Ep #374: The Referral Why

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, and welcome to the Roadmap to Referrals podcast, a show that proves you can generate referrals without asking or manipulation. I’m your host, Stacey Brown Randall.

More than a decade ago, I started developing a science-backed methodology and framework to generate referrals without asking. As I’ve refined it, I’ve had the privilege to help thousands of business owners take control of their referrals on their terms. Join me every week as I break it down for you.

Okay, here is what we are gonna break down in this episode. First, why I don’t advocate for 100% referral-based business. I know that’s probably a shocker for some of you. Don’t worry, we’ll go there.

Number two, why diversification matters in how you bring in clients. Three, why referrals should be the biggest piece, in my opinion, of the lead gen strategy, but not the only piece.

And the fourth thing we’re gonna talk about is why receiving referrals matters more than just getting new clients. There’s something deeper going on.

Okay, so let’s start at the top. Why I don’t advocate for 100% referral-based businesses. So let’s be honest, I hear this a lot. People will tell me that they are working really hard to become 100% referral based. And I totally get it.

But the hard truth is only a few will get there. And there really has to be certain things in place for it to actually happen. And most businesses never get those things in place. And it’s not your fault, right?

And if you’re not going to be 100% based business because most don’t ever get there, that’s okay. You don’t need to strive or aim to be a business that only accepts clients through referrals or only brings on clients through referrals.

You can aim for that. I mean, of course, let me just say this. You can totally aim for that if that’s what you want. I do have some clients that are on their way and that is their ultimate goal, but it is very, very few.

Like, the teeny tiny percentage of businesses I work with that are really on their way to having the type of company where they only work with clients that are referred to them. It’s just not what the majority of us are actually going to experience.

So you can aim to be 100% referral-based business. But if you don’t get there or you don’t actually try to aim for that, I want to be really clear. You do not have to feel like something is wrong if you don’t get there.

Even I don’t strive to be 100% referral-based, right? Prospective clients do find me in other ways.

For some of you listening to this episode right now, maybe you actually first learned about me because you heard me being interviewed on someone else’s podcast, and then you decided to check out this podcast, right?

For others, maybe you first heard about me because Amazon, who I have zero control over, as clearly nobody has control over it, right? But maybe you heard about me because Amazon decided to recommend my book, Generating Business Referrals, without asking to you. Which is great, but I don’t really control that.

Or maybe you heard me give a virtual presentation or maybe even an in-person presentation. Maybe you were a part of a virtual author Q & A session that I’ve done, or maybe your organization or a membership or something you’re a part of, an association you’re a part of, has brought me in to speak and you were there in the audience, right?

Now, of course, My preferred way of bringing on clients, bringing on new clients, is going to be through referrals. And of course, I want it to be the preferred way for you as well.

But diversification, it really actually matters in how you bring in clients. You don’t need, now, when I say diversification, let me be clear, you don’t need like 15 ways to bring in prospects into your pipeline, right?

You don’t need to spread yourself so thin, jumping through like so many hoops, burning money and daylight, trying to juggle all the possible ways that you could fill your pipeline with prospects. But you do need more than just one way. Why?

Some level of diversification will always matter in building sustainability within your business. Having maybe three or four ways that you generate leads provides options.

And when something shifts, whether that’s in the marketplace, in the economy, something going on within regulations, within your industry, or maybe it’s one of the lead gen methods that you are also using, just suddenly stops working.

Like, oh, I don’t know, the algorithm changes like overnight. It means that when one way that you generate clients slows down, right? So when it slows down providing you potential clients, you don’t have all your eggs in one basket, right?

Diversification, but not an overload, is the ultimate key. But even, let me just say this really loudly, but even with diversification, referrals should be your biggest piece of your lead gen pie. Of how you bring in clients, referrals should be the biggest piece of that pie. But again, not the only piece.

And I know I say that. Referrals should be the biggest piece of how you bring on clients, the biggest piece of your pie. And I know I’m biased when I say that. But I believe referrals should be the biggest way, but not the only way, of how you bring in clients.

And you know the why to this. You know why referrals are so very important to your business. You know why referrals matter, right? Because referred clients are quicker to close. Typically, they are easier to close.

Most of the time they are less price sensitive, and they show up with a level of trust that would take you so much more time to build if that prospect were to show up from a cold outreach.

So referred prospects typically become paying clients easier more quickly and with more trust already built in because for the simple fact that somebody else vouched for you and put their reputation on the line for you and told them, hey, you just need to hire Stacey. You just need to hire Sam. You just need to hire Drew. You just need to hire Mackenzie, right?

Whatever it is. And that matters. And it matters a lot in terms of how that client shows up, which is really, really important.

So for an example of this, I have a consultant who is attending my September Referral Accelerator. So coming up in about a month. And after signing up, so she signed up for the Referral Accelerator. We messaged a few times. She’s getting started on her pre-work.

And after signing up, she told another consultant about the accelerator and said, you need to be there. You need to come to this with me, right? Clearly, they’re not competitors.

And so that other consultant reached out to me and signed up on the spot. There were no sales calls. There were no back and forth emails answering a bunch of questions. There were no like six email drip campaigns that she was going to receive helping her make the decision.

There was no chasing. There was no ghosting. It was just a, hey, my friend Candice told me about this event, this Referral Accelerator, and I need to attend as well, so how do I sign up? Effectively, how do I give you my money? Which is great.

Now, that doesn’t mean every single referred client that I receive comes in that fast, that quickly, and is automatically ready to go. But a lot are. Not all of them, but a lot are. And that’s because referrals are awesome.

But, receiving referrals matter more than just getting new clients. Stay with me here for a minute. There’s actually something deeper that I want you to consider when it comes to referrals.

I wanna tell you a little bit today about why I started teaching business owners how to generate referrals naturally.

Now, some of you, if you’ve been around for a while, you may know my story, right? You may know that I overcame, I had a business that I ran for four years, it failed, I had to go back to corporate America, then I came out of corporate America about 15 months later, and I’ve started this business, which is now in 2025 going to hit its 12-year anniversary.

But when I looked at teaching other business owners how to generate referrals naturally, there was always something more to it.

So why I believe referrals matter so much, but why I think there’s something else happening, it wasn’t because I, like you, found it easier to convert referred prospects into clients. Yeah, that matters, but that wasn’t the whole story.

And it wasn’t just because it allowed me to build a business, receiving referrals allowed me to build a business on my own terms, which meant finally building a community of clients that I absolutely adore.

And while it’s true, I love debunking the myth that you have to ask for referrals or pay for referrals, it also wasn’t just to prove that that old, tired advice of how to receive referrals didn’t have to be the only way or the right way, it’s not, to receive referrals.

Yes, I got to do all those things because I teach people how to generate referrals. I get to more easily convert prospects into paying clients. I get to build a business on my own terms because I receive referrals.

And I get to debunk the myth that you’ve got to ask or pay for referrals to receive them. And all that matters and all that is awesome. And I love teaching that. But deep down, there’s something else happening.

Receiving referrals, receiving new clients who were referred to me, for me, it meant that I was capable of running and growing a successful business.

And when you think about what that means, and I don’t mean like just throw away, oh yeah, successful business, like I get to run a successful business, I get to grow a successful business, it’s more than that.

Receiving referrals meant that I could take my painful business failure, that journey, and all the lessons that I learned from it, and make them a part of being a blessing, not only to myself, but to other business owners who I believe deserve a fighting chance to grow and build and scale their dream business.

My big why is that I needed to prove to myself that I was more than my past business failure. Being able to generate referrals on my own terms and being able to overcome that business failure and then build a successful business was really something important to prove to myself.

That past business failure, let me tell you, it was like a ghost that haunted me until, you know, finally I ghostbusted it in its butt, right? But it haunted me, and it was something that I dealt with for what felt like years, right?

So I’m not sure why referrals are so important to you. I’m sure it’s a lot of the things that I would almost refer to as like surface things.

And then as we go a little deeper, the surface thing is, is like, hey, referrals mean more clients. Yeah, yeah, it does. You’re absolutely right. And clients are awesome, amazing. They help you pay yourself and pay your bills.

But typically, the why you wanna receive referrals goes a little deeper, even if you’ve not acknowledged it before. So why do you wanna receive more referrals? Just think about that for a second.

And let’s go below what you can just see on the surface, right? Just the tip of the iceberg is what you see. And the tip of that iceberg is really the idea of like, hey, I just want more clients. I just want those clients to come to me.

And so that’s why people like come to me and they’re like, hey, I just want more referrals, but there’s more to it. More likely there are other reasons, real reasons, important reasons beyond just securing a new client.

I’m not diminishing the value of a new client. I love them as much as you love them. But you probably also have other things you want to accomplish that referrals allows you to do that, right?

Maybe it’s the business success you want. Maybe it’s goals you want to achieve. Maybe it’s being able to spend more time with people who matter the most to you. And generating referrals naturally is definitely a means to an end. But it’s also something more.

Look, I get it. More referrals means more revenue. That’s a top concern, and it’s 1,000% valid. It’s probably why I’m repeating myself, saying again, because I don’t want to take anything away from that.

But it’s also more than just having a repeatable system in place to help you generate those referrals.

And when you have more referrals and you’re getting revenue from referred prospects because they’re turning into clients and you have a repeatable system in place that’s helping you build that consistency of receiving those referrals, from that you also get to have this beautiful calm certainty that you’re in a safe place and doing it in a safe respectable way to generate those referrals.

So those are all important. It is about the revenue. It is about the repeatable system. And it is about creating a calm certainty in your business because you’re able to generate referrals in a way that you feel good about.

But it goes just a tiny bit deeper than that. Because receiving referrals means something more than just a new client or easier growth. Receiving referrals means that what you do is valuable. and you are worthy.

When someone refers a new client to you, it speaks to you on a deeper level, even if you’ve never realized it before or even paid attention to how it hits you in your gut when you get that referral.

What it says is you matter, you’re worthy, you’re valuable. And ultimately, that is what referrals provide to us. Somebody knows what you do is gold, and they’re willing to tell somebody else to experience working with you. And that speaks to our soul as a business owner.

That speaks to the fact that we are more than just the whatever the work is that we produce, that we matter. And you can’t get that through any other lead gen way. You only get that when somebody else refers someone to you. It speaks to us on a deeper level.

I believe that expert-based business owners, and expert-based business owners are those who are experts for their clients. I believe that expert-based business owners deserve to enjoy unshakable business confidence. And that happens when you are referred.

There’s just some processes and systems and tactics and things you need to put in place so you can get there. But it is completely possible.

So think about what your referral why is. It’s probably a lot of the things I talked about today. But then just take a minute and pause and really think, when I receive a referral, what does it say to me about me, about the business I’m creating, about the team that I’m growing.

Or if you don’t have a team, about the business that you’re building on your own terms. What does it say to me? Just sit there and allow that to wash over and rattle around in your head a little bit and feel good about that.

Because a referral is the only thing that’s gonna give you that unshakable business confidence in terms of having that calm certainty of how you’re growing your business. And that’s, well, a pretty cool feeling, if I must say so myself, and one that everybody should experience over and over and over again.

Alright, the resources mentioned and the transcripts for this episode can be found on the show notes page, which can be found at StaceyBrownRandall.com/374. Don’t forget, Stacey has an E. We’re back next week. Until then, take control of your referrals and build a referable business. Bye for now.