February 10, 2025 • 42 mins
Are you tired of feeling desperate when trying to grow your business? Entrepreneur Stacey Brown Randall shares a contrarian approach to building a network that fuels your success—without having to ask for referrals.
Stacey debunks the myth that soliciting referrals is necessary, and shares her personal journey of overcoming the "icky" feeling to grow her business through authentic relationship-building.
Discover Stacey's practical strategies, including specific language tactics and the importance of tracking referral sources. These strategies will help you build confidence in sharing your entrepreneurial journey and leverage your existing network for sustainable growth.
Get ready to transform the way you approach networking and referrals!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Angie (00:01):
Hello, everybody and happy Monday morning. I am Angie
Callen your host of no moreMondays podcast, the show where
we believe you deserve to have athriving career or business and
an amazing life on your terms.So what I do, I bring you guests
who not only prove that fact,but who have great resources to
help you live and work morebrilliantly. So I want to know,
(00:22):
for all of you entrepreneurs andcoaches who are out there
listening, how's business, ifyou just got a little queasy
feeling in the pit of yourstomach, you need to stay tuned
into this show, because we'veall been there when business is
not quite where we want it tobe. And today, I've got a great
resource to help you out withmoving forward. And her name is
Stacy brown Randall. Stacy is anaward winning author, speaker
(00:45):
and fellow podcast host whohelps businesses grow their
referral base naturally. I'm abig fan of authenticity, so you
know, I love that word. If youdo not like where your business
is at, listen up, because Stacyand I are about to give you both
inspiration and some tacticaladvice to help you get things
moving in the right direction orto the level that you want them
(01:05):
to be. I'm even more excited tohear more about this, Stacy.
Welcome to no more Mondays.Andrea, thank you so much for
having me. I'm super excited,and for all of you out there,
I'll let you, I'll give you alook behind the curtain. Stacy
is actually part of my in reallife network, who I met in real
life. She's part of the worldwho came to me via the thing,
(01:26):
which you've all heard a lotabout, because I've had some
amazing guests who have come andshared their stories, who I met
there. And I love how Stacy hasa really straightforward and
very practical, easy tounderstand and implement
approach to business growth andreferral. So I think this will
be a fun conversation, and I'mgoing to kick it off with a
(01:46):
unique perspective. I know youhave Stacy kind of maybe
debunking this myth, or anuncommon belief
Stacey (01:53):
that you have to ask for referrals. So old school sales
training, a lot of times, willsay, Hey, you got to ask for the
referral. And I know you don'tnecessarily have that
perspective, so tell me moreabout that. Yeah, I have the
exact opposite perspective. Ilike to call myself a contrarian
in the world of referrals,because for decades and decades,
probably generations, definitelylonger than you and I've been
(02:16):
alive, the advice on referralshas always been if you want
them, you're going to have toask for them. And it never took
into account that the majorityof us were like, Oh, that's
terrible. I don't want to dothat. Can't there be another
way? And they're like, No, youhave to ask, or you don't get
any referrals. And that's justlike the saddest, most
(02:36):
depressing thing I've everheard. And I, like most people,
have heard that same informationwhen I was in business. I was
first in sales and marketing,working for a company, and then
in my own business, and that'swhat I heard, too. And I was
like, This is terrible. I don'tever want to do it. So I never
did, and I never reallygenerated any referrals, or the
ones I did get seemed very likesporadic and lucky versus
(02:59):
anything I could have controlover or count on. I mean, I
remember one of the articles Ifound. The title of it was 25
ways to ask for a referralwithout feeling desperate or
without looking desperate. And Iwas like, I'm sorry, everybody
reading this article is waysmart. We are not stupid people.
(03:20):
We know that if you need 24 waysnot to look desperate when
you're asking for a referral,it's because we know we all feel
and look desperate like, Whyisn't there better advice out
there? And I guess just, youknow something is waiting for me
to discover, and that I did soit's been it's really
interesting, because it issometimes I feel like I'm
(03:42):
pushing a huge boulder up ahill, and that hill is standard
advice, old school advice beenaround for longer than I've been
around, advice of how to getreferrals, and I come on the
scene, I'm like, wait, we applythe science to referrals, and we
understand what's reallyhappening when a referral is
being given. We can build outdifferent strategies and
tactics, and that's what I teachmy clients to do
Angie (04:03):
well. And the whole point, let let's just think
practically for a second,because if you need 25 ways not
to feel like a jackass whenyou're asking for a referral,
there's probably one way tonavigate to circumnavigate all
that. Because if you think aboutthe whole goal of a referral
based business is essentially,in my mind, not to have to do
(04:24):
outbound marketing and sales.It's to have referrals come to
you. And so the contrarian inyou, I agree with, and I'm also
curious, you brought upsomething I was going to talk
about, which is that like ickyfeeling. We don't like asking
for referrals. We don't likeasking people to support our
business. When we launch abusiness, the last people we
usually tell is our innercircle, because it feels weird
(04:45):
to go tell the people who loveyou most what you're up to. Why
is that?
Stacey (04:51):
Well, I don't think that is a question that can be
unpacked in any short amount oftime, because I think people
have different reasons for whythey. Are willing to tell, or
more likely, not willing totell. I mean, I remember when I
started my first business, mydad was so mad because I left
working for the Chamber ofCommerce, and that was a job. He
(05:14):
could understand. He couldexplain what is Stacey up to? He
could be like, Oh, she works forthe Chamber of Commerce, let
alone the fact, I mean, I didn'tlove the job. I didn't have the
best bosses while I workedthere. I didn't make crap for
money, like it was not where Iwanted to be. It was never going
to be able to provide to me whatI was looking for in terms of
(05:35):
true growth. And I come from afamily of entrepreneurs, so of
course, eventually I wasprobably going to want to do
that, but I remember him beingso mad at me, because he was
like, Well, I can't explain whatyou do, and now you've got this
business, and I can't understandit, and I'm trying to explain
it. And I was like, That's notmy problem that, and it's a
little hard, or it's not thesame thing for you to be able to
(05:56):
explain it. And I think because,like, when people do start
businesses, like, for me, it waslike, Okay. To this day, I
wonder if my mom could actuallytell you what I do. Like, I'm
not sure. So I think some ofit's that, right, some of it's
that when you decide to go intobusiness, entrepreneurship, and
you have a network of humansthat are w2 employees, sometimes
(06:18):
it is like a lack ofunderstanding of just whatever
job it is, or whatever companyit is you're trying to start
like, the what you're doingdoesn't make any sense to them.
If you're an attorney, it
Angie (06:28):
doesn't even make any sense to us. It's so ambiguous
that we can it takes a littletime for us to articulate it. So
you know, parents who come fromthe structured work environment
days, because I would say my momand dad were same way when I
left engineering. They're like,wait, what do we tell people?
And because I know she's outthere listening, hi, sonny, she
now understands what I do. Shelistened to every single one of
(06:49):
these but it took a little whileto kind of like, close that,
that gap of the like you areliving in the unknown it Well,
it's funny, because
Stacey (06:55):
I always tell entrepreneurs, when they start
their business and they'll belike, oh, what advice do you
have for me? I was like, thenumber one thing you need to
understand is what your businessis what your business will look
like in three years is not whatit looks like now. So don't
marry it, because you don't evenknow what's coming. And you need
to be able to be flexible andto, like, figure it out. And
like, it's okay to have a plan.It's okay to be like, I'm going
(07:16):
to do this. I'm going to offerit this way. And these are my
clients are going to be great.And as you head down that path,
throw the picture of what youthink is going to look like at
the end away, because it's goingto change and more so much. And
you know, for some people, like,if you're an attorney at a at a
large firm, and then you leavethat large firm to go start your
own law practice, everybody getsit, because you're still an
(07:37):
attorney, right? It's like everyit's like everybody else that
leaves. And it's like, I used todo this, and now I'm carving out
this space to do this. Andsometimes it's easier to be
understood than others in termsof that kind of, like, that
business ownership. But, youknow, for me, it was just, I
think sometimes we don't alsowith that feeler fear of
failure, of like, Oh, if I telleverybody and when it fails,
(08:00):
then I have to tell everybodythat it failed, which is, you
know, I went through with myfirst business. And so I
sometimes think it's that, willthey get it? Will they care? And
then, what if it's notsuccessful? And then later they
find out, or I have to tell themthat it failed. And 82% I think
that's the statistic of smallbusinesses will fail within
their first five years. So it'slike, just buckle up buttercup,
(08:23):
because it's going to be a bumpyride, and it's going to be fine,
and you may get through it. Andyou know, I'm one of those that
my very first business made itto year four, did not make it to
year five. I am part of the 82%I am a member of the business
failure club. I actually had myown little badge made, but I
didn't give up, and I did it.And I was like, I'm going to own
a business and be successful.And here I am with my second
(08:44):
business 12, almost 12 years in.And so, right? I mean, I just
think that the journey,especially when we're younger,
like in our 20s and 30s, it'ssupposed to be success after
success after success, and it'snot. It's like this exact line
of like, backwards and forwardsand failures and successes and
leaps and bounds and negatives,just what it is. But trying to
explain that to other people,it's a little bit
Angie (09:06):
harder, yeah, and I think that feeling of, uh, you hit it
on the nail on the head, is likeegg on your face. If I fail, I'm
gonna have to now tell them Ifailed at the thing I told them
I was doing, and then also thatthe general global feel all fear
all of us had is like fear ofnot being accepted. So are they
going to accept what I'm doing?But if you are convicted about
what you're doing, you'reactually causing a disservice to
(09:28):
yourself by not telling theinner circle who's there to
support you, and also canprobably help you flesh out
speaking about what you'redoing, which is huge, and you
kind of gave us a little tidbitinto and let's talk about the
failure thing, because thefailure has turned into a four
letter word. And we've all seenthat meme that says we think
growth looks like this, right?And really it's it's like this,
(09:51):
whether you have a job or acareer or a business or, you
know, whatever, nothing islinear. And I think we got to
ditch the expectation. That itis. And I want to hear more
about I want to take, I wish wecould just take the word failure
out and replace it with Ilearned, right? And so I would
love to hear a little bit moreabout news flash for all the
coaches listening. Stacyactually was a coach at one
(10:13):
point in time, which I found outas we were chatting at the
beginning of this. So I thoughtthat was an interesting little
tidbit to kind of bring to thiswhole story of like, what you do
now is not what you did. Therewas some lows in between. What
did that journey look like? And,more importantly, what did you
learn from it that applies totoday's success?
Stacey (10:32):
Yeah, it was. It was a really interesting journey. I
wouldn't change it for anything.That doesn't mean it wasn't
hard. And like you said, therewere some lows. I'm like, there
was deep down lows. Like, in thedeep down, for any of those
folks who are watching silo, um,I was in the deep deep down,
like, we just
Angie (10:51):
watched an episode last night that's funny, or in the
way down deep,
Stacey (10:56):
no way down deep, like, way, way down deep. Um, but I
think that, you know, for me, Icome from a family of
entrepreneurs like so it's notunusual for us to sit around the
Thanksgiving table and talkabout business. The problem is,
almost all the entrepreneurs inmy family run restaurants, and
so they're crazy kind ofentrepreneur, I was
Angie (11:18):
to say, speaking of volatility in entrepreneurship.
I'm married to a former FBprofessional, so I yep, I get
that. That's a different kind ofthat's a different spice of
life, right? There
Stacey (11:28):
it is. I call them the crazy kind. They're the crazy
kind of entrepreneurs. And I cansay that because I have a
grandmother and and I'm a nieceand I'm the sister and the
daughter and the wife of peoplewho all own restaurants. So
like, for me, it's like, Youpeople are crazy, and I know,
because I have the inside,glimpse inside of that life. But
anyway, not to, you know, mypoor entrepreneur friends, who
(11:51):
are we glad they do? Because Ilove a good dinner out, yeah,
don't we? All right? I mean, I,I married somebody who in the
restaurant, so I never had tocook. I mean, it was, like,
quite brilliant. On my part, Iplayed Yes, and I don't know how
to cook, and it's like a badgeof honor for me. So, you know,
when I think about the journeyto becoming an entrepreneur, I
always knew I wanted it, then itwas the question of, What am I
(12:12):
going to sell like? What am Ilike? What can I do? What does
that look like? And I wasworking at the Chamber, like I
said, and I was working, andthere's somebody, there was
another company. It was ahusband and wife team that owned
a research company. And theycame to me and they said, hey,
the area that I was working inat the Chamber, they were like,
This is really cool. You'relike, kind of an expert in this
area, and we really would liketo open a division within our
(12:33):
company in that area. And I waslike, yes, yes. So I joined a
partnership, but a husband andwife team with you as a partner
is not a equal partnership, andit was their business. And those
are some hard lessons for me tolearn. And I was probably and I
said yes to joining theirpartnership. I was probably in
(12:53):
partnership with them for lessthan a year, but when I said yes
and left my full time job, I wasalso four weeks pregnant and did
not know it. So that just madethat whole first year, like,
bonkers. And then our, the veryfirst client I landed for that
company, came to me offline, andwas like, hey, what you're doing
with this company you could doon your own, like, not the piece
(13:14):
that they were experts in, butthe piece that I was and, like,
and I'll support you and be yourfirst client. And I was like,
okay, so Okay, so I started myown business. That was my first
client. It's like a six figureclient for the first couple
years, which, let's be honest,is a beautiful way to start a
business, but lulls you intocomplacency, really? Yep,
Angie (13:31):
not a great way to sustain a business, because you
lose that client. Guess whathappens? Yeah, and
Stacey (13:36):
you and you don't have to work very hard trying to
figure out all the systems andprocesses of how you're going to
bring on new clients. You don'thave to figure out the
prospecting, the marketingpipeline. You don't have to
figure
Angie (13:47):
out your skills process. You got there's a whole sense of
security there, for sure. Solike, if you, if you're taking
notes out there potential trapnumber one, Stacey just
Stacey (13:54):
brought it up, yes. And so when that client was no
longer a client after two years,and then it was like, scramble,
hustle, like, real, realquickly. One of the things that
I learned with my first businessis that I had to figure out how
to touch business developmentevery day. But when I say every
day, I don't mean like Mondaythrough Friday, every day. I
just mean like, you have to haveprocesses and systems. You have
to know what you're doing. Youhave to have ways to bring in
(14:15):
potential clients, and you haveto have those you have to have
those work for you. They have tobe done in a way that you are
willing to do them. And that'sreally important, because
anybody can cold call, mostpeople don't survive past the
first or second call block. So Imean, you can do anything for a
short amount of time, but canyou love that for a long amount
of time? And so for me, it waslike, Oh crap. And then it
(14:37):
became like this hustle andnetworking game, and I have
three kids, right? I'm gonnaadded a second, then I
eventually added a third, butlike so it just became like
that. I don't have time tonetwork all the time, and I got
all this going on in my personallife, and I'm trying to grow
business. Four years in, thatbusiness failed. I had to go
back to corporate America. Thatwas a really, really hard
transition back in. I gotcertified, though. I. Gone on
(15:00):
the side I got so I've beenknown in my past to, like, have
side hustles while having a fulltime job. So earlier in my
career, when I was in my 20s,before I got married, I got my
real estate license whileworking in marketing for a
magazine. I got my real estatelicense because my husband owned
a restaurant. Was like, neveraround nights and weekends. I'm
like, I'm gonna go sell somereal estate and make some extra
money, which is like, how we hada down payment for our first
(15:22):
house, and so, you know, I did,so it wasn't unusual for me to
be like, Hey, I have this jobthat I don't love good people
don't love it, and I'm going toget certified. And I got
certified as a productivitycoach. And I really did spend
some time being like, okay, whenI go back out on my own, how am
I not going to land in thebusiness failure club again?
(15:42):
Nobody needs to be a two timemember. Yeah. And that kind of
forced a lot of decisions, and alot of throwing spaghetti on the
wall, and a lot of like, let'sfigure this out. And one of the
things I discovered was in myfirst business, whereas I did
have more than that one client,I did learn how to bring clients
on. I got all of them by beingin the right place at the right
time. Do you know what it means,truly, what it means to be in
(16:04):
the right place at the righttime? It means you're in all the
places all the time.
Angie (16:11):
I was right place. Oh
Stacey (16:14):
my gosh, there's not and so you when you don't really
know, you're like, ah, brightplace, right? I was hanging out
all the places all the time, andmy life was bananas. And so it
was just one of those things,right where, I mean, I can
remember I have, like, very,very interesting memories of,
like, trying to, like, be a momduring the day with my kid at
home napping and sitting in theother room, like taking prospect
(16:38):
calls or client calls, or tryingto do work. And like, losing my
kid one day, literally, saw thathe got out of this crib and out
of his room. He was like, two, Idon't think his sister was born
yet. And so, like, I was like,all of a sudden I heard a door
open, and I was like, and thenyou're in the middle of it.
Like, I gotta wrap up this phonecall with this prospect really
(16:58):
fast so I don't lose thepotential. But at the same time,
I gotta go find my kid.
Angie (17:01):
He was like, the prospect, Hey, hang on a second.
I think I lost my kid, which isan instant credibility buster.
If you're trying to sign aclient for productivity,
Stacey (17:11):
all I did put my eye on the driveway. I'm like, okay, as
long as Jacob doesn't go intothe front yard, he won't get
into the street. I'll be fine. Ifound him in the backyard
sitting at the picnic table justwaiting for mommy to finish her
call. Like, there you go, youknow. But it's just interesting,
like all the things that we do,right? So I totally got off
topic, I apologize. But what Ilearned with that first business
(17:32):
is, how am I going to touchbusiness development every day
in a way that works for me?Because all my clients were
landed because I networked. Iwas on that committee, I was on
this committee. I belong to thisgroup. I was here. I was there
because that's where all myclients came from. I didn't get
any referrals. And I was like,There's got to be a better way.
But I'd always been told you hadto ask, or you had to pay,
incentivize, you got to givekickbacks, right? Or you've got
(17:53):
to be seen all the time. I'mlike, Well, I've been seen all
the time, and I didn't producereferrals. It did produce some
clients, but not referrals. Andthe other thing is, is that
you're also told to be reallygimmicky and promotional, like,
put in your email signature,hey, the greatest compliment you
can give me as a referral thatdoesn't trigger a referral, not
when you actually know what doesand what doesn't. And so I was
like, great. Those four wayssuck. I don't want to do them,
(18:16):
and I know they don't work. Sowhat else
Angie (18:19):
the 20 book of 25 and keep defining the rest of the 21
all
Stacey (18:24):
of them are bad, yeah, so I just started throwing
spaghetti on the wall. I waslike, Okay, here I am. I got
started in my corporate job. Igot certified as a productivity
coach. When I left thatcorporate job about 15 months
after starting, I did not lastlong. I do not make a great
employee. Just so I was like,Okay, now I'm a productivity
(18:46):
coach, and I gotta get someclients. And I got, I did have
my first couple of clients. Didcome from networking. I am a big
believer in networking, but I'ma big believer in strategic
networking. I'm doing itspecifically for a reason, and
having a path and a plan for it.And so I did get up my first
three clients came fromnetworking, and that one of
(19:06):
those clients, of my first threeended up being someone who,
like, gave me a referral. And Iwas, at that moment I would
like, Okay, that was lucky. Now,what the heck have I been doing
to generate those referrals? Andthen that first year, I got 112
referrals that I never asked foror paid for or had to put an
email signature Give me yourreferrals. And I was like,
(19:27):
great, let me reverse engineerthis. And it was at that point
when I'm my productivitycoaching was four small business
owners. Those are my people.That's my tribe. And so I was
like, Alright, I want to, like,coach with them. I want to be in
community with them. Becausethat's I was like, I could see a
business now. I can see abusiness failure coming from
like, a mile away. And so I waslike, that's who I was getting
(19:48):
referrals from. So those smallbusiness owners said you're
growing, you're increasing yourrate. It's harder to get on your
schedule. What are you doing?And I was like, I'm getting all
these referrals, and it'samazing. And they said, Thanks
for teaching me to tame myinbox. I. I really want to learn
your referral strategy. And thenthat that put me on that, oh
shit. I don't know what am Idoing? And so I've had to
reverse engineer what washappening. Oh, I say this. Oh, I
(20:09):
do this. Oh, I've identifiedthis person in this way for this
reason. And then that, now, 12years later, has become an
entire way of teaching referralswithout asking or manipulation.
That's 20 different strategies.No business owner needs them
all, and it's looking atreferrals like an ecosystem
within your business. So somethings we put into place and
(20:31):
they're automated, and somethings are plans that we put in
place to how we cultivate peopleto refer. But it's a way of
actually developing yourbusiness in a way that will be
much more sustainable, but alsoproven to work. And
Angie (20:43):
we're going to get some of those secrets in a second,
but I want to tie a few thingstogether here, because to go
back to something you saidtowards the beginning of our
conversation, is that yourbusiness will not look like
today what it looked like threeyears ago or maybe even three
months ago, and it won't looklike that again in three months
or another three years, and youhave to be a little careful of
(21:06):
having blinders on to potentialopportunities, or adapting when
you need to, or saying thisisn't working do something else
when you need to, because theexperience that you had, in my
opinion, the productivitycoaching, led to this, not
because you not only because yourealized how to get referrals,
but because it's productive andefficient, right? And so it was
almost like a seed that wasplanted. And I'm because we're
(21:30):
talking about, like, how do youavoid business failure? In a
way, is the roundaboutconversation here, referrals are
a great way to avoid that, bythe way. You know, I have a
story that I think I've maybeonly tapped into, like touched
on once here, but I am also abusiness failure, or have had a
business failure, it was a realbig life, shaking like total
tanking event. That long storyshort is, you know, my husband
(21:54):
and I bought an existingbusiness. It was high overhead.
The books didn't look like whatwe thought we bought, and so we
found ourselves really upsidedown inside of two and a half
years and went bankrupt. Boththe business and us, and news
flash career vendors and mybusiness are helped us recover
from it. And so there areentrepreneurial success stories
that can help you recover. Andif you have to go back to
(22:17):
employment for a little while,it's what you have to do. But
just because you try and failonce doesn't mean you're not
meant to succeed. And for me,what I know happened in that
business I have taken forward soI know don't hold on to things
too long, because that's one ofthe things we did that caused
things to spiral out of controlas much as they did. And if I
had to let go a year and a halfearlier, the damage would not
(22:40):
have been as great, right? Sothat's where, like the seeing
things and having failureexperiences opens up your eyes
to these and now Stacy's got anamazing, successful business,
because she was willing to usepast learned experiences from
failures to bring a bit bringinto a business that she saw an
opportunity to evolve, and nowthe sky is the limit. So well,
(23:06):
you
Stacey (23:06):
know, and I would say to that too, it's, it's really hard
to recognize those moments whenthey're happening the first it
is. And so that is actually thegift of those moments, is that
they're, they're training youand teaching you and helping you
remind yourself and others thatwhen that moment comes around
again and there's it's a momentto do something different,
you'll be better at seeing itlike my husband and I were just
(23:27):
having this conversation.Something didn't happen the way
he wanted it to happen at work.And I was like, this moment does
not matter. I was like, but youwill look back at this thing not
going your way. I was like, itdoesn't matter in the grand
scheme, scheme of things, I waslike, but this thing not
happening the way you want itto, does give you the potential
to decide, are you going to lookback in this legal moment, you
(23:49):
made a pivot and you made ashift and you went forward in a
different direction? Are yougoing to wallow in your pity
like, that's that's youroptions. It's like, that's what
it looked like and, and Ireminded him, you know, like I
went back to corporate Americaafter my business failure,
technically I was fired, but wecreated this messaging around
we're going to let Stacy gobecause Stacey wants to go,
(24:10):
because Stacey wanted to go, butStacy needs to go. No, she wants
to go, but Stacy gotta need topay jack, and we want to manage
this messaging because Stacy isknown and so that's how we work
today. It was like, Hey, thisisn't working. And like, you're
right, let's mutually go our ownway. So that's technically fired
with those likes packaging and alittle like severance on the
(24:32):
back end, which was great. Imean, I really appreciated that.
That's what happened for me, andthat's what the company did. But
I tell them, I tell my I tellpeople this all the time. I'm
like, I get my butt fired. Thatis not the defining moment in my
life, my business failure thatled to that job that I didn't
have to get fired from. Neitherof those are the defining
moments in terms of who Ibecame, except for the fact that
(24:53):
I use those moments as points inthe past to make different
decisions moving forward.
Angie (25:00):
Yeah, one of the most powerful things I heard in the
last year or two was a humancannot be a failure. Failure is
an incident, an action, a verb.It is not a noun or a state of
being. You can fail atsomething, but that does not
define you as a failure unlessyou let it. And I think what
Stacy and I are both talkingabout here is not letting it and
(25:23):
in fact, turning it intosomething that informs the next
step, which to come full circleis, in a roundabout way, how you
landed in the business thatyou're in now and tapped into
the secrets of how you generatea referral, a successful
referral based business, withoutasking, yep, I
Stacey (25:39):
mean the fact that I get to show up every day and talk
about this and teach my clientsand stand on stages and do
podcast episodes like this, orhave my second book come out, my
first book's already out, or domy podcast. The fact that I get
to talk about this all day longis because I would like business
failure sucks, and here I gottado something different. And then
I learned, and then I applied,and then I created a successful
(26:01):
framework from it. First itworked for me, then I started
testing it out with otherclients. When it worked for
them, then I was like, now we'reoff to the races. And that's the
other thing. Is, with my firstbusiness that failed, what I
realized is that I also neverhad a plan in place for scaling,
because you can't scale whenyou're drowning. And my business
was basically drowning the wholetime. And so when I started this
(26:21):
second business, not only wasit, how am I going to generate
business in a way that works forme? Discovered referrals. I was
always paying attention to,what's the thing I can scale?
Because you cannot scale hourlycoaching. And it's just
Angie (26:35):
now you're, you're preaching to the choir over
here, my friend. But yes, thatis to you can. You can grow it
however. You can't scale itbecause you will reach a limit
to you will reach a limit ofyour time and the time and the
money you can charge for it,
Stacey (26:50):
yeah. And you can scale a coaching practice in a lot of
different ways, but it isn'tgoing to be by adding more
hours. Like, no, that's not.Eventually what's going to
happen. And so for me, I wasalways paying attention to that.
I was always like, okay, isproductivity thing I want to
scale. It wasn't the person whotaught me is, like a master at
that, Carson Tate. I was like, Idon't need to be her. She's
already wonderful. Like, I don'twant to scale this whole idea
(27:11):
of, like, productivity. It'swhat I'm doing now to pay the
bills and build a business. Butwhen the referral thing kind of
hit me, I was like, that's whatI will scale. And let me tell
you the business in terms ofscaling and changing the model,
I have gone through so manymodel changes, the content and
the framework and my expertisehas never changed, but how I
(27:32):
deliver that? Oh, my God, allthe changes.
Angie (27:35):
It's like she's standing over here in my office watching
what I'm up to right now.Because, uh, guess what? Active,
active in that process. You saida word I love a minute ago,
which is frameworks. And so Ithink it'd be a really cool
thing to kind of top off thisconversation with some practical
advice in that, you know, whatis this secret and kind of, what
(27:55):
is the framework for gettingreferrals, naturally, getting
referrals without asking, andbuilding a sustainable business?
That's fail proof.
Stacey (28:01):
Yeah. So I always have folks think about your referral
generation and an ecosystem,meaning referrals aren't all a
nail, and all you need is ahammer, right? So people who
believe that I'm going to teachyou how to ask for referrals,
they think referrals are a nailand the asking is the hammer,
and we look at it as likeecosystem. You got a toolbox
full of different tools neededfor different reasons, but this
(28:22):
ecosystem is like the placeswhere all referrals can be and
are probably hiding and shouldbe within your business. So we
kind of think of like a mix,like just a circle that kind of
goes around. But when you'relooking at the framework of what
actually makes referrals happen,it always starts with
understanding, having the rightspecific strategies in place
that your business needs. Again,I teach 20, I mentioned that
(28:45):
earlier, but not everybody usesall of them, but everybody uses
a couple of very true the provento work processes that are
foundational in nature. And soit's all about having the right
strategies that are right foryou and your business. And so
that framework is, it's theright strategies done for the
right people or at the rightmoments. And then it kind of
(29:06):
goes into, okay, strategies aregreat, but you also then have to
know what you're saying whenyou're doing the the
application, the outreach, thetouch points, the whatever
you're doing right for whoeverthese people are. So the
specific strategies go to peoplelike it's specific groups of
humans. Should have a plan forhow you're going to cultivate
referrals from them, and that'swhat you do to them within that
(29:28):
strategy. Then it's also whatyou say, and then the third
piece of that is yourconsistency, because referrals
really are a long term game. Andpeople come to me and they're
like, my business is on its lastleg. This is my Hail Mary. And
I'm like, keep your money. Donot give it to me, because this
is not going to work for you theway you need it to. That's I'm
not SEO. Like, there is, youknow, there may be a changing
(29:49):
algorithm for SEO and socialmedia and all those kind of
things, but I we don't, we don'tever say, Get rich quick. Like,
that's just not how it works inreferrals. Because you're
talking about. Know It takestime to build relationships.
Angie (30:02):
That will be bring referrals. And if you're going
to do this naturally, that's,that's a part of the strategy,
right? And of the Who are thesepeople, you can't go ahead. I
was
Stacey (30:14):
okay, naturally, in terms, I want to be really clear
about this, naturally in termsof you will feel natural doing
it, but there are things youwill learn to do and say. It's
not like, then it's coming. No,no, that's called Hope.
Beautiful, not a strategy, not agreat feeling, not a strategy.
When we use the word naturally,what we mean is like, it's going
to be not manipulative. You'renot going to take advantage or
(30:37):
compromise your yourrelationships that you have. But
there is other things to do. Youhave to learn to do other things
and say other things and doother things to have success. So
I just want to define naturally.It's not like it just magically
happens.
Angie (30:50):
There's a difference between active, naturally versus
like organic. It's coming myway. And I think the the
important thing, and I want tohighlight the fact that this is
not an overnight turn aroundyour business strategy. This is
long term sustainability,because referrals don't come in
quickly, and while you can kindof predict and anticipate, you
(31:11):
also don't have full controlover how often referrals come in
and necessarily, or at least thevolume of them you can you can
predict and get an idea of howconsistent it will bring your
business. But I can't say, Okay,tomorrow, Stacy's gonna send me
a lead,
Stacey (31:27):
right? No one can say that actually about anything.
Yeah, say that about your SEO. Imean, you really know
Angie (31:33):
an SEO is, oh, man, that could. That would be, I feel
like you and I would just standon a soapbox and shout into the
void and violently agree abouteverything regarding SEO well,
and you
Stacey (31:41):
can't take social media. I'm gonna make this post
tomorrow and it's gonna land mea $20,000 client. Like, nothing
really works that way. Butyou're right. It's what you
control. Are the actions thatyou take and following a
following, following a provenprocess and framework, and then
being consistent with that isultimately what works. I mean,
people will say, Can everybusiness get referrals? And I'm
like, Yes, but I don't work withevery business. Every business
(32:04):
is not the right fit for me, andit's not the right fit for the
strategies I'm going to teachyou, because ROI matters too.
And so I do have people who cometo work with me and they're
like, oh my gosh, I doubled myreferrals. I'm like, 45 days.
And that is, like, that's great.We want people to double, triple
or quadruple their referrals, wesay, Give us like a year, but
sometimes it happens in 90 days,faster you don't. But I always
(32:26):
tell folks, when that happens,that means you have no idea how
much money you've been leavingon the table for years, because
however many years you weren'tdoing it because you weren't
doing the right things. And soyes, know what? There's no
guarantee that tomorrow you'llget a referral or any other type
of prospect that will come intoyou from any other type of lead
source, but it is that idea ofunderstanding what you should be
(32:47):
doing. And then I always tellfolks, when people decide
they're going to hire me, I'mlike, do you want to learn from
me like Stacy, the personsecond? Do you want to learn the
way I'm going to teach you myphilosophy and how I teach the
fact that we don't ask and wedon't pay and things like that.
And then it's the now, how doyou want to learn that? Because
I work with my clients in acouple of different ways. That
second piece of like, do youwant to learn referrals the way
(33:10):
I teach it that matters, becausemy philosophy informs every
tactic, every strategy I teach,every piece of language that I
help a client write,
Angie (33:20):
and it's in with anything that's coach or coach like,
which, in a way, this is, youknow, we're teaching, giving
people a playbook and teachingpeople to fish. You have to find
a methodology, a framework and ahuman who you kind of jive with.
And I actually want to give acouple very specific little
tools or practical pieces ofadvice out there, because this
(33:41):
is one thing I love to do on nomore Mondays. So what are your
favorite three, or maybe themost common three tools in the
20 point referral toolbox yousee people using or your
favorite to have people deploy.
Stacey (33:58):
Okay, yeah, so let me give you a there's a lot, but
let me use the three. So I'mgoing to stick to that request.
But let me give you a kind of ondifferent areas, because I think
that would be helpful. Numberone is business owners,
particularly you guys, you haveto be tracking. You have to be
tracking what's happening when aprospect shows up into your
world, into your pipeline, andhas shown any level of interest
(34:19):
and maybe hiring you, you betterbe tracking where they're coming
from. And if they're beingreferred to you by someone else,
a referral source is always ahuman. You need to be capturing
that person's name. So numberone, the number one thing I have
clients do when they work withme is they have to complete this
tracker thing of like, pastdata. If you're already tracking
this stuff, it makes it so mucheasier. Yes, just track what's
(34:40):
happening in your business. Youmake better decisions anyways,
when you can see the data andyou'll know exactly who are the
other humans that are referringpotential clients to you. So
tracking definitely is the firstthing that I would say. The
second kind of tool that Ialways love for people to think
about is the language piece.Right now. This is my secret
sauce. This is kind of alwayslike. Behind the curtain, behind
(35:01):
the paywall, is the languagepiece that I teach, the formula,
the rationale behind it, thereasoning, how it works, why it
works when you use it, when youdon't, the cadence, all the
things, right? But the easiestthing for someone to do is to
not miss out on opportunities.Let me teach you one piece of
language that I teach. It'scalled the house business
script. You know, you walk intoa networking event. I don't care
(35:21):
if you're an employee, right? Idon't care if you're a business
owner. You walk into anetworking event and someone
says, Hey, how's it going? How'sbusiness? What's up? The number
one thing you should not besaying is, it's great. It sucks.
It's okay. Hey, whatever thatanswer is, what you should be
saying is relating it back tohow referrals are going in your
business. So the proper responseto the house business question
(35:42):
is, oh my gosh, Angie, thanks somuch for asking me how business
is. I really appreciate thatactually Business is great. We
just ended the year reallystrong. We brought on a number
of new clients we kicked offthis year, and about 75% of
those clients were actuallyreferred to me by other people
that I know, like in thecommunity, right? Whatever your
whatever your answer is, but youtie it back to whatever is
(36:03):
happening from a referralperspective, but you cannot lie
like to say that. So you gottafigure out, what is the truth
about House business when itgenerates from referrals, and
that's your answer, itpercolates, it plants a referral
seed. It could have fallen onconcrete and go nowhere, but you
don't know if it's going to doanything different. You also
have power
Angie (36:24):
of suggestion. You just planted the seed to somebody
that, oh, you take referrals,yes,
Stacey (36:30):
and you don't know. First of all, you don't know if
it's planted on concrete orfertile ground. And second of
all, you can expect a referralexplosion from one little house
business answer, right? But itdoes see who, who that
percolates with, and whathappens if you continue to
cultivate that relationship,because it's someone who has
potential to refer you. That'swhere it starts, right? So
tracking what's going on in yourbusiness moving forward, knowing
(36:53):
where your clients come from, oryour prospects come from, making
sure you know how to answer thehouse business question with the
right referral state language.And the third thing I would say
is you need to know who'sreferring you. Now, if you've
received referrals in 2024 and2023 and 2022 you need to be
able to tell me by showing me alist of the names of the people,
first and last names, whoreferred to you. We call this
(37:16):
the client and prospect. Lookback tracker where you actually
go back in your business. Youpull out all your clients, and
you're like, where did all ofthem come from? And here's all
the ones that those clients thatwere referred, who referred
them. Oh, here's the names ofthose referral sources. That
list of names of your referralsources is your list of gold.
And if I were to start workingwith you, the number one thing I
(37:38):
would tell you is that's whowe're starting with. People
who've referred you before aremore likely to refer you again,
and so that is where we're goingto start to kind of get some
momentum going with referralswhile we build another
strategies to work as well.
Angie (37:52):
I got nothing to say, although, of course, I do. I'm
going to take a quick littleaside and connect dots in a way
that you all might not expect,because, you know, we've really
focused this conversation aroundentrepreneurship and what
referrals can do for business.But there is a very, very
parallel story here for any ofyou out there that are employees
and are either thinking aboutjob searching, might ever job
(38:15):
search or have a job so that'spretty much all of you. And this
idea of referrals, we alwaystalk about continue networking
in the job searching world, andnever stop networking, because
it's what opens you up toreferrals into jobs naturally,
without ever having to goLinkedIn message somebody. And
also how critical is messagingif you do have to do that. But
(38:35):
there's this idea that if you,if you build a group of allies,
this these opportunities comeback to you naturally, and all
you had to do was start with arelationship building aspect
that was strategic. I'm a bigfan of strategic networking and
job searching as well. It's likea little bit of think of work
smarter instead of harder, ormaybe, like strategically
(38:58):
instead of just throw stuff atthe wall and see what sticks. We
call that spray and pray. Yep, Icall it spray and pray too.
That's That's trigger happy onthe Apply button is what I call
spray and pray when somebodyjust decides to go out and throw
their resume to everyone andanyone in the world, versus this
idea of like, using who's inyour circle, because I would
even venture to throw out thethird tip, know who's referring
(39:21):
you. If you've had somebodyrefer you to a job before, or
hire you before, aren't they thefirst person that you're going
to go to because they alreadyknow your work ethic. They
already know you can perform andin the business sense, if it's a
client, you need to know clientsare referring you because
clearly you've done enough tobuild that referral. Maybe
colleagues are referring youbecause you have a specialty
(39:42):
they can't fill. But if youdon't know your numbers, you're
never gonna be able to connectto those dots and leverage the
assets that you built withoutnot even knowing it. Absolutely
there you go. Every businessshould have referrals. It could
be a game changer for the futureand the sustainable. Ability of
your business, and you can do itnaturally. I think that's what
(40:03):
Stacy and I are here, standinghere, talking about, because I I
could even come and I don't needto talk about what's happened in
my business, but I could, Icould say that without trying
very hard. A lot of what youhave suggested I have done
without necessarily knowing it.And then all of a sudden, you're
like, Well, my referrals arepicking up. And then, and then
you reverse engineer, and you'relike, oh, okay, here's how. You
(40:24):
just got to pay attention andhave a strategy, which is what
Stacy can help you with,shameless plug. Yeah. Thank you
so much. Speaking of shamelessplugs, How does everybody out
there find you, and whatresources can they grab from
you? Because I know you're kindof everywhere as well. Yeah.
Stacey (40:39):
So home base is the website. It's my full name,
Stacy brown randall.com thatgets you pointed in the right
directions for anything you'd beinterested in. But since you're
listening to this podcast, I'mgonna watching this is a live
stream and a podcast, I'mguessing you probably are down
with listening to podcasts. Somine is roadmap to referrals. We
drop a new episode everyTuesday, and we're coming up on
Episode 350 which is crazy toactually think about. And then
(41:02):
milestone,
Angie (41:03):
congratulations on that. Yeah, podcasting is not for the
faint of heart or the time orthe time constraint.
Stacey (41:09):
Podcasting, for the long run, is not for the faint of
heart. Anybody can knock out 10episodes. Yep, it's everything
after that. That's a lot harder.Yeah. And then, of course, if
you're like, hey, I do likewatching this video, but I'm not
really a podcast listener. Mybook generating business
referrals without asking, isavailable for purchase wherever
you like to purchase books, andbook number two will be out in
(41:30):
the fall of 2025
Angie (41:33):
exciting. Maybe we'll have to have you back for round
two right in time for thatlaunch. I would love that. Thank
you. There you have it.Everybody. Stacy brown Randall,
you can visit her at LinkedIn,on her website at the same name
here to remind you that you canrecover from failure. You can
use it to your advantage, andyou can build a referral based
business without trying toohard. So follow her on LinkedIn,
(41:55):
follow me on LinkedIn, grab herbook, check out her podcast.
Head on over to the website,where you can find out more
about some of these tools andstrategies that we talked out
about today. It's all aboutbuilding relationships people,
and as a former engineer wholoves people, I'm a big fan.
I'll see you next week foranother edition of no more
Monday's podcast. Bye.
Hello, everybody and happy Monday morning. I am Angie
Callen your host of no moreMondays podcast, the show where
we believe you deserve to have athriving career or business and
an amazing life on your terms.So what I do, I bring you guests
who not only prove that fact,but who have great resources to
help you live and work morebrilliantly. So I want to know,
(00:22):
for all of you entrepreneurs andcoaches who are out there
listening, how's business, ifyou just got a little queasy
feeling in the pit of yourstomach, you need to stay tuned
into this show, because we'veall been there when business is
not quite where we want it tobe. And today, I've got a great
resource to help you out withmoving forward. And her name is
Stacy brown Randall. Stacy is anaward winning author, speaker
(00:45):
and fellow podcast host whohelps businesses grow their
referral base naturally. I'm abig fan of authenticity, so you
know, I love that word. If youdo not like where your business
is at, listen up, because Stacyand I are about to give you both
inspiration and some tacticaladvice to help you get things
moving in the right direction orto the level that you want them
(01:05):
to be. I'm even more excited tohear more about this, Stacy.
Welcome to no more Mondays.Andrea, thank you so much for
having me. I'm super excited,and for all of you out there,
I'll let you, I'll give you alook behind the curtain. Stacy
is actually part of my in reallife network, who I met in real
life. She's part of the worldwho came to me via the thing,
(01:26):
which you've all heard a lotabout, because I've had some
amazing guests who have come andshared their stories, who I met
there. And I love how Stacy hasa really straightforward and
very practical, easy tounderstand and implement
approach to business growth andreferral. So I think this will
be a fun conversation, and I'mgoing to kick it off with a
(01:46):
unique perspective. I know youhave Stacy kind of maybe
debunking this myth, or anuncommon belief
Stacey (01:53):
that you have to ask for referrals. So old school sales
training, a lot of times, willsay, Hey, you got to ask for the
referral. And I know you don'tnecessarily have that
perspective, so tell me moreabout that. Yeah, I have the
exact opposite perspective. Ilike to call myself a contrarian
in the world of referrals,because for decades and decades,
probably generations, definitelylonger than you and I've been
(02:16):
alive, the advice on referralshas always been if you want
them, you're going to have toask for them. And it never took
into account that the majorityof us were like, Oh, that's
terrible. I don't want to dothat. Can't there be another
way? And they're like, No, youhave to ask, or you don't get
any referrals. And that's justlike the saddest, most
(02:36):
depressing thing I've everheard. And I, like most people,
have heard that same informationwhen I was in business. I was
first in sales and marketing,working for a company, and then
in my own business, and that'swhat I heard, too. And I was
like, This is terrible. I don'tever want to do it. So I never
did, and I never reallygenerated any referrals, or the
ones I did get seemed very likesporadic and lucky versus
(02:59):
anything I could have controlover or count on. I mean, I
remember one of the articles Ifound. The title of it was 25
ways to ask for a referralwithout feeling desperate or
without looking desperate. And Iwas like, I'm sorry, everybody
reading this article is waysmart. We are not stupid people.
(03:20):
We know that if you need 24 waysnot to look desperate when
you're asking for a referral,it's because we know we all feel
and look desperate like, Whyisn't there better advice out
there? And I guess just, youknow something is waiting for me
to discover, and that I did soit's been it's really
interesting, because it issometimes I feel like I'm
(03:42):
pushing a huge boulder up ahill, and that hill is standard
advice, old school advice beenaround for longer than I've been
around, advice of how to getreferrals, and I come on the
scene, I'm like, wait, we applythe science to referrals, and we
understand what's reallyhappening when a referral is
being given. We can build outdifferent strategies and
tactics, and that's what I teachmy clients to do
Angie (04:03):
well. And the whole point, let let's just think
practically for a second,because if you need 25 ways not
to feel like a jackass whenyou're asking for a referral,
there's probably one way tonavigate to circumnavigate all
that. Because if you think aboutthe whole goal of a referral
based business is essentially,in my mind, not to have to do
(04:24):
outbound marketing and sales.It's to have referrals come to
you. And so the contrarian inyou, I agree with, and I'm also
curious, you brought upsomething I was going to talk
about, which is that like ickyfeeling. We don't like asking
for referrals. We don't likeasking people to support our
business. When we launch abusiness, the last people we
usually tell is our innercircle, because it feels weird
(04:45):
to go tell the people who loveyou most what you're up to. Why
is that?
Stacey (04:51):
Well, I don't think that is a question that can be
unpacked in any short amount oftime, because I think people
have different reasons for whythey. Are willing to tell, or
more likely, not willing totell. I mean, I remember when I
started my first business, mydad was so mad because I left
working for the Chamber ofCommerce, and that was a job. He
(05:14):
could understand. He couldexplain what is Stacey up to? He
could be like, Oh, she works forthe Chamber of Commerce, let
alone the fact, I mean, I didn'tlove the job. I didn't have the
best bosses while I workedthere. I didn't make crap for
money, like it was not where Iwanted to be. It was never going
to be able to provide to me whatI was looking for in terms of
(05:35):
true growth. And I come from afamily of entrepreneurs, so of
course, eventually I wasprobably going to want to do
that, but I remember him beingso mad at me, because he was
like, Well, I can't explain whatyou do, and now you've got this
business, and I can't understandit, and I'm trying to explain
it. And I was like, That's notmy problem that, and it's a
little hard, or it's not thesame thing for you to be able to
(05:56):
explain it. And I think because,like, when people do start
businesses, like, for me, it waslike, Okay. To this day, I
wonder if my mom could actuallytell you what I do. Like, I'm
not sure. So I think some ofit's that, right, some of it's
that when you decide to go intobusiness, entrepreneurship, and
you have a network of humansthat are w2 employees, sometimes
(06:18):
it is like a lack ofunderstanding of just whatever
job it is, or whatever companyit is you're trying to start
like, the what you're doingdoesn't make any sense to them.
If you're an attorney, it
Angie (06:28):
doesn't even make any sense to us. It's so ambiguous
that we can it takes a littletime for us to articulate it. So
you know, parents who come fromthe structured work environment
days, because I would say my momand dad were same way when I
left engineering. They're like,wait, what do we tell people?
And because I know she's outthere listening, hi, sonny, she
now understands what I do. Shelistened to every single one of
(06:49):
these but it took a little whileto kind of like, close that,
that gap of the like you areliving in the unknown it Well,
it's funny, because
Stacey (06:55):
I always tell entrepreneurs, when they start
their business and they'll belike, oh, what advice do you
have for me? I was like, thenumber one thing you need to
understand is what your businessis what your business will look
like in three years is not whatit looks like now. So don't
marry it, because you don't evenknow what's coming. And you need
to be able to be flexible andto, like, figure it out. And
like, it's okay to have a plan.It's okay to be like, I'm going
(07:16):
to do this. I'm going to offerit this way. And these are my
clients are going to be great.And as you head down that path,
throw the picture of what youthink is going to look like at
the end away, because it's goingto change and more so much. And
you know, for some people, like,if you're an attorney at a at a
large firm, and then you leavethat large firm to go start your
own law practice, everybody getsit, because you're still an
(07:37):
attorney, right? It's like everyit's like everybody else that
leaves. And it's like, I used todo this, and now I'm carving out
this space to do this. Andsometimes it's easier to be
understood than others in termsof that kind of, like, that
business ownership. But, youknow, for me, it was just, I
think sometimes we don't alsowith that feeler fear of
failure, of like, Oh, if I telleverybody and when it fails,
(08:00):
then I have to tell everybodythat it failed, which is, you
know, I went through with myfirst business. And so I
sometimes think it's that, willthey get it? Will they care? And
then, what if it's notsuccessful? And then later they
find out, or I have to tell themthat it failed. And 82% I think
that's the statistic of smallbusinesses will fail within
their first five years. So it'slike, just buckle up buttercup,
(08:23):
because it's going to be a bumpyride, and it's going to be fine,
and you may get through it. Andyou know, I'm one of those that
my very first business made itto year four, did not make it to
year five. I am part of the 82%I am a member of the business
failure club. I actually had myown little badge made, but I
didn't give up, and I did it.And I was like, I'm going to own
a business and be successful.And here I am with my second
(08:44):
business 12, almost 12 years in.And so, right? I mean, I just
think that the journey,especially when we're younger,
like in our 20s and 30s, it'ssupposed to be success after
success after success, and it'snot. It's like this exact line
of like, backwards and forwardsand failures and successes and
leaps and bounds and negatives,just what it is. But trying to
explain that to other people,it's a little bit
Angie (09:06):
harder, yeah, and I think that feeling of, uh, you hit it
on the nail on the head, is likeegg on your face. If I fail, I'm
gonna have to now tell them Ifailed at the thing I told them
I was doing, and then also thatthe general global feel all fear
all of us had is like fear ofnot being accepted. So are they
going to accept what I'm doing?But if you are convicted about
what you're doing, you'reactually causing a disservice to
(09:28):
yourself by not telling theinner circle who's there to
support you, and also canprobably help you flesh out
speaking about what you'redoing, which is huge, and you
kind of gave us a little tidbitinto and let's talk about the
failure thing, because thefailure has turned into a four
letter word. And we've all seenthat meme that says we think
growth looks like this, right?And really it's it's like this,
(09:51):
whether you have a job or acareer or a business or, you
know, whatever, nothing islinear. And I think we got to
ditch the expectation. That itis. And I want to hear more
about I want to take, I wish wecould just take the word failure
out and replace it with Ilearned, right? And so I would
love to hear a little bit moreabout news flash for all the
coaches listening. Stacyactually was a coach at one
(10:13):
point in time, which I found outas we were chatting at the
beginning of this. So I thoughtthat was an interesting little
tidbit to kind of bring to thiswhole story of like, what you do
now is not what you did. Therewas some lows in between. What
did that journey look like? And,more importantly, what did you
learn from it that applies totoday's success?
Stacey (10:32):
Yeah, it was. It was a really interesting journey. I
wouldn't change it for anything.That doesn't mean it wasn't
hard. And like you said, therewere some lows. I'm like, there
was deep down lows. Like, in thedeep down, for any of those
folks who are watching silo, um,I was in the deep deep down,
like, we just
Angie (10:51):
watched an episode last night that's funny, or in the
way down deep,
Stacey (10:56):
no way down deep, like, way, way down deep. Um, but I
think that, you know, for me, Icome from a family of
entrepreneurs like so it's notunusual for us to sit around the
Thanksgiving table and talkabout business. The problem is,
almost all the entrepreneurs inmy family run restaurants, and
so they're crazy kind ofentrepreneur, I was
Angie (11:18):
to say, speaking of volatility in entrepreneurship.
I'm married to a former FBprofessional, so I yep, I get
that. That's a different kind ofthat's a different spice of
life, right? There
Stacey (11:28):
it is. I call them the crazy kind. They're the crazy
kind of entrepreneurs. And I cansay that because I have a
grandmother and and I'm a nieceand I'm the sister and the
daughter and the wife of peoplewho all own restaurants. So
like, for me, it's like, Youpeople are crazy, and I know,
because I have the inside,glimpse inside of that life. But
anyway, not to, you know, mypoor entrepreneur friends, who
(11:51):
are we glad they do? Because Ilove a good dinner out, yeah,
don't we? All right? I mean, I,I married somebody who in the
restaurant, so I never had tocook. I mean, it was, like,
quite brilliant. On my part, Iplayed Yes, and I don't know how
to cook, and it's like a badgeof honor for me. So, you know,
when I think about the journeyto becoming an entrepreneur, I
always knew I wanted it, then itwas the question of, What am I
(12:12):
going to sell like? What am Ilike? What can I do? What does
that look like? And I wasworking at the Chamber, like I
said, and I was working, andthere's somebody, there was
another company. It was ahusband and wife team that owned
a research company. And theycame to me and they said, hey,
the area that I was working inat the Chamber, they were like,
This is really cool. You'relike, kind of an expert in this
area, and we really would liketo open a division within our
(12:33):
company in that area. And I waslike, yes, yes. So I joined a
partnership, but a husband andwife team with you as a partner
is not a equal partnership, andit was their business. And those
are some hard lessons for me tolearn. And I was probably and I
said yes to joining theirpartnership. I was probably in
(12:53):
partnership with them for lessthan a year, but when I said yes
and left my full time job, I wasalso four weeks pregnant and did
not know it. So that just madethat whole first year, like,
bonkers. And then our, the veryfirst client I landed for that
company, came to me offline, andwas like, hey, what you're doing
with this company you could doon your own, like, not the piece
(13:14):
that they were experts in, butthe piece that I was and, like,
and I'll support you and be yourfirst client. And I was like,
okay, so Okay, so I started myown business. That was my first
client. It's like a six figureclient for the first couple
years, which, let's be honest,is a beautiful way to start a
business, but lulls you intocomplacency, really? Yep,
Angie (13:31):
not a great way to sustain a business, because you
lose that client. Guess whathappens? Yeah, and
Stacey (13:36):
you and you don't have to work very hard trying to
figure out all the systems andprocesses of how you're going to
bring on new clients. You don'thave to figure out the
prospecting, the marketingpipeline. You don't have to
figure
Angie (13:47):
out your skills process. You got there's a whole sense of
security there, for sure. Solike, if you, if you're taking
notes out there potential trapnumber one, Stacey just
Stacey (13:54):
brought it up, yes. And so when that client was no
longer a client after two years,and then it was like, scramble,
hustle, like, real, realquickly. One of the things that
I learned with my first businessis that I had to figure out how
to touch business developmentevery day. But when I say every
day, I don't mean like Mondaythrough Friday, every day. I
just mean like, you have to haveprocesses and systems. You have
to know what you're doing. Youhave to have ways to bring in
(14:15):
potential clients, and you haveto have those you have to have
those work for you. They have tobe done in a way that you are
willing to do them. And that'sreally important, because
anybody can cold call, mostpeople don't survive past the
first or second call block. So Imean, you can do anything for a
short amount of time, but canyou love that for a long amount
of time? And so for me, it waslike, Oh crap. And then it
(14:37):
became like this hustle andnetworking game, and I have
three kids, right? I'm gonnaadded a second, then I
eventually added a third, butlike so it just became like
that. I don't have time tonetwork all the time, and I got
all this going on in my personallife, and I'm trying to grow
business. Four years in, thatbusiness failed. I had to go
back to corporate America. Thatwas a really, really hard
transition back in. I gotcertified, though. I. Gone on
(15:00):
the side I got so I've beenknown in my past to, like, have
side hustles while having a fulltime job. So earlier in my
career, when I was in my 20s,before I got married, I got my
real estate license whileworking in marketing for a
magazine. I got my real estatelicense because my husband owned
a restaurant. Was like, neveraround nights and weekends. I'm
like, I'm gonna go sell somereal estate and make some extra
money, which is like, how we hada down payment for our first
(15:22):
house, and so, you know, I did,so it wasn't unusual for me to
be like, Hey, I have this jobthat I don't love good people
don't love it, and I'm going toget certified. And I got
certified as a productivitycoach. And I really did spend
some time being like, okay, whenI go back out on my own, how am
I not going to land in thebusiness failure club again?
(15:42):
Nobody needs to be a two timemember. Yeah. And that kind of
forced a lot of decisions, and alot of throwing spaghetti on the
wall, and a lot of like, let'sfigure this out. And one of the
things I discovered was in myfirst business, whereas I did
have more than that one client,I did learn how to bring clients
on. I got all of them by beingin the right place at the right
time. Do you know what it means,truly, what it means to be in
(16:04):
the right place at the righttime? It means you're in all the
places all the time.
Angie (16:11):
I was right place. Oh
Stacey (16:14):
my gosh, there's not and so you when you don't really
know, you're like, ah, brightplace, right? I was hanging out
all the places all the time, andmy life was bananas. And so it
was just one of those things,right where, I mean, I can
remember I have, like, very,very interesting memories of,
like, trying to, like, be a momduring the day with my kid at
home napping and sitting in theother room, like taking prospect
(16:38):
calls or client calls, or tryingto do work. And like, losing my
kid one day, literally, saw thathe got out of this crib and out
of his room. He was like, two, Idon't think his sister was born
yet. And so, like, I was like,all of a sudden I heard a door
open, and I was like, and thenyou're in the middle of it.
Like, I gotta wrap up this phonecall with this prospect really
(16:58):
fast so I don't lose thepotential. But at the same time,
I gotta go find my kid.
Angie (17:01):
He was like, the prospect, Hey, hang on a second.
I think I lost my kid, which isan instant credibility buster.
If you're trying to sign aclient for productivity,
Stacey (17:11):
all I did put my eye on the driveway. I'm like, okay, as
long as Jacob doesn't go intothe front yard, he won't get
into the street. I'll be fine. Ifound him in the backyard
sitting at the picnic table justwaiting for mommy to finish her
call. Like, there you go, youknow. But it's just interesting,
like all the things that we do,right? So I totally got off
topic, I apologize. But what Ilearned with that first business
(17:32):
is, how am I going to touchbusiness development every day
in a way that works for me?Because all my clients were
landed because I networked. Iwas on that committee, I was on
this committee. I belong to thisgroup. I was here. I was there
because that's where all myclients came from. I didn't get
any referrals. And I was like,There's got to be a better way.
But I'd always been told you hadto ask, or you had to pay,
incentivize, you got to givekickbacks, right? Or you've got
(17:53):
to be seen all the time. I'mlike, Well, I've been seen all
the time, and I didn't producereferrals. It did produce some
clients, but not referrals. Andthe other thing is, is that
you're also told to be reallygimmicky and promotional, like,
put in your email signature,hey, the greatest compliment you
can give me as a referral thatdoesn't trigger a referral, not
when you actually know what doesand what doesn't. And so I was
like, great. Those four wayssuck. I don't want to do them,
(18:16):
and I know they don't work. Sowhat else
Angie (18:19):
the 20 book of 25 and keep defining the rest of the 21
all
Stacey (18:24):
of them are bad, yeah, so I just started throwing
spaghetti on the wall. I waslike, Okay, here I am. I got
started in my corporate job. Igot certified as a productivity
coach. When I left thatcorporate job about 15 months
after starting, I did not lastlong. I do not make a great
employee. Just so I was like,Okay, now I'm a productivity
(18:46):
coach, and I gotta get someclients. And I got, I did have
my first couple of clients. Didcome from networking. I am a big
believer in networking, but I'ma big believer in strategic
networking. I'm doing itspecifically for a reason, and
having a path and a plan for it.And so I did get up my first
three clients came fromnetworking, and that one of
(19:06):
those clients, of my first threeended up being someone who,
like, gave me a referral. And Iwas, at that moment I would
like, Okay, that was lucky. Now,what the heck have I been doing
to generate those referrals? Andthen that first year, I got 112
referrals that I never asked foror paid for or had to put an
email signature Give me yourreferrals. And I was like,
(19:27):
great, let me reverse engineerthis. And it was at that point
when I'm my productivitycoaching was four small business
owners. Those are my people.That's my tribe. And so I was
like, Alright, I want to, like,coach with them. I want to be in
community with them. Becausethat's I was like, I could see a
business now. I can see abusiness failure coming from
like, a mile away. And so I waslike, that's who I was getting
(19:48):
referrals from. So those smallbusiness owners said you're
growing, you're increasing yourrate. It's harder to get on your
schedule. What are you doing?And I was like, I'm getting all
these referrals, and it'samazing. And they said, Thanks
for teaching me to tame myinbox. I. I really want to learn
your referral strategy. And thenthat that put me on that, oh
shit. I don't know what am Idoing? And so I've had to
reverse engineer what washappening. Oh, I say this. Oh, I
(20:09):
do this. Oh, I've identifiedthis person in this way for this
reason. And then that, now, 12years later, has become an
entire way of teaching referralswithout asking or manipulation.
That's 20 different strategies.No business owner needs them
all, and it's looking atreferrals like an ecosystem
within your business. So somethings we put into place and
(20:31):
they're automated, and somethings are plans that we put in
place to how we cultivate peopleto refer. But it's a way of
actually developing yourbusiness in a way that will be
much more sustainable, but alsoproven to work. And
Angie (20:43):
we're going to get some of those secrets in a second,
but I want to tie a few thingstogether here, because to go
back to something you saidtowards the beginning of our
conversation, is that yourbusiness will not look like
today what it looked like threeyears ago or maybe even three
months ago, and it won't looklike that again in three months
or another three years, and youhave to be a little careful of
(21:06):
having blinders on to potentialopportunities, or adapting when
you need to, or saying thisisn't working do something else
when you need to, because theexperience that you had, in my
opinion, the productivitycoaching, led to this, not
because you not only because yourealized how to get referrals,
but because it's productive andefficient, right? And so it was
almost like a seed that wasplanted. And I'm because we're
(21:30):
talking about, like, how do youavoid business failure? In a
way, is the roundaboutconversation here, referrals are
a great way to avoid that, bythe way. You know, I have a
story that I think I've maybeonly tapped into, like touched
on once here, but I am also abusiness failure, or have had a
business failure, it was a realbig life, shaking like total
tanking event. That long storyshort is, you know, my husband
(21:54):
and I bought an existingbusiness. It was high overhead.
The books didn't look like whatwe thought we bought, and so we
found ourselves really upsidedown inside of two and a half
years and went bankrupt. Boththe business and us, and news
flash career vendors and mybusiness are helped us recover
from it. And so there areentrepreneurial success stories
that can help you recover. Andif you have to go back to
(22:17):
employment for a little while,it's what you have to do. But
just because you try and failonce doesn't mean you're not
meant to succeed. And for me,what I know happened in that
business I have taken forward soI know don't hold on to things
too long, because that's one ofthe things we did that caused
things to spiral out of controlas much as they did. And if I
had to let go a year and a halfearlier, the damage would not
(22:40):
have been as great, right? Sothat's where, like the seeing
things and having failureexperiences opens up your eyes
to these and now Stacy's got anamazing, successful business,
because she was willing to usepast learned experiences from
failures to bring a bit bringinto a business that she saw an
opportunity to evolve, and nowthe sky is the limit. So well,
(23:06):
you
Stacey (23:06):
know, and I would say to that too, it's, it's really hard
to recognize those moments whenthey're happening the first it
is. And so that is actually thegift of those moments, is that
they're, they're training youand teaching you and helping you
remind yourself and others thatwhen that moment comes around
again and there's it's a momentto do something different,
you'll be better at seeing itlike my husband and I were just
(23:27):
having this conversation.Something didn't happen the way
he wanted it to happen at work.And I was like, this moment does
not matter. I was like, but youwill look back at this thing not
going your way. I was like, itdoesn't matter in the grand
scheme, scheme of things, I waslike, but this thing not
happening the way you want itto, does give you the potential
to decide, are you going to lookback in this legal moment, you
(23:49):
made a pivot and you made ashift and you went forward in a
different direction? Are yougoing to wallow in your pity
like, that's that's youroptions. It's like, that's what
it looked like and, and Ireminded him, you know, like I
went back to corporate Americaafter my business failure,
technically I was fired, but wecreated this messaging around
we're going to let Stacy gobecause Stacey wants to go,
(24:10):
because Stacey wanted to go, butStacy needs to go. No, she wants
to go, but Stacy gotta need topay jack, and we want to manage
this messaging because Stacy isknown and so that's how we work
today. It was like, Hey, thisisn't working. And like, you're
right, let's mutually go our ownway. So that's technically fired
with those likes packaging and alittle like severance on the
(24:32):
back end, which was great. Imean, I really appreciated that.
That's what happened for me, andthat's what the company did. But
I tell them, I tell my I tellpeople this all the time. I'm
like, I get my butt fired. Thatis not the defining moment in my
life, my business failure thatled to that job that I didn't
have to get fired from. Neitherof those are the defining
moments in terms of who Ibecame, except for the fact that
(24:53):
I use those moments as points inthe past to make different
decisions moving forward.
Angie (25:00):
Yeah, one of the most powerful things I heard in the
last year or two was a humancannot be a failure. Failure is
an incident, an action, a verb.It is not a noun or a state of
being. You can fail atsomething, but that does not
define you as a failure unlessyou let it. And I think what
Stacy and I are both talkingabout here is not letting it and
(25:23):
in fact, turning it intosomething that informs the next
step, which to come full circleis, in a roundabout way, how you
landed in the business thatyou're in now and tapped into
the secrets of how you generatea referral, a successful
referral based business, withoutasking, yep, I
Stacey (25:39):
mean the fact that I get to show up every day and talk
about this and teach my clientsand stand on stages and do
podcast episodes like this, orhave my second book come out, my
first book's already out, or domy podcast. The fact that I get
to talk about this all day longis because I would like business
failure sucks, and here I gottado something different. And then
I learned, and then I applied,and then I created a successful
(26:01):
framework from it. First itworked for me, then I started
testing it out with otherclients. When it worked for
them, then I was like, now we'reoff to the races. And that's the
other thing. Is, with my firstbusiness that failed, what I
realized is that I also neverhad a plan in place for scaling,
because you can't scale whenyou're drowning. And my business
was basically drowning the wholetime. And so when I started this
(26:21):
second business, not only wasit, how am I going to generate
business in a way that works forme? Discovered referrals. I was
always paying attention to,what's the thing I can scale?
Because you cannot scale hourlycoaching. And it's just
Angie (26:35):
now you're, you're preaching to the choir over
here, my friend. But yes, thatis to you can. You can grow it
however. You can't scale itbecause you will reach a limit
to you will reach a limit ofyour time and the time and the
money you can charge for it,
Stacey (26:50):
yeah. And you can scale a coaching practice in a lot of
different ways, but it isn'tgoing to be by adding more
hours. Like, no, that's not.Eventually what's going to
happen. And so for me, I wasalways paying attention to that.
I was always like, okay, isproductivity thing I want to
scale. It wasn't the person whotaught me is, like a master at
that, Carson Tate. I was like, Idon't need to be her. She's
already wonderful. Like, I don'twant to scale this whole idea
(27:11):
of, like, productivity. It'swhat I'm doing now to pay the
bills and build a business. Butwhen the referral thing kind of
hit me, I was like, that's whatI will scale. And let me tell
you the business in terms ofscaling and changing the model,
I have gone through so manymodel changes, the content and
the framework and my expertisehas never changed, but how I
(27:32):
deliver that? Oh, my God, allthe changes.
Angie (27:35):
It's like she's standing over here in my office watching
what I'm up to right now.Because, uh, guess what? Active,
active in that process. You saida word I love a minute ago,
which is frameworks. And so Ithink it'd be a really cool
thing to kind of top off thisconversation with some practical
advice in that, you know, whatis this secret and kind of, what
(27:55):
is the framework for gettingreferrals, naturally, getting
referrals without asking, andbuilding a sustainable business?
That's fail proof.
Stacey (28:01):
Yeah. So I always have folks think about your referral
generation and an ecosystem,meaning referrals aren't all a
nail, and all you need is ahammer, right? So people who
believe that I'm going to teachyou how to ask for referrals,
they think referrals are a nailand the asking is the hammer,
and we look at it as likeecosystem. You got a toolbox
full of different tools neededfor different reasons, but this
(28:22):
ecosystem is like the placeswhere all referrals can be and
are probably hiding and shouldbe within your business. So we
kind of think of like a mix,like just a circle that kind of
goes around. But when you'relooking at the framework of what
actually makes referrals happen,it always starts with
understanding, having the rightspecific strategies in place
that your business needs. Again,I teach 20, I mentioned that
(28:45):
earlier, but not everybody usesall of them, but everybody uses
a couple of very true the provento work processes that are
foundational in nature. And soit's all about having the right
strategies that are right foryou and your business. And so
that framework is, it's theright strategies done for the
right people or at the rightmoments. And then it kind of
(29:06):
goes into, okay, strategies aregreat, but you also then have to
know what you're saying whenyou're doing the the
application, the outreach, thetouch points, the whatever
you're doing right for whoeverthese people are. So the
specific strategies go to peoplelike it's specific groups of
humans. Should have a plan forhow you're going to cultivate
referrals from them, and that'swhat you do to them within that
(29:28):
strategy. Then it's also whatyou say, and then the third
piece of that is yourconsistency, because referrals
really are a long term game. Andpeople come to me and they're
like, my business is on its lastleg. This is my Hail Mary. And
I'm like, keep your money. Donot give it to me, because this
is not going to work for you theway you need it to. That's I'm
not SEO. Like, there is, youknow, there may be a changing
(29:49):
algorithm for SEO and socialmedia and all those kind of
things, but I we don't, we don'tever say, Get rich quick. Like,
that's just not how it works inreferrals. Because you're
talking about. Know It takestime to build relationships.
Angie (30:02):
That will be bring referrals. And if you're going
to do this naturally, that's,that's a part of the strategy,
right? And of the Who are thesepeople, you can't go ahead. I
was
Stacey (30:14):
okay, naturally, in terms, I want to be really clear
about this, naturally in termsof you will feel natural doing
it, but there are things youwill learn to do and say. It's
not like, then it's coming. No,no, that's called Hope.
Beautiful, not a strategy, not agreat feeling, not a strategy.
When we use the word naturally,what we mean is like, it's going
to be not manipulative. You'renot going to take advantage or
(30:37):
compromise your yourrelationships that you have. But
there is other things to do. Youhave to learn to do other things
and say other things and doother things to have success. So
I just want to define naturally.It's not like it just magically
happens.
Angie (30:50):
There's a difference between active, naturally versus
like organic. It's coming myway. And I think the the
important thing, and I want tohighlight the fact that this is
not an overnight turn aroundyour business strategy. This is
long term sustainability,because referrals don't come in
quickly, and while you can kindof predict and anticipate, you
(31:11):
also don't have full controlover how often referrals come in
and necessarily, or at least thevolume of them you can you can
predict and get an idea of howconsistent it will bring your
business. But I can't say, Okay,tomorrow, Stacy's gonna send me
a lead,
Stacey (31:27):
right? No one can say that actually about anything.
Yeah, say that about your SEO. Imean, you really know
Angie (31:33):
an SEO is, oh, man, that could. That would be, I feel
like you and I would just standon a soapbox and shout into the
void and violently agree abouteverything regarding SEO well,
and you
Stacey (31:41):
can't take social media. I'm gonna make this post
tomorrow and it's gonna land mea $20,000 client. Like, nothing
really works that way. Butyou're right. It's what you
control. Are the actions thatyou take and following a
following, following a provenprocess and framework, and then
being consistent with that isultimately what works. I mean,
people will say, Can everybusiness get referrals? And I'm
like, Yes, but I don't work withevery business. Every business
(32:04):
is not the right fit for me, andit's not the right fit for the
strategies I'm going to teachyou, because ROI matters too.
And so I do have people who cometo work with me and they're
like, oh my gosh, I doubled myreferrals. I'm like, 45 days.
And that is, like, that's great.We want people to double, triple
or quadruple their referrals, wesay, Give us like a year, but
sometimes it happens in 90 days,faster you don't. But I always
(32:26):
tell folks, when that happens,that means you have no idea how
much money you've been leavingon the table for years, because
however many years you weren'tdoing it because you weren't
doing the right things. And soyes, know what? There's no
guarantee that tomorrow you'llget a referral or any other type
of prospect that will come intoyou from any other type of lead
source, but it is that idea ofunderstanding what you should be
(32:47):
doing. And then I always tellfolks, when people decide
they're going to hire me, I'mlike, do you want to learn from
me like Stacy, the personsecond? Do you want to learn the
way I'm going to teach you myphilosophy and how I teach the
fact that we don't ask and wedon't pay and things like that.
And then it's the now, how doyou want to learn that? Because
I work with my clients in acouple of different ways. That
second piece of like, do youwant to learn referrals the way
(33:10):
I teach it that matters, becausemy philosophy informs every
tactic, every strategy I teach,every piece of language that I
help a client write,
Angie (33:20):
and it's in with anything that's coach or coach like,
which, in a way, this is, youknow, we're teaching, giving
people a playbook and teachingpeople to fish. You have to find
a methodology, a framework and ahuman who you kind of jive with.
And I actually want to give acouple very specific little
tools or practical pieces ofadvice out there, because this
(33:41):
is one thing I love to do on nomore Mondays. So what are your
favorite three, or maybe themost common three tools in the
20 point referral toolbox yousee people using or your
favorite to have people deploy.
Stacey (33:58):
Okay, yeah, so let me give you a there's a lot, but
let me use the three. So I'mgoing to stick to that request.
But let me give you a kind of ondifferent areas, because I think
that would be helpful. Numberone is business owners,
particularly you guys, you haveto be tracking. You have to be
tracking what's happening when aprospect shows up into your
world, into your pipeline, andhas shown any level of interest
(34:19):
and maybe hiring you, you betterbe tracking where they're coming
from. And if they're beingreferred to you by someone else,
a referral source is always ahuman. You need to be capturing
that person's name. So numberone, the number one thing I have
clients do when they work withme is they have to complete this
tracker thing of like, pastdata. If you're already tracking
this stuff, it makes it so mucheasier. Yes, just track what's
(34:40):
happening in your business. Youmake better decisions anyways,
when you can see the data andyou'll know exactly who are the
other humans that are referringpotential clients to you. So
tracking definitely is the firstthing that I would say. The
second kind of tool that Ialways love for people to think
about is the language piece.Right now. This is my secret
sauce. This is kind of alwayslike. Behind the curtain, behind
(35:01):
the paywall, is the languagepiece that I teach, the formula,
the rationale behind it, thereasoning, how it works, why it
works when you use it, when youdon't, the cadence, all the
things, right? But the easiestthing for someone to do is to
not miss out on opportunities.Let me teach you one piece of
language that I teach. It'scalled the house business
script. You know, you walk intoa networking event. I don't care
(35:21):
if you're an employee, right? Idon't care if you're a business
owner. You walk into anetworking event and someone
says, Hey, how's it going? How'sbusiness? What's up? The number
one thing you should not besaying is, it's great. It sucks.
It's okay. Hey, whatever thatanswer is, what you should be
saying is relating it back tohow referrals are going in your
business. So the proper responseto the house business question
(35:42):
is, oh my gosh, Angie, thanks somuch for asking me how business
is. I really appreciate thatactually Business is great. We
just ended the year reallystrong. We brought on a number
of new clients we kicked offthis year, and about 75% of
those clients were actuallyreferred to me by other people
that I know, like in thecommunity, right? Whatever your
whatever your answer is, but youtie it back to whatever is
(36:03):
happening from a referralperspective, but you cannot lie
like to say that. So you gottafigure out, what is the truth
about House business when itgenerates from referrals, and
that's your answer, itpercolates, it plants a referral
seed. It could have fallen onconcrete and go nowhere, but you
don't know if it's going to doanything different. You also
have power
Angie (36:24):
of suggestion. You just planted the seed to somebody
that, oh, you take referrals,yes,
Stacey (36:30):
and you don't know. First of all, you don't know if
it's planted on concrete orfertile ground. And second of
all, you can expect a referralexplosion from one little house
business answer, right? But itdoes see who, who that
percolates with, and whathappens if you continue to
cultivate that relationship,because it's someone who has
potential to refer you. That'swhere it starts, right? So
tracking what's going on in yourbusiness moving forward, knowing
(36:53):
where your clients come from, oryour prospects come from, making
sure you know how to answer thehouse business question with the
right referral state language.And the third thing I would say
is you need to know who'sreferring you. Now, if you've
received referrals in 2024 and2023 and 2022 you need to be
able to tell me by showing me alist of the names of the people,
first and last names, whoreferred to you. We call this
(37:16):
the client and prospect. Lookback tracker where you actually
go back in your business. Youpull out all your clients, and
you're like, where did all ofthem come from? And here's all
the ones that those clients thatwere referred, who referred
them. Oh, here's the names ofthose referral sources. That
list of names of your referralsources is your list of gold.
And if I were to start workingwith you, the number one thing I
(37:38):
would tell you is that's whowe're starting with. People
who've referred you before aremore likely to refer you again,
and so that is where we're goingto start to kind of get some
momentum going with referralswhile we build another
strategies to work as well.
Angie (37:52):
I got nothing to say, although, of course, I do. I'm
going to take a quick littleaside and connect dots in a way
that you all might not expect,because, you know, we've really
focused this conversation aroundentrepreneurship and what
referrals can do for business.But there is a very, very
parallel story here for any ofyou out there that are employees
and are either thinking aboutjob searching, might ever job
(38:15):
search or have a job so that'spretty much all of you. And this
idea of referrals, we alwaystalk about continue networking
in the job searching world, andnever stop networking, because
it's what opens you up toreferrals into jobs naturally,
without ever having to goLinkedIn message somebody. And
also how critical is messagingif you do have to do that. But
(38:35):
there's this idea that if you,if you build a group of allies,
this these opportunities comeback to you naturally, and all
you had to do was start with arelationship building aspect
that was strategic. I'm a bigfan of strategic networking and
job searching as well. It's likea little bit of think of work
smarter instead of harder, ormaybe, like strategically
(38:58):
instead of just throw stuff atthe wall and see what sticks. We
call that spray and pray. Yep, Icall it spray and pray too.
That's That's trigger happy onthe Apply button is what I call
spray and pray when somebodyjust decides to go out and throw
their resume to everyone andanyone in the world, versus this
idea of like, using who's inyour circle, because I would
even venture to throw out thethird tip, know who's referring
(39:21):
you. If you've had somebodyrefer you to a job before, or
hire you before, aren't they thefirst person that you're going
to go to because they alreadyknow your work ethic. They
already know you can perform andin the business sense, if it's a
client, you need to know clientsare referring you because
clearly you've done enough tobuild that referral. Maybe
colleagues are referring youbecause you have a specialty
(39:42):
they can't fill. But if youdon't know your numbers, you're
never gonna be able to connectto those dots and leverage the
assets that you built withoutnot even knowing it. Absolutely
there you go. Every businessshould have referrals. It could
be a game changer for the futureand the sustainable. Ability of
your business, and you can do itnaturally. I think that's what
(40:03):
Stacy and I are here, standinghere, talking about, because I I
could even come and I don't needto talk about what's happened in
my business, but I could, Icould say that without trying
very hard. A lot of what youhave suggested I have done
without necessarily knowing it.And then all of a sudden, you're
like, Well, my referrals arepicking up. And then, and then
you reverse engineer, and you'relike, oh, okay, here's how. You
(40:24):
just got to pay attention andhave a strategy, which is what
Stacy can help you with,shameless plug. Yeah. Thank you
so much. Speaking of shamelessplugs, How does everybody out
there find you, and whatresources can they grab from
you? Because I know you're kindof everywhere as well. Yeah.
Stacey (40:39):
So home base is the website. It's my full name,
Stacy brown randall.com thatgets you pointed in the right
directions for anything you'd beinterested in. But since you're
listening to this podcast, I'mgonna watching this is a live
stream and a podcast, I'mguessing you probably are down
with listening to podcasts. Somine is roadmap to referrals. We
drop a new episode everyTuesday, and we're coming up on
Episode 350 which is crazy toactually think about. And then
(41:02):
milestone,
Angie (41:03):
congratulations on that. Yeah, podcasting is not for the
faint of heart or the time orthe time constraint.
Stacey (41:09):
Podcasting, for the long run, is not for the faint of
heart. Anybody can knock out 10episodes. Yep, it's everything
after that. That's a lot harder.Yeah. And then, of course, if
you're like, hey, I do likewatching this video, but I'm not
really a podcast listener. Mybook generating business
referrals without asking, isavailable for purchase wherever
you like to purchase books, andbook number two will be out in
(41:30):
the fall of 2025
Angie (41:33):
exciting. Maybe we'll have to have you back for round
two right in time for thatlaunch. I would love that. Thank
you. There you have it.Everybody. Stacy brown Randall,
you can visit her at LinkedIn,on her website at the same name
here to remind you that you canrecover from failure. You can
use it to your advantage, andyou can build a referral based
business without trying toohard. So follow her on LinkedIn,
(41:55):
follow me on LinkedIn, grab herbook, check out her podcast.
Head on over to the website,where you can find out more
about some of these tools andstrategies that we talked out
about today. It's all aboutbuilding relationships people,
and as a former engineer wholoves people, I'm a big fan.
I'll see you next week foranother edition of no more
Monday's podcast. Bye.
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