Stacey Brown Randall:
Referrals aren't about me. They're about somebody who knows somebody has a problem.
Chris Dreyer:
Referrals have the lowest cost per acquisition. Making them an essential component of your marketing strategy.
Stacey Brown Randall:
This is a human on the other side, that's putting their reputation on the line to decide, to refer a client to me.
Chris Dreyer:
You're listening to Personal Injury Mastermind, where we give you the tools you need to take your personal injury practice to the next level. Stacey Brown Randall has cracked the code - securing over one hundred new clients in her first year - from referrals alone. he has replicated her system for countless businesses AND wrote the book on it - Generating Business Referrals Without Asking. Today we get into building trusted networks, the importance of managing expectations, and what most people get wrong about referrals. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. We help elite personal injury attorneys dominate first page rankings with search engine optimization. Being at the forefront of marketing is all about understanding people. So let's get to know our guest. Here’s Stacey Brown Randall, "head referral ninja master".
Stacey Brown Randall:
I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. The question was what was I going to do? I come from a family of entrepreneurs. So being an entrepreneur was not a stretch. and for me it was figuring out through, my portfolio career after I graduated college what was I gonna do? And what was I gonna be passionate about? And what did I wanna build a business around? And I started a business and I know, this cuz you know, a little bit about my background, but I started a business and it failed just after four years later. And I found myself back in corporate America and that was a consulting firm, an HR human resource consulting firm. And I was like, Why'd I fail. And I realized. Making sure. I knew how to consistently bring in clients was going to be something I was going to have to figure out. So I didn't have that Feaster famine mode, right? The ups and downs, the highs and lows that roller coaster of you've got clients. You don't have clients, you've got clients, you've got a case. You don't have a case. It's like the same thing. Everybody kind of deals with. And four years later, I hadn't figured out how to make it consistent, how to fill the prospect pipeline consistently. So when I got certified. As a productivity and business coach. And that was the second business I started. I was like, okay, we gotta fill the pipeline and I wanna do it in the easiest way possible. What is the easiest way? And of course the answer is referrals, but all the advice was the worst advice. And it was like, you gotta ask for referrals or you gotta, you guys can't do this and in your space, but you got a lot of folks are told you've gotta incentivize or pay for those referrals. You're told you gotta network a ton so that, a ton of people or you gotta be really gimmicky and promotional. When you see people in their email signatures put the greatest compliment, you can give me as a referral. And those things just didn't fit. My personality, they didn't fit how I wanted to show up in the market and what I wanted my reputation to be and needed a different way to generate referrals for me. So I created it and it really was in the beginning throwing spaghetti on the wall. And as I started having success, I got 112 referrals my first year in business that I didn't ask for. As that. Continued. My clients were like, thanks for being our business coach, but we'd really rather learn how you're getting all these referrals. And that's when I started teaching it. Actually the second person I ever taught my system too, and this was like, oh no, eight or nine years ago, personal injury attorney. And so I have been able to watch her success for years now, which has been pretty amazing. Because she still uses my strategy to this day to fill her client list. Which is awesome. And I started teaching it to my clients and I was like, wow, this. Because of me, it has nothing to do with my personality. It has nothing to do because I'm a business coach. It's working across industries. It's working for people that, that need it to work and are willing to do the work. And so I completely did a pivot and made my whole business about referrals and, but being a contrarian and teaching it completely different,We get asked is how do I get more referrals? How do I get more referrals? Because those are the lowest costs per acquisition.
Chris Dreyer:
So you developed this expertise and so with that expertise you wrote Generating Business Referrals Without Asking. So what was that journey like?
Stacey Brown Randall:
I sell my expertise, right? I've created a strategy. I've created language around it. I've created the, what you do, the, how you do it, the who you do it for and the, what you say while you're doing it. I think when you're in that world, it's always a natural step to eventually decide to write a book or have a podcast. I decided to do both, but most people are gonna pick one or the other, because that is how you're able to get your message out to more people. for me, I always knew that writing it. Some people are like, oh, I hate to write. I love it. I find it tedious at times. Of course, it's probably why I'm still writing book number two. And it was supposed to be published more than a year ago and I'm still working on it. But the truth is I like sharing my message in that way, because I think it's accessible to people. You can pick up the book it's audible, right? There's the ebook. There's the printed copy. But it's just a way to get the information into more hands and to do it out in a cost effective way. I started this business back 2013. And so the book. Was picked up by a publisher in 2017 and published in 2018. So if you kinda look at that trajectory, I'd had enough case studies, enough success stories. And to see that it works and it's been working for, almost a decade, that's the idea that the book allows them to be open to the idea because it's not intimidating. And then they can decide how do I wanna do referrals? Because there are different methods. I just teach a strategy that works for people who don't want the traditional or what I call the old school approach to generating referrals.
Chris Dreyer:
We know that referrals are critical, developing a community of trust of generating new clients, but many pit people for them asking. Is a real challenge for myself. Like I'm an introvert. So when I hear your book generating business referrals, without asking it's really appealing to me. So when it comes to that traditional model, where are they going wrong? Like where first, where are they going wrong in that traditional model?
Stacey Brown Randall:
When I first started figuring out my strategy, All I knew I needed to do in the very, very beginning was these are people that are referring other people to me. So let's start there, right? Let's start from the piece that this is a human. On the other side, that's putting their reputation on the line to decide, to refer a client to me. So for me, it was looking at it, it was like, these are my people. And I have relationships with these people and I need to make sure that I'm doing whatever I can to protect that. That was at the heart of how I started looking at well, this is why the old school advice doesn't work because asking or incentivizing or always being seen in networking and being promotional is about me and referrals. Aren't about me. They're about somebody who knows somebody has a problem. And that person's gonna refer them to me because I can solve the problem. So when you look at the heart of it, it's relationships, these are relationships you have with your referral sources and you need to protect those and honor those and be authentic in those. And when you look at why a referral happens in the first place, it's because somebody else is being the hero by helping someone they know who has a problem and how they're helping them. Is by connecting them and referring them to you. When those two pieces became very crystal clear to me, I was like, oh, this is all about the relationship. And then all about making sure that I'm nurturing and caring for these people in a way so that I am the person that they refer when those opportunities arise. And so for me at that moment, I started paying attention to if you look at referrals, aren't about you let's look at how else this process works. But the truth is it really all comes down to science about. How referrals happen and then how you can generate those referrals to happen as well, in a way that can honor the relationships, but at the same time, produce referrals for you. that science behind it. It's it's the chemicals in our brain partnered with the psychology of trust and our social networks. And along with some behavioral economics pieces as well, when you look at all those pieces and making referrals happen, at the heart of it, though, it all comes down to people who refer you are your people, and you need to make sure you have a process in place. That's thanking them and making sure that you're deepening the relationship with them so that they will always be referring to you. And then there's consistency. Of that.
Chris Dreyer:
My mind immediately went two directions first I, I see like a direction where it's, B2C to the consumer, right? Their clients are. Other future clients. We had Louis Scott on from Bader Scott, in Atlanta on several episodes ago. And he talks about, he just wants his channels to break, even because if he breaks, even he knows he is gonna get more referrals. So he, he really looks at it from that perspective. And then I've seen another perspective where it's like their peers, it's like other attorneys, out-of-state attorneys referring cases. let's start with the peer side, where does paying for the referral come into play? Is that a bribe or is that just that's, is there an integrity aspect of if a consumer has a problem and you're gonna help that consumer, but you're bribe, you're getting paid for it, and it's a revenue source. It's a big revenue source, especially if these attorneys are only licensed to practice in one state, where does that come into play?
Stacey Brown Randall:
What I would offer to consider if you're considering the paying for your referrals, you're not paying for a referral. What you're doing is you're paying for a lead. It's not a referral. The minute you put money on the table, because think of it this way. If I come to you and I'm like, Chris, I need an attorney. Here's what happened? Who do you recommend? I need somebody that you trust so that I can trust them because this is a really big deal in my life. And then you say, okay, Stacey, I need you to go work with. I am trusting that Scott is the best attorney to handle my problem, because I trust you. If I were to find out later that Scott paid you at that moment, it calls into question. If Scott is the right attorney for me, and were you really helping me or were you making a buck off of my pain? Now will every client feel that way when they find out that who referred them to the attorney got paid, maybe not, but more actually do believe and think that way, but may never say anything about it. It is an integrity issue. If you're gonna be paid to refer somebody, it's not even referring. If you're gonna be paid to send a lead to somebody. Then you should be willing to disclose it up front. And if you're uncomfortable, disclosing it up front, that you're being paid to send them to an attorney. Then that should be your gut check. If you're uncomfortable saying, Hey, I'm gonna make 10%, whatever your case settles for, I'm gonna make 10% or 1%, or I'm gonna get a hundred dollars or I'm gonna get a thousand dollars or whatever. If you're uncomfortable telling your friend, your client, your colleague, your neighbor, I'm gonna make money off of you. When I refer you to this attorney, that should be your gut check, that if you're not willing to tell them and disclose it up front, that maybe this is actually more of a kickback, then it is actually above board kind of business dealing. There are people who will disagree with me and that's okay. You get to decide how you wanna run your business. I look at everything from the client's perspective, how is the client gonna feel when they found out that you made money? Because you referred them to someone else and didn't tell them in advance.
Chris Dreyer:
Every attorney wants to attract their refferals and build a trusted network of partners. Stacey explains how attorneys can find trusted sources outside of and within their firms.
Stacey Brown Randall:
So I, think's the number one thing you have to pay attention to. It all starts with your ability to identify who should be your referral sources. Now, if you've been an attorney and if they've been in business for a couple of years, more than likely you probably have some referral sources, right? You probably have some that people who have referred you, we always start there because that helps us understand the commonalities among the people who typically refer to us. So if you've had five or more people refer you, then you can start to figure out, oh, look, people who refer me are actually aren't my clients. But they're other attorneys, which is huge. I work with a lot of attorneys, not just personal injury, but a lot of attorneys. And the number one referral source for attorneys is typically other attorneys. your clients can also be referral sources The one thing that I learned and some of the other personal injury attorneys is that's usually an area that they don't try to focus on because they just represented a client typically during the worst time of the life. And so they're not constantly looking at following up and revisiting that consistently. They know if they did a good job, regardless of the outcome of the case. If they did a good job and they took care of that person. If they know somebody who needs a PI attorney, they're gonna send them to them. And but that's up to you. You can decide to focus on your clients, referring you. You can decide to focus on other attorneys referring you. We call 'em centers of influence, but for attorneys it's typically other attorneys or both, right? Like you can do it whichever way works for you. Two things to consider your businesses low hanging fruit are the people who've already referred you in the past. The ability to get more referrals from them will be easier than trying to cultivate a brand new person. Who's never referred you. You need a strategy to do both but I always tell folks, if you have more than five referral sources, let's focus on getting more referrals from our existing referral sources and cultivate them. To give more. And then we can turn to the second strategy, which is, let's make sure that we're also developing new referral sources if we need them. this would be great for your listeners to consider insurance agents, independent insurance agents, like those who represent a multitude of different types of insurance companies for car and home you. It was those independent brokers are really on for the client. They're not attached to one flagship type company that they represent. So the very first step is always identification who has been referring you and who should be referring you. And I don't just mean PNC agent should be referring me. I need names. Like I need these four people. I would love it if they were referring to me or looking back to who's referred you in the past, these are the 16 people who've referred me in the last two years, whatever it is, you need to identify these people down to their names, but looking for the commonalities that they have in like the things they have in common as well.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's amazing. And I think everyone can look and identify and they need to do those retrospectives to identify who's referred to them in the past and try to nurture those as opposed to always just building those new sources. The one thing though is when I say, when I'm trying to develop a relationship, the easiest way to develop a relationship, if I truly respect and think they're the right person is to send a referral. But the, if you can't send a referral, it's like, How do I have the, how do I build this relationship without it being awkward? Do you, it's do I, take 'em to breakfast? Do I like, so how do you nurture these to try to develop a relationship and stay in? To nurture new relationships. And then the second part of it is how do you stay in touch? Do you, is it just being a friend? Is it being someone that cares like what are the steps.
Stacey Brown Randall:
We have a strategy. It's the potential referral source strategy, right? or soon to be referral source strategies. We teach it in our program called how to turn clients and contact. Into referring machines, which so we call it referring machines for short. And we teach that exact process as like, how do you identify the right people? But what is most important for people to understand? And it's the heart of what we teach in referring machines is it's the same thing you thought about when you thought about giving a referral. You're right. You can't give a referral to everybody, and that is not how you're gonna jumpstart any of your referral relationships, because it's not possible. But what are you doing when you refer someone to someone. You're helping. So at the end of the day, our strategy is around. Let's go into this relationship. Yes. We know the big, long term objective is to get referrals from them, but nobody refers after one conversation. So just set that aside and focus on how you can help them. genuinely you have to come at this from a really good place in your heart of you know what? I do want referrals from these people, but it still all comes down to, Hey, I'm listening for ways within our conversation to see if I can help you. And maybe that's gonna be someone I can connect you with. Maybe it's gonna be a book or a resource that I can send after our meeting. Lots of clues that people give and cues that people say, when they're meeting with you, when they talk about life. And a lot of times I tell folks I'm like the best way to help people. Isn't always business related, right? If you have a conversation with me and we're meeting for the first time and you're like, so tell me about yourself, right? Cause you don't know anything about me unless you've course looked me up. The very first thing I'm gonna tell you is as I got three teenagers last my life. I got two teenagers in a pre-teen and that's pretty much all you need to know if you've got teenagers like, oh, she's in the, she's in the messy metal, right? The number one way you can help me, which is not anything that most people would even consider is, oh, you know what? I read this great parenting book and I'm gonna send it to Stacey because she needs to understand how those teenage brains are working or why she wants to harm her children all the time. I'm kidding. I don't wanna harm my children, but the reality of it is I've got, we, last year we had all three in middle. It's a rough year. , you're all in middle school, and so from that perspective, you're gonna endear me to you when you figure out a way to connect with me and help me. And it doesn't have to be in business. It can be in life. That's how I'm gonna remember you. Does that mean I'm gonna refer you? No, but it means you're actually remembered now. So you have a better chance of the additional follow ups. You. Where you actually can plant more referral seeds and get me thinking about referring you if I'm going to come across the opportunity. And that's the other piece I tell folks all the time in referring machines, you're gonna kiss a lot of frogs before you find your S and your princesses, because not everybody can refer you, even if you think they can. And so it is a process, but the reality of it is it comes down to helping somebody else and endearing them to you because. when you impact how someone feels about you, you then have the ability to direct how they think about you and how we do that is from a genuine place, but also planting referral seeds.
Chris Dreyer:
The other thing that I've always wondered too, is the action of a referral, giving it to one individual versus a referring to possibly let's say three businesses, right? Because each business, and this is a little bit different for the PI attorney. So I guess it could be. Different expertise or different locations. If you have an individual that needs a referral, do you just send 'em to the one or do you send 'em to maybe three because they're, they have different value propositions and you don't know, maybe one. Is closer for convenience. Maybe one has a shorter turnaround on the case, right? They're gonna . Try to do a lot of pre lit versus take it to trial, what's or do you truly take that? And you say, Hey, I think this person is best for you.
Stacey Brown Randall:
So I think that all comes down to the person who's asking you to refer them to someone. Is you asking the questions to understand what they're looking. because I, I think as a client who now needs to hire attorney, unless they're hiring attorneys all the time, do they really know. The difference between having somebody who's gonna move really fast versus take it to trial. Do they really know the ins and outs of their own case? They have their opinions and their version of the case, but do they really know exactly what their case needs? And so in that situation, you've gotta ask them questions to figure out who you're gonna refer them to. And it is the age old question. And I'll hear it from people all the time. I have a fiduciary responsibility to refer them to multiple people. So here's the question. What do they. Because I know if I came to you and I'm like, here's what happened and I need the best attorney. You can recommend I'm looking for who you would probably use. Now, if I came to you and said, Chris, here's my problem. And I don't know exactly what I'm looking for in my attorney, but I would like to talk to a couple of them. Then you know, that you can send me to a couple. Usually I recommend that you send. Person unless the client or the person has asked you for multiple referrals. Because usually what we're looking for, even if we can't articulate it is I just don't wanna make a mistake. So who do you recommend? Who would you use? It's like when you are referred to a doctor. Like I just, okay, thank you. Pediatrician. My child now needs a specialist who would use in your child to that's who actually, who I want you to refer me to, not the three other people, because they happen to be in network. And you have some obligation. I wanna know who you would use regardless of what you're bound by. And if you feel like you have to refer to multiple or just one recognize what the client ultimately wants or what the person ultimately wants is who you would use and who you would re. and then understanding that when you do refer that person to three people going to that referral, like to the solution provider, to the attorneys and being like, Hey, I'm connecting you with this person who is looking for an attorney and FYI. She wanted to be, or he wanted to be connected to a. or, Hey, you're the only person I'm referring this person to like giving the backstory also as well to the attorney that you're referring the client to, but these are also very situational. And so you've gotta be willing to do a little bit of due diligence and figuring out exactly what the client's looking for.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, and I think that's fair. when you make one recommendation, it's really on you, they're trusting you and it's your integrity. if they have a bad experience that's on you, you need to figure out a better solution for individuals in the future. And I always thought if you gave three, it's now their choice, they choose from the three on their value props and that's a cop outright. That's not probably digging deep enough and getting enough information. But I have heard that and I have shifted my mindset. And I think it's just asking the deeper questions on, what is their budget? What do they need, but you bring up a point that all comes down to expectation settings. And I believe that this is a major deficit in business owners. I don't care if you're an attorney, a CPA, a consultant, an interior designer, a real estate agent. It doesn't matter. We do. I think as a whole business owners do a very poor job of setting expectations up front that would mitigate any bad experiences that would happen. it's like going to an attorney and being like, I'm gonna win your case with no conversation around the fact that I don't actually. Decide if I win your case, the judge does, or the jury does, right? Let's set some expectations here of what is actually ultimately in your control and what we don't do. I don't think, well as business owners is we're not comfortable having those conversations. I have another program it's called referable client experience. And it's how you make your client experience referable. And one of the very first things that we talk about is how are you going to set expectations and how are you going to do that? In writing. And I don't mean like an official brief that people need to sign. One of the things I teach is actually like creating like the map of what it looks like of what all the different areas your case could go. And so if you've got a wrongful death case, let's talk about the fact of all where these things could actually land. It's no different than if we're talking about divorce. depends on the judge we get, and it depends on some things that have happened based on how the law is in our state as to are you gonna get 50%? Are you gonna take it all? The expectation setting is on the business owner. Who's getting that new client referred or not to map out. Here's what's gonna happen. And here's all the things we don't control. And our ability to have that conversation early on with our clients is I think a deficit for most business owners, cuz they just wanna get the person, sign the letter of agreement and move on into the case and then they kinda have to do backtracking with a, oh this could happen and this could happen. Wouldn't it be better if you went into it saying, you know how in that very first meeting, I said that this could happen. Okay. It's happened. So let's talk about where we go from here. It removes the emotion. From those situations. By dealing with the, with something that you've provided to them and understanding that this was always the potential and we had to be ready for it. And this is why it's happened. Whereas I recognize, and I respect the response of if you have a bad experience, that's on me. Yes. Except for the fact of the person you're referring them to did a really good job of mapping out expectations. Even if they lose their case, they can still feel really good about the attorney that they did choose because it was mapped out and they understood what was pot? What was the. I think the client experience, I internally we call it, teach our clients not to be crazy because a lot of times our clients love that our clients become crazy when we don't set expectations. When things different things can occur and you can do those retrospectives, postmortems, whatever to improve your client experience. And this has been amazing. And I wanna talk about your programs, right? So you've touched on 'em right? So you have the referring machines growth by referrals and building a referral business. So just briefly tell me about your programs how you can help our our listeners.
Stacey Brown Randall:
Yeah. So . All of my programs are broken down by the strategy that they teach. That's why there's like individual programs that we have actually in all. There's 18 different referral strategies that we teach. Some are like, minute Hey, you're not getting good quality referrals. Here's the script. Here's the situational script you need, when you need to have a conversation with a referral source, cuz you're not getting the quality of referrals you need. And some of them are much bigger. Hey, let's create a strategy and a plan to get you more referrals, like growth by referrals or referring machines. So you kinda have to think about 'em on levels. Nobody implements all of them at one time, that would be crazy and a recipe for complete and total overwhelm. But so we do have different. Programs based on where you are. And we always tell folks, your starting point is typically gonna be growth by referrals or referring machines, but they're both online programs, growth by referrals as if you've been in business more than two years and have more than five people referring you. Now you could be in business one year and have 15 people referring you. You would still wanna start with growth by referrals because you have more than five people referring you. Referring machines is for people who have less than four people referring them. And in most cases, that means they've probably only been a business one or two years. Not always, but we really look at as how many referral sources do you have that tells us, do you need to go to growth by referrals to build a plan, to get more referrals from your existing referral sources? Or if you have four or less people referring you, you don't really have. To build a plan for, we need more referral sources first before we're gonna ultimately have a plan to take care of them long term. So then you would go through referring machines, And so we also know not everybody loves an online course. They're like, oh my gosh, shoot me. Now. I have to go watch a bunch more videos and modules and do it all by myself. So we do have our group coaching experience, which is called building a referable business where you get GBR and refer or growth by referrals and referring machines. But you get access to actually all 18 strategies, but it also comes with one-on-one access to me. We build out everything of what you're focused on in 90 day sprints. So you only are focused on I'm learning this strategy. Or I'm implementing this strategy and 30 day increments. And we do that four times throughout the year. So you've got those 90 day sprints. So that's one on one access to me 90 day roadmaps throughout the entire year weekly coaching calls where you can drop in and ask your questions and be held accountable in your 90 day sprint. And just be a part of a community, lots of great attorneys. There's more than attorneys, but we have a lot of great attorneys in that group. you're still gonna go through the strategies through the online program. I'm gonna be there holding you accountable to doing it and answering your questions live or recorded. If you can't join live as we go. So building a referable business, we call it the whole enchilada because it's got everything in it and access to me in an ongoing way. But we also of course offered just the one to one, like just, Hey, I'm just gonna do this one course myself. I'm gonna go through this online program as well. So that's why there's options depending on how people like to learn and implement.
Chris Dreyer:
If personal injury attorneys and firm owners are looking to take away and implement just one thing. As it relates to referrals, what would you want them to.
Stacey Brown Randall:
I want them to identify their referral sources. I think that is the most empowering step that you can take to realize, do you only have one or two people referring you? Okay. Now we know where we need to go. Do you have 10 or 15 or 20 or 25 people referring you? Okay. How well are you taking care of them so that you can get more referrals from them? And then I want you to know if they're active or inactive. There's so many nuances there and to understanding where you go, your starting point is always based on how many people you have referring. You. But is also the most empowering step you can take in your business to know, oh my gosh, these people trust me and put their reputation on the line and refer to me. I probably maybe wanna do something different to take care of them, to get more referrals from them. Identification is always the first step.
Chris Dreyer:
Amazing. what's next for Stacey Brown Randall and where can our listeners go to get your book referrals without asking?
Stacey Brown Randall:
Yeah. So the book generating business referrals without asking is available, wherever books are sold. So if you like the local bookstore or Barnes and Nobles, or if you're an Amazon fan, you can get anywhere. The audio version is through audible as well. So you can purchase the book that way, but it's available. Wherever books are sold and the best place to decide, Hey, maybe I wanna work with Stacey here. I wanna learn more is really our home base is the website. It's StaceyBrownRandall.com. We walk you through understanding all the different things you need to know about. From a referral perspective from our philosophy and then your starting point of where to go, if you're ready to get started and working with me. I will put out a second book, but other than that, I'm gonna keep helping people generate referrals.naturally.
Chris Dreyer:
Identify your centers of influence - whether they are other attorneys or former clients. Pick the low-hanging fruit first. Identify who has already referred you in the past and nurture those relationships. The ability to get more referrals from them will be easier than trying to cultivate a brand new person. I’d like to thank Stacey Brown Randall for sharing her story with us, and I hope you gained some valuable insights from the conversation. You’ve been listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris Dreyer. If you liked this episode, leave us a review. We love to hear from our listeners. I'll catch you on next week's PIM with another incredible guest and all the strategies you need to master personal injury marketing.
