Ep #420: Referral Masters Think Differently

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, do you love referrals but hate the idea of having to ask for them? Well, my friend, you’ve come to the right place.

This is the Roadmap to Referrals podcast and I’m your host, Stacey Brown Randall. Every week, I break down why you don’t have to ask, pay, be gimmicky, or network all the time to generate referrals for your business.

We take a science-backed approach with our methodology, frameworks, and strategies. The goal is simple, to help you take control of your referrals on your terms.

Okay, before we dive in for this episode, I have two quick announcements, and one is a little bit of a celebration. This episode, episode 420, marks my eight-year anniversary with this podcast.

It’s just kind of crazy to think about. I dropped the very first episode way back on June 28th, 2018. Feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? And now, of course, we are 400-plus episodes and 420 with this episode, to be exact.

So, doing a little celebration here that I have been consistently sending out an episode into the world, dropping a new episode every single week for eight years. I’m actually really proud of that consistency with myself.

Okay, the second quick announcement that I wanna make is that if you watch these podcast episodes on YouTube, so this will not make any sense if you are listening to this, but if you watch these episodes on YouTube, you will notice a little bit of a different office layout.

It’s not like a crazy overhaul, but you’ll be like, wait, things have changed in the background of Stacey’s videos. I’m actually doing a little rearranging in my office.

I am not sure if this is the final layout. Actually, before I hit record, I was kind of annoyed with a few things, so it’s probably not the final layout.

But I need to be accommodating to my husband, who may be spending more time in the home office here, in the office that I have. He may be sharing part of that a little bit more consistently with me than he has in the past.

So, I don’t know, if you’re watching this on YouTube, let me know what you think about this layout. It’s probably not final, but we’re getting there.

Okay, today, for this episode, let’s talk about how you think. Now, specifically, if you think the right way to generate referrals without asking, manipulating, incentivizing, being gimmicky and networking all the time, right?

Specifically, if you think that the right way to generate referrals is to never have to do any of those things, never have to ask, never have to manipulate, never have to incentivize or be gimmicky or promotional, or feel like you have got to be seen all the time via networking so that you would never be forgotten.

There is a mindset shift that all of my clients have to make about referrals so that they can actually receive them, so they can generate the referrals that they deserve and be able to do it without asking.

That mindset shift is like, when you think about this mindset shift that I have my clients make, right? When I am talking about being able to generate referrals without asking, that mindset shift is actually the first two steps.

So, the way you think are the first two steps of an overall five-step process. That’s right, two of five are dedicated to how you think. It is that important. And mostly because all the other steps hinge on what you believe and think about referrals.

So, the first two steps kind of build the foundation and the three other steps where you actually get to see the success, those three steps hinge on these first two steps.

And this is all about what you believe and how you think and what you know about referrals. My clients, the ones that work with me, are not going to arrive at any level of success, without following this path.

So, let me lay out these five steps for you and you’ll hear me mention step one and step two and you’ll be like, yep, that’s all about thinking, that’s all about mindset.

But let me lay out these five steps for you because all of my clients follow the same path to be able to get to the place where they can start having referrals.

Some get there a little faster than others, some take a little bit longer. It’s okay as long as they get to the destination, right? Along the way, that’s what we wanna make sure that they’re doing.

So, first step, of course, is they learned it was possible to generate referrals in a way that truly works for them, which means the way that I teach it, without having to ask, without having to manipulate, without having to feel like you’re networking all the time so you’re never forgotten.

Step two is they understand how to think like someone who generates referrals without asking. And, of course, they think it so they understand how it works and they believe it. Those first two are very, very intertwined.

The third step is, well, then, they actually implemented the systems, the processes, the workflows, the plans, right? They put the things in place to be able to generate those referrals without asking. So they learned it and implemented it.

Then the fourth step is they mastered the language. This truly is my secret sauce. It is one of my favorite things that I get to teach with my clients.

It is the number one thing that people ask me about when they’re not a client and they ask me about wanting to understand it, wanting me to teach it to them.

And it is something that I teach just to my clients because that is truly the secret sauce.

The language piece doesn’t actually work as well without everything else, but definitely everything else, the strategies, the processes, the plans, the workflows, they don’t work without the language at all.

They need each other, but truly not just understanding the language and using the language, but step four is all about mastering it because when I’ve mastered the language, spoiler alert, they no longer need me.

And that’s a good thing. Graduating from working with me is a good thing, whether you do it in a year or two years or whatever.

Some people just like to hang around, and I like it when they hang around. But the idea here is that you master the language, not understand the language. Step four is all about mastering the language.

And then that leads us to step five. And that means at that point, they are committed to taking the right actions consistently year over year over year based on the system, based on this referral engine that they have built within their business, learning the different strategies, the different tactics, the language piece, all of that from me.

So those are the five steps. But like I said, believing that it’s possible is a big piece of this pie. So let me break these two steps for you down just so you can kind of understand it a little bit better.

So the first one is the believing that it’s possible. Step one is believing that it is possible to generate referrals without having to ask, manipulate, incentivize, be gimmicky, network all the time so you’re never forgotten. Believing that it’s possible.

There are so many episodes that I could share with you about where my clients and I are talking about their results.

Not only their results, but what they learned and the aha moments that they had and how they keep the referral strategies going year after year after year. There are so many episodes just from this podcast like this year.

Like if I just look back in the 2026 episodes where I have had clients on to talk about their success, you can listen to episode 416, 413, 411, 406, 404, and 395.

And that’s just from 2026. That’s not counting the episodes from last year and on back. Remember, I just said, I’ve been doing this for eight years.

Going back and listening to the episodes of clients year after year after year who have put in place what I’ve taught and then come on the podcast to talk about their success. I can’t get all of my clients on the podcast to talk about their success. I wish I could.

Some are like, yeah, no, that’s not me. And that’s totally fine. But the idea here is that when you think about the results that people are having, right? There are so many episodes that I could share with you just from this podcast.

But there’s also, if you go to like my website where you can see my clients’ results and their case studies on multiple, multiple pages on the website, right?

Whether that is on the overall pages of the website or like the homepage or the about page, or also it’s on individual pages on the website where I’m talking about different ways to work with me.

So there are a plethora of places from this podcast to trainings that I’ve done where I talk about my clients’ results to of course on the website where I share the results that my clients have received.

There are so many testimonials, reviews, case studies that are available that I could share with you.

And some people though truly are only going to believe, right, they’re the type that believe it when they see it because it happens to themselves, right? Because it happens to them.

But most, I find, others are the ones that actually can see other people have success and believe that they can have it too, right?

So if you go online and you’re an interior designer and you see other interior designers having success, you’d be like, yeah, that could be me too.

Or an attorney and you’re like, yep, those attorneys are having success. I believe that I can too, right? So that first step is the belief that it is possible to generate referrals without asking.

But not just because I tell you that it is, but because you see other business owners, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them having success with generating referrals. That’s step one.

And with having that belief that yes, it is possible to generate referrals without asking, that leads us to how someone who generates referrals without asking for them actually thinks about referrals.

And this is really important. What that looks like is starting with the basics, right? So when you’re thinking like, okay, I believe I can generate referrals, now how do I think about referrals? It starts first with the basics, right?

And that is like just understanding the definitions. Like you’d be surprised how many people think they know what a referral is and they don’t, right? So this is understanding the definitions.

This is understanding the cast of characters, the science of how referrals work, the philosophy that makes actual getting referrals without asking happen, right? What must exist for referrals to happen as well?

There’s a lot of pieces that people like skim over or don’t even tackle or understand if they’re just trying to teach you like one quick tactic or one quick trick of how to generate referrals.

But you’ve gotta understand these basics, right? Again, cast of characters, have the science of it, what must exist for referrals.

Those are two things if you don’t know that must exist for referrals to happen. Then from the basics, right? Okay, you’re like, okay, I got the basics.

Then I start seeing that this next shift of the thinking, of the thought process, of the critical analysis starts moving forward, right? There’s some momentum moving us forward.

And then from the basics, it’s that idea of knowing and starting to see referrals exist or existing in their business within an ecosystem. And this is a critical next step in the thought process.

So it’s like, okay, I got the basics. I understand what they are and who they are and who they come from and what has to exist for them to happen and the science behind it.

But now you’re shifting your thought process, your mindset one step further, a little bit deeper. And now you’re seeing and knowing that referrals exist in an ecosystem in your business.

It is not about one networking strategy. It is not about like going to coffee with one person a week for the rest of your life. It is not about one language script.

It is not about one trick or tactic or tip that you’re gonna do over email, whatever, right? There’s a lot of things out there that are taught about referrals.

But it’s seeing that it’s so much more than this one thing we do, that referrals actually are so much more than that because they live in this ecosystem within your business.

And it’s within this ecosystem, this is where what I teach is really different from others out there who are teaching about referrals, right?

You’ve probably seen others if you’ve looked at trainings or you thought about hiring maybe another consultant who talks about referrals or maybe even read other books on referrals or you’ve seen somebody break down a referral tactic on social media, right?

A lot of times they teach one specific strategy or like one piece, right? One process, one piece of the overall major ecosystem and major puzzle.

And from the ecosystem of where referrals live in your business, here’s the third thing we do. We start to uncover gaps. And this is where things get really interesting and really fun for me because I see the light bulbs go off.

I see my clients or people who are going through a training with me and they’re like, whoa, I see all the opportunity I’m leaving on the table.

I see all the opportunities that we didn’t even know we could be uncovering just based on what we’re doing now, let alone once we start implementing additional strategies, right?

So first we get the basics and then they move to seeing referrals as an ecosystem. And from that ecosystem, they start to uncover gaps.

Now, sometimes those gaps have actually been staring at you in the face for a really long time. And in some cases, they’ve been yelling at you.

I definitely have business owners that tell me, they’re like, yeah, I kind of knew this was a gap, right? When they kind of went through the whole process.

But they identify for us the gaps that we need to close, that you need to close. And whether you’re gonna close that gap with a strategy or a tactic or a process or a workflow comes down to the actual gap, right?

And what we actually need, what’s the solution to help us cover that gap. And this, my friend, this is what’s truly separates true referral masters.

Those who are owning a business just like you, they own a business, they’re starting to think about more referrals, and this is what truly separates them.

Those referral masters from those who aren’t yet referral masters. I believe anybody who wants to be a referral master absolutely can be. But you have to be willing to think different.

You have to be willing to have a different belief about referrals. You have to be able to think different. And then you have to understand that that thinking different about referrals is gonna take you down a couple of layers, right?

As we go deeper and deeper in understanding how we make referrals happen in your business. So it’s really important. And that is the true piece of what separates true referral masters.

It’s not just that they believe they can generate referrals without asking. They also know that they can see it within their business. They see the ecosystem.

They understand how to think about referrals. And then, as I mentioned earlier, steps three, four, and five, this overall process, they actually do the work.

This is what separates true referral masters from those that are not yet referral masters.

So I am gonna go deeper into this, the basics, the ecosystem, the gaps, how we look at that, how we uncover it, the exact process I walk people through to understand what is actually possible in your business.

Sometimes before you decide you want to invest in actually trying something new, like if you’re thinking like, hey, before I decide to invest in generating more referrals, why don’t I first understand what is an option for me in terms of potential?

Like what a novel concept, right? To first understand what is the potential before I decide to go through the process of investing or dedicating time and energy to actually generating more referrals.

Understanding the potential, that is huge, because that helps you decide this is something you should or shouldn’t do, right?

And I am gonna dive into all of that, particularly helping you understand what the potential is based on the gaps I’m gonna help you uncover when it comes to referrals in your business.

And I’m gonna do all of it in July during summer school for referrals. So if you aren’t signed up, I highly encourage you to sign up. This is summer school for referrals.

Let me just share what one attendee shared that had attended the last summer school for referrals that we did.

So this is Sean Perkins and he shared, “Summer school was a great companion to Stacey’s book, and it brought some of the concepts she teaches to life. I highly encourage anybody serious about increasing their referrals to join.”

So we’re doing summer school for referrals coming up in July, which means you need to be there. You need to sign up to join and be there as live, like live at all the sessions, right? You need to join me for summer school this year.

I haven’t actually offered a summer school, which is a three-part live virtual teaching that I do. I haven’t offered summer school since 2023. And it is back, but just for this July.

So you have got to come, you gotta sign up, you gotta be there with me. All the details, all the questions you’re wondering about, like, oh, this is happening in July, I’m going on vacation.

Don’t worry, we’re gonna answer all those questions and get everything solved for you. But you just gotta go reserve your spot and find out all the details on the signup page.

So go register, my friend. It’s StaceyBrownRandall.com/summer. That will take you to the page where you can sign up and secure your seat in our summer school for referrals. Again, I haven’t done this since 2023, and I cannot wait to bring it back.

We are gonna look deeper at how referral masters think, but also referral masters, in terms of thinking about referrals, uncovering all the potential that you probably have with referrals and laying it out for you in black and white.

And you uncover also the gaps that you can close. We’re gonna do it all, but I’m gonna need three sessions to do it. So that’s why summer school is three classes, referrals 101, 201, and 301. Sign up to join.

Of course it is free. It is actually virtual, but it is also live. So you’re gonna wanna make sure that you’re there and get the dates on your calendar.

We start in mid-July. So sign up now so you can secure your spot and get the dates and times on your calendar. Okay, awesome.

You’re gonna go sign up, right? I have full faith in you. Thanks for making it to the end. Until next week, take control of your referrals and build a referral business. Bye for now.