Ep #421: What’s Really Behind More Referrals

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, do you love referrals but hate asking for them? Well, then 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.

For this episode, I want to dive into something that I almost never hear discussed when it comes to referrals.

It’s very, very relevant, it’s very prevalent, but it’s actually almost never discussed. And it is so very important, so I think we need to discuss it.

But before we dive into that, there are two quick things I just wanna put on your radar and, quite possibly, put on your calendar.

We are close, so close, to announcing the date for my Fall Referral Accelerator. I can tell you it is coming up in October.

Now, the Referral Accelerator is my two-day in-person workshop where you sit with me in a room and a small group of other business owners and we build your customized referral engine.

Again, like I said, it’s in October. We’re gonna be announcing the dates very, very soon.

So, if you’re already on my email list, if you get our Wednesday newsletter that comes out every Wednesday and you’ve received other emails from me, then you’re gonna receive notification about the dates first.

So, if you’re interested, I recommend you submit your application so that when we open up registration and it’s something you want to say yes to, you’ll already be set to do that.

Remember, to work with me at any of the ways or at my higher-level offerings of working with me, it starts with an application, whether it’s the coaching program, the VIP Referral Experience, or the Referral Accelerator. It starts with an application.

So, it’s a non-obligation application. You can submit the application and choose not to move forward to work with me.

But if you do want to move forward, I always tell folks, go ahead and get your application in.

That way, when we announce the dates of the Accelerator, if it’s what you want to do, you’re ready to jump on it with those limited seats because there will be limited seats for the Accelerator because the room is only gonna hold so many people. We keep it small so we can keep it powerful and keep those two days moving.

So, this is for small business owners in professional services or creative industries. You can learn more at StaceyBrownRandall.com /accelerator.

And of course, we will post the link to that in the show notes page for this episode. The show notes page for this episode is StaceyBrownRandall.com/421, for episode 421.

Okay, real quick. The second thing I want to put on your radar is that it might be summertime, which for most humans in the world, usually under the age of like, oh, I don’t know, 18, it means that school is out.

But for us, for us business owners, it’s time for you guys to go back to school. Specifically, summer school for referrals.

Three live virtual trainings that I am doing over three weeks in July and we kick off July 15th. So, it’s coming up very quickly next week.

In those three classes, I’m gonna break down how you need to be thinking about referrals, where referrals live in your business, the ecosystem, how to identify your biggest referral gaps and some ideas about getting started to start increasing your referrals for the back half of 2026.

So, you can secure your free seat in summer school for referrals at StaceyBrownRandall.com/summer.

Okay, let’s dive into the thing that is so very, very relevant, but no one ever talks about it when it comes to referrals. And in fact, for me to talk about this, I’m actually gonna show it to you.

But what this is, the thing that no one ever talks about is when people come to me and they say they want more referrals.

It’s basically lead generation, right? More referrals just means more prospects, more leads, more potential clients coming into your business.

But there is something more to it when it’s actually referrals. So, to explain it, I’m actually gonna map this out for you.

So, if you’re listening to this on the podcast, you’re not gonna be able to visually see me draw this out for you. I’m gonna share my screen. I’m actually gonna draw this out. It’s gonna be really interesting to see my handwriting.

So, if you’re listening to this on the podcast, you may wanna head over to the show notes page, StaceyBrownRandall.com/421 so that you can watch the video of this and that way you can actually see what I am mapping out so you’ll be able to visually see how I talk about this concept of what’s really behind more referrals.

So, let’s get into it. Okay, so, when people reach out to me, when they first land into my world, whether they are referred to me or maybe they are searching for my book, they’re searching for a book on referrals and they find one of my two books, they land on this podcast, maybe they’re watching this video on YouTube and they land in my world.

It’s typically because they are searching for one specific thing and that is the idea that they want more referrals.

And when people talk to me about wanting more referrals, it sounds very much like that’s what they’re looking for, just they want more clients being referred to them.

But what I know of doing this work for more than a decade is that there’s so much more underneath this desire for more referrals.

So, what I hear people say is, hey, we would like more referrals. Now, this is not my best handwriting with an Apple Pen, just putting it out there.

Okay, so when people come to me and they say, hey, okay, yes, I’m looking for more referrals. To me, that’s what I refer to as the surface.

And if you think about it like an iceberg, right? The wanting, the desire, the need for more referrals is actually just the piece you can see. It’s the point that kind of sticks out above the waterline, right?

But when we talk about getting more referrals and when we really think about what more referrals mean, it’s kind of actually a shallow view because what I know in the work that I do with my clients is that there’s so much more underneath that they’re really asking me without actually asking me.

So, if you have been thinking, right? Probably one of the reasons why you were here or either listening to this episode or watching this on YouTube, if you were sitting here and you are thinking to yourself, yes, I want more referrals.

What I know is that’s just the thing you speak out loud. There are things that are below the surface as to what that really means for you. So, let’s dig into that.

For most of my clients, this is going to come down to overall three big questions of what’s beneath the idea of just wanting more referrals.

So, that first question that I always find that people are asking is, what is it gonna feel like to go about generating referrals. Will I feel proud of how I generate referrals, right?

You’re probably thinking that same question yourself within somewhere of all the things you’re thinking about getting more referrals and maybe how awesome it’ll be and how amazing it’ll grow your business.

There is also this piece inside of you that’s asking the question, hey, but is this gonna be right? Will this feel right? Will I be proud of how I generate referrals, how I go about receiving referrals from people that I know?

That is a huge concern that people have. And it’s one of the reasons why people land in my world because of the philosophy that I teach from of generating referrals without asking and not manipulating relationships.

And so, what I know that my clients need before they can go any further to implementation or doing anything, what I know that they need is this number one thing that we like to call calm certainty.

Now, with calm certainty, that means that how you’re going to go about generating referrals is gonna feel right.

You’re gonna be proud and feel okay and feel normal in the way that you’re generating referrals from the people that you know or the people that you get to know over time.

This is like the baseline that I always find, like the very first question that people sometimes ask, sometimes wait to ask, but it is the one that I really believe starts our conversation of what really wanting more referrals is going to look like in your business is this idea that, hey, will I feel okay?

Will I feel proud of myself and how I’m generating these referrals? And that is the first thing we have to address.

And it’s one of the things that I’m most proud of that we address in the work that I do is providing that calm certainty. The knowing that how you’re gonna go about generating referrals is gonna feel normal. It’s gonna feel good and isn’t going to manipulate yourself or a relationship to be able to get referrals.

So we have to start with understanding that you’ll have calm certainty. It’s really important and it’s built into everything that we do. But that’s not the only question people have.

The next thing, once they kind of like, okay, I feel good of how I’m gonna go about doing this is gonna feel good. The next question that they have is this concept of understanding like, will this be a system that I can run, and not another one hit wonder.

Will this be something that I am doing that I know that when it’s running, the right clients are always on their way to me. The right clients are coming in through referrals.

And so what you’re looking for, number two, is always what we refer to as must have a repeatable system. This is critical.

Now, if you listen to the podcast or watch the episodes on YouTube, you know that in episode 404, I interviewed Amanda Mingo, which is one of the very first clients that I worked with over 10 years ago, teaching this process and system.

And she comes on and she talks about the last 11 years that she has been doing as she’s kind of gone through this process.

So she’s actually in her 12th year right now. And she talks about how this becomes the system that she runs her business on when it comes to generating referrals and it becomes repeatable.

She’s been doing it for 11 years. That’s huge, right? So if you haven’t listened to episode 404 of the Roadmap to Referrals podcast or watched the video here on the YouTube channel, I highly recommend that you do that.

Because knowing that what you’re investing in and building and will actually keep doing and keep running is a system that is repeatable, right? Wash, rinse, repeat models are okay as long as they’re built for you.

And that’s what we’re building here is something that is a system that is going to run with a repeatability-ness. And that being that repeatable system being something that you run year after year after year.

That will always be that secondary question people ask once they know, okay, how Stacey’s gonna teach me to generate referrals without asking, manipulating any of that stuff, I’m gonna have pure, full, calm certainty and how I’m gonna go about generating referrals from people that I know and in a lot of cases care about.

And I’m going to be building this with a system that can be repeatable. A system that can run year after year after year if I want it to. Okay, once we’ve kind of like, yep, we understand those two pieces.

There’s a third question that still pops up that really, I think allows us to go deeper with understanding referrals.

And that is this whole idea with what you’re going to be doing to generate, to get to more referrals. Is it going to allow you to build your business with some level of ease, right?

Is it gonna allow you to build your business with ease? And what I know that to be for my clients that I work for is that you are looking for that reliable revenue, right? The reliable dollars.

Now, I don’t mean reliable revenue, like snap your fingers and every Tuesday a referral shows up and closes into a client. Nothing can do that for you, right?

Referrals certainly can’t and actually pretty much nothing is gonna work that way. But understanding that when you are building your business from a referral perspective, right?

And building your business and the methodology that I teach with referrals without asking that you are allowing yourself to build your business with ease.

It doesn’t mean no work, but it means building your business with ease and there’s a reliability to understanding that there are clients that are gonna come through or come to you right through referrals.

And that understanding of that reliable revenue, knowing that I will be building my business with ease because I will be building a part of my business, of course, with more referrals.

When these three questions can be answered, this is getting to the heart of what people are after when it comes to more referrals, right?

These three questions, they have to be answered in your mind before you can truly understand, okay, am I gonna do the work, right? And am I gonna do what I need to do to generate more referrals?

So why is that? When we want more referrals, that’s what we can see at the surface line, right? And we know that that’s kind of a shallow way of thinking about referrals because of what comes, what we would consider the deeper side of that, right?

And looking at this to go deeper, we understand that it’s actually answering these questions about the concerns we have about how we’re going to go about doing that and what it will look like in our business.

So why is it like this for referrals more than anything else? Well, that’s because referrals do what no other lead generation source can ultimately do.

And what referrals do that no other lead generation source can do is actually impact how you feel, how you feel about your business, how you feel about the work that you do for your clients, how you feel about the value that you provide. And on some cases, sometimes how you feel about yourself.

The idea here is, is that referrals speaks to something that no other lead generation source can speak to. Because when someone refers a potential client to you, it speaks to your value, right?

There is someone that knows that you are needed to help someone else. And there’s no other lead generation source that shows up impacting how you feel.

So when folks put their reputation on the line and they tell someone else to consider hiring you, there is truly no greater compliment, right? There’s truly no better way to feel about yourself.

And so that means we get to go actually even deeper with what referrals mean for us.

That there’s actually, when we know we want more referrals and then we understand, okay, we’ve got calm certainty, we’re building a repeatable system, we’re building this with ease or reliable revenue.

When we have those pieces in place, it is because generating referrals speaks to, well, let’s just say it, your feelings.

The how you go about getting those referrals, the methods, the tactics, the language, it matters in a way that getting a client from seeing your billboard just doesn’t matter as much.

All clients, let’s just be honest, right? All clients are awesome, of course, regardless of how they find you, billboard, online ad, referral, right? They’re all awesome. But the clients that are referred to you speak to your value differently.

And this is the thing no one ever talks about when it comes to generating referrals, which is why some of the tactics you’ve heard about of how you’re supposed to generate referrals, it’s a turnoff.

You’re like, I don’t wanna do that because deep down what referrals are speaking to you, they’re talking about how people value you and the value that you bring to the world and the business and the work that you do and being seen as that resource and that expert that you are in the business.

And when you think about what that looks like, it gets even deeper. And that’s this third part that I think people overlook.

So here’s the thing, who I work with are expert-based business owners, which means they work with their clients in either high stakes situations or for a high investment, for a price tag, right?

So high stakes, right? So some examples of like a high-stakes working with clients would be like managing the client’s investments so they can retire, guiding clients as they sell their business, right?

Maybe a client that has personal injury or divorce or maybe in need of criminal defense, buying a home, right? High stakes situations.

Or, and sometimes and, in high investment, meaning it’s not cheap to hire the people that I work with that are wanting to generate more referrals.

So like that change management consultant that you’ve brought in to help you shift the culture of your business or that marketing consultant that you brought in to like overhaul the entire branding and marketing of your company, right?

Or that designer that you’ve hired to renovate your kitchen or your entire home or your second home.

High stakes or high investments, meaning when you hire this person, it really, really matters to the results they’re ultimately going to produce.

And when you hire this person or when you hire this person, right? It’s not like it’s going to cost a dollar. It will not be cheap.

It will not be inexpensive to hire this person. Necessarily it won’t be expensive, but it means that there is, the clients I work with are helping their clients, right? And what they do for them either costs money, higher investments, right? Or it’s a high stakes situation, which means for the expert-based business owners that I work with, like you, referrals gives you something that no other lead generation source can give.

And that my friends is, what is most important to understand is undeniable confidence. Undeniable confidence.

It’s like a little shot of the heck yeah, every time a referred prospect shows up in your inbox or in your text messages. And that heck yeah hits a little bit differently, just like a little bit sweeter.

So when you say you want more referrals, I hear you, I know that. But I also know that really what you’re asking me is will I have a calm certainty in how I go about doing it?

Will I build a repeatable system that I can run and count on for years to come? And will it allow me to bring in, build my business with ease without that level of reliable revenue, right?

Because all of that ultimately speaks to what referral says to you about your value and your worth. And what that helps you build as a business owner, super important here my friends, is this confidence is undeniable.

There is nothing quite like the feeling you get when that referral shows up and someone’s like, hey, you should talk to Stacey. Hey, you should talk to Danny. Hey, you should talk to Ella.

There is nothing quite like that when that referred prospect shows up and someone says, insert your name, they can solve your problem. Nothing else does it.

Nothing else from how we bring in clients can speak to the confidence we have in our business than when we’re generating referrals.

It’s why it’s one of the reasons I love what I do, but it also I know speaks to the how you’re gonna go about generating referrals matters because how you receive those referrals is really what’s either gonna build that undeniable confidence or make you start second guessing yourself.

Which is why I teach what I teach from the methodology, the frameworks, the philosophy of teaching you how to generate referrals without having to ask for them. And this is really what’s behind your desire for more referrals.

So when someone comes to me and says, hey, I want more referrals, I know you want the revenue.

I know you want more clients, but I also know what that’s gonna speak to you on on a different level that most people aren’t going to pay attention to is that undeniable confidence that it builds and the business that you are building and running to the work that you do, the work that your team does, the value being that true expert.

That’s why I work with expert-based business owners in high stakes or high-investment situations because referrals should be feeding a large portion of your business and how you generate new clients.

I really encourage you to watch this episode again. Let it sink in. Let it wash over you.

If you have a business partner or others in your business, I think it’s really important that you share this with them. Let your team listen to it because this is a concept that understanding what referrals means.

Like if you listen to what I said and you agree with a you’re right, referrals is more than just new clients, it’s just more than a way to bring in new clients, but it truly is building up that undeniable confidence that you get to have in your business.

And that speaks to you and your business and the value you bring in a way that no other lead generation source can do.

If that really speaks to you then I highly recommend you watch this with the other people in your business so you guys can all be on the same page.

If you sit in a mastermind group and you guys talk about this kind of stuff as part of your mastermind or different groups that you’re in with other business owners, like making sure they understand what you’ve just learned is really important because it truly is the thing that nobody ever talks about with referrals but is the main driver of referrals.

Isn’t that crazy? The thing that truly drives referrals, that really what referrals say to us and means to us is the thing we actually never talk about. It’s crazy, right?

Now, of course you can access the transcripts and the resources that we mentioned, like the wait list. Getting on the wait list for the referral accelerator, which means submitting your application first.

So you can find the link to learn more about the referral accelerator. Submit your application, get on the wait list for when we open the dates. You can also find the links to join us for summer school, which kicks off July 15th.

You can find all of those links in the links below this video or on the show notes page, if you’re listening to this on the podcast, the show notes page at StaceyBrownRandall.com/421.

Now remember, if you are watching this on YouTube, do me a solid, like this video, leave me a comment, let me know how this episode resonated with you. And please don’t forget to subscribe to the channel.

If you are actually listening to this on the podcast app and you haven’t yet left a review of this show, we would love for you to leave, well, preferably a five-star review, but we want it to be honest.

So if you haven’t left a review of the show on your favorite podcast listening app, I would love for you to do that too. I do appreciate them.

All right, until next week, take control of your business and build a referable business. Bye for now.