch that movie. Also, it’s a great movie, one of my favs.

Another similar group to target would be anyone who has provided you a positive review or testimonial. Not everyone does these, so if you have a client who has gone out of their way to review you online or provide you with a written testimonial, these are people that are not keeping you a secret. There is more powder in the keg for you.

At this point, we are simply trying to put together a shortlist of clients we can use to cultivate the referral process (which I’ll detail next week). I’d aim for 20-30 names to begin with. You can always add more people to the list and of course take some people off.

If I were you, this is who I’d focus on with my clients: natural connectors, people who have had a positive experience and those who have provided a review or testimonial. Because, each of these individual has shown the positive attributes to share your story with others and makes them a great referral candidate.

Now, I’m not saying only add these people. If you feel you have a client that may not fit one of the molds above, but you think there is a real good chance to get start getting referrals (without asking, remember, because that’s weird), then add them to the list.

“This is my list, there are many like it, but this one is mine”…sorry, Full Metal Jacket reference. But the point here is, add the names you think make sense.

Let’s switch gears a bit and talk about COIs – Centers of Influence.

I think there is a bit of a misconception when it comes to COIs and exactly what they are. When you are thinking about who you might want to target for COIs, you have to think about someone who is another professional who comes in contact with your “ideal client” but is in no way a competitive threat. In other words:

They Don’t Do What You Do

There are plenty of people that fit this mold, but we don’t need to be too creative here. You’ll be looking for the following professions normally: Accountants, Lawyers, Mortgage Brokers & Real Estate Agents.

However, I don’t want to limit it only to those people. But, there are plenty of those professionals to go around. Now, I heard that circa 2022 in Ontario, there were like 180,000 real estate agents at the peak – I know most of them weren’t making money. But, my point is there are a lot of these folks out there. And, you only need a handful referring you business to make more money than you’ve ever dreamt.

Now unless you’re already getting a bunch of referrals from COIs, you’re going to have to go through a bunch to find not only the right one for you, but also one that has a propensity to refer business to you.

I remember Kev telling me when he started to cultivate his Accountant COIs, he was getting connected to “really great people”, but ones that just didn’t fit who he was. One day he was at lunch with this Accountant who was connected to him by one of his best clients. The Accountant wanted to work with Kev, but here was the problem. The Accountant had the personality of a wet nat. He was boring to tears. They couldn’t joke. They had nothing in common. They were polar opposites. So, as much as the relationship could work on a professional level, there was no chemistry.

Kev ended that relationship and just said it wouldn’t work. This guy had no personality and I can’t care about him if I don’t like talking to him. While this is one of those honest statements you often don’t hear. It’s 100% in this case.

Now you might be thinking, “I could fake it, if the referrals are there.” But, I’m going to caution you. This whole organic referral business that I teach is all about real relationships and caring across lines. So, if they don’t “feel it” or you don’t “feel it” it just won’t work.

It’s like an arranged marriage (which I believe are still a thing in certain parts). There is no organic love in such a transaction, it is about other things. But, it just won’t work. Its far better to end the relationship and find someone you actually enjoy working with.

And, so the goal here is to find people who can grow with you and can provide referrals (have shown a propensity to do it), but also people you care and like. Because, and here’s the big thing. They’ll know if you truly care about them or this is simply a business transaction.

You can do this for one big reason:

There Are A Lot Of Fish In This Sea

I live in Ottawa, a city of about 1,000,000 people and there are probably 10,000+ Accountants, Lawyers, Mortgage Brokers and others I might approach. This is more than enough to find the right partner. Don’t settle for people you don’t absolutely love, believe me. There are plenty of people like you, that you would enjoy working with, so no need to settle here.

As a side note, I have a bunch of friends that are in politics and have been in government in control and all that on both sides of the aisle. And, they tell me the same thing.

When you want to change the government, you’ve got to get the civil servants on your side, obviously, as they run the government. Anyways, when you do big change, you sometimes have to fire some and get some new ones. But the comparison I’ve heard from multiple people trying to make these changes is that you have to view the civil service like the Orcs from The Lord of The Rings – if you’ve seen the movie.

No matter how many of those Orcs the good guys kill in the movies, there’s an unending amount of them. And, the point with all of this is you can kill some orcs (or, in this case, fire some government workers), but you can’t fire them all. There are too many. And, if you kill (fire) too many, they’ll turn on you, and you won’t be able to get what you want done.

But the silver lining is that some of these orcs (government workers in my example) believe 100% in what you’re trying to do and will help you. You simply need to find the good ones, and they’ll slay the bad ones.

Now, that’s the whole government business, and we’re talking about referral sources. But there is a lot to choose from. So, if you can’t get along with one or there’s no connection with another, don’t fret. There is almost an unlimited number of these folks with whom you could build a relationship and a business. Choose wisely, my friend.

When looking at building these relationships, if I were you, I’d be adding about 24-36 names that you will ideally whittle down to 5-10 referral sources. But, like all sales, you’re simply trying to get them into the pipeline to see if they can refer you business. If not, you’ll eventually cut them from the systems and add new names until you get that magic 5-10. It just takes time to determine who’s a winner and who will be cut.

Now, as I mentioned above with the client’s section, I’d focus on the same low-hanging fruit, looking for those who are “natural connectors” because those people are far more likely to send referrals naturally, which is what we are looking for. We aren’t trying to change people. We are simply trying to drop ourselves into the process that is already occurring.

Another great target is any professional who has made an introduction, connection, or referral to YOU. This list might be a bit shorter, but if this has happened, they will be a natural connector. You might simply need to go in and build a better relationship with them, so add them to your shortlist, too.

Another great source of candidates are professionals in your networking groups, like BNI or even golf club members (if that’s your bag). Maybe there is a charity you work closely with, and there are some of the board. Or, maybe you go to church and there are some within the congregation.

Also, don’t forget about former colleagues, people you went to school with and even those you know from your kid's sports teams. There are plenty of places to go to look for these folks.

But, I want to caution you. Focus on people you have met, who know you in some way (doesn’t have to be that deeply), as getting a meeting with people you don’t know is much harder.

Now, you might want to add people that you do know, but may not know you. Maybe you run in similar circles, but you’ve never officially introduced yourself. Please for the love of God, do not cold message them. Do not send them cold email. Instead, there’s a better way.

Simply have a common connection make an introduction for you. I call them “Champions”. They already know the COI you want to add to your list and you know them. Ask them to simply make an introduction to get a meeting. Now, there is no guarantee this will work, but it will work a whole lot better than cold messaging.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with cold messaging, but it will just take so much more time to start getting referrals.

There’s one final source that I would add to your list as well. And, that’s your client’s (especially if they are a business owner) Accountants and Lawyers. This is a natural progression as you work deeper with your clients, it makes sense to get to know their own professional advisors. It will likely be easy to connect with them and start to build a relationship.

With all these connections, we won’t know 100% if they are the right candidate, but that’s why we are adding them all to our master list. And, the focus of next week’s email is how to go through these folks and either turn them into referral sources or exit them from our program.

Now, depending on what you want to do, if you’re targeting Clients & COIs, you might have a different number. But, I’d shoot to add 30-40 names to you list if possible, as we start the process to cultivating these folks.

As my grandfather would say…On MacDuff…or in our case, next week.

Andrew