If You Focus On Creating More Of THIS, You Will Never Need Advertising AGAIN!

If you could track who your reference are in your business, you know who the referrals are. Those are the people who come from the reference. Right. But if you just can track who your reference are, which is probably 6, 4% total, that's a double Pareto. That's the 20% of the 20%. If you have 4% reference, you don't have to do advertising ever again. I don't care what business you're in. Now, of course, restaurants, as Mark knows, and movies, they die and live by referrals. Right? But when I've asked all these people, and some are thought leaders and names that you would recognize, what percentage of your business comes from referrals, you know what they tell me? Plus or minus one or two. And I love Brittany's talk because this is the absolute truth. I'm not even making this up. They said 10%. So if every business is a marketing business, what percentage of referrals do you think Genius Network gets? You're here as a result of referrals. What percentage do you think Joe has gotten since 2007? I studied it and I know the team because I'm acting as a fractional CMO now. What percentage? Any guesses? 80. 80. Higher. 85. Higher. 98. Little over 90. I wish. 98. Little over 90. Now, when I ask people, why don't you ask for referrals? Because it's a three word question, A s. And what k? You just ask. I say, why don't you ask? And they go, I don't know. He's your friend. You just made him a million dollars or you just saved $500,000 or the numbers can be different. Why don't you ask? I don't know. And they held back. Now I'm not going to out anyone in the room because I do it too. I refrain from asking the reason I'm on stage right now because Joe didn't ask the way I wanted to ask this morning. Right? And I'm not outing him. I'm just saying it's just a disease that people have. Please don't have it. Be proud of it. Is it your business? It's your baby. The risk of insult is the price of clarity when it comes to referrals. That's nine words. Write it down. The risk of insult. Everyone on zoom. Just write it down. Gina, write it down. The risk of insult is the price of clarity. Every business is a marketing business no matter what. In fact, the biggest area where people are upset. Hey, I got, I got a mishire. I got A mishire. Probably not asking those three questions, but usually the upset is with the marketing person that they hired, right? So I've also seen business people in this group. I've been here for a while, they give their marketing away. It's like giving your newborn to a complete stranger and say, take care of it and I'll see you in seven years. And that's the way they treat their business. They say copywriting is the oxygen that fills the bloodstream of a business. That may be true. I believe marketing is the grease that lubricates the wheels of that engine running. If you agree, just raise your hand on that one. All right, now here's a pop quiz. What's the fastest, easiest, most reliable way to grow your business right now without spending a single penny on marketing or advertising cost? Referrals. Is that because Joe said referrals beforehand? I couldn't torture you a little bit. So it's not about bots. It's not AI, it's referrals. Now, in 1998, there were two gentlemen at Stanford on the campus. One guy's name was Larry. Paige is his last name. Another guy's name is Sergey. His name is Brin. Anyone know who they are? Google. Right? They met, and then Google came up, which is one with 100 zeros following. Three years before that, I started a company called Marketing Online when I was living in Manhattan. And so I don't know if I'm the og, which means original goat, and goat is greatest of all time. I don't know if that's me. My mother doesn't think so. But I do know I'm one of the dinosaurs here. And many of my students have become my mentors, which is very humbling because I'm tired of saying, be better than me. And then they do it. You know, it's like, I didn't mean that. Right. So annoying, you know? So as a result, I have asked. I'm not famous, but I do have over 860,000 students since 1995. That's a lot. Do I spend time with them? No. But I've been to every continent except Antarctica, because penguins don't know digital marketing. And on those in those continents, I've been introducing digital marketing as a marketing online and as a professional speaker. And so I've interviewed them. I've interviewed over 150 businesses, including Joe's. I've interviewed business to business, business to consumer. And I asked them, I said, what percentage of business, honestly, candidly, don't lie, you know, like, winking a smile. Don't lie. Just tell me the truth, not the public answer. What's the private answer? There is a difference. What percentage is by referral? Now think about referral. A referent is someone who's giving you a referral and this should be a 10 minute talk. And it may be, but it's not. But if you just thought about it, if you could track who your reference are in your business, you know who the referrals are. Those are the people who come from the reference. Right? But if you just can track who your referents are, which is probably 4% total, that's a double Pareto. That's the 20% of the 20%. If you have 4% reference, you don't have to do advertising ever again. I don't care what business you're in. Now, of course, restaurants, as Mark knows, and movies, they die and live by referrals, right? But when I've asked all these people, and some are thought leaders and names that you would recognize, what percentage of your business comes from referrals? You know what they tell me? Plus or minus one or two. And I love Brittany's talk because this is the absolute truth. I'm not even making this up. They said 10%. 10% of all the business they get. Now what does that mean? That means 90% has to come from ads, which is very expensive or some other thing that's happening or. This is my favorite line, okay? The ad's not working because the algorithm has to kick in first. Anyone heard that before?

It's a lie. It's a lie.

It's going to work immediately. The algorithm will enhance it. I'm just saving you millions of dollars if you just listen to me. So if every business is a marketing business, what percentage of referrals do you think Genius network gets? You're here as a result of referrals. What percentage do you think Joe has gotten since 2007? I studied it and I know the team because I'm acting as a fractional CMO now. What percentage? Any guesses? 80. 80. Higher. 85. Higher. 98. Little over 90. I wish. 98. Little over 90. Now when I ask people, why don't you ask for referrals? Because it's a three word question. A s. And what K? You just ask. I say, why don't you ask? And they go, I don't know. He's your friend. You just made him a million dollars or you just saved $500,000 or the numbers can be different. Why don't you ask I don't know. And they held back. Now, I'm not going to out anyone in the room because I do it too. I refrain from asking the reason I'm on stage right now because Joe didn't ask the way I wanted him asked this morning. Right. And I'm not outing him. I'm just saying it's just a disease that people have. Please don't have it. Be proud of it. Is it your business? It's your baby. So there's two ways to ask. Okay, how many ways? Two. One way. By the way, my self esteem grows when you respond to what I say. So everyone in the Zoom, write down two. But everyone in here, pretend you didn't hear that. How many ways? Two. All right, here's the one way. One on one. One on one. That's one way to ask for it. So you're talking to someone one on one. Make sure that they're in a heightened state. If they come and complain, don't ask them for a referral. It's the wrong environment. You'd be shocked how many people do that. And then they go, I don't want to ask for referrals anymore. When they come and they're gushing out with how amazing it is. And that's the time. Because now their dopamine is in a rush. Maybe their oxytocin is in a rush. Maybe even serotonin is a high level. That's when you ask. So when is very important. The second way to ask is 1, 2, 3, many. Repeat many after one to many. I'm going to show you how to ask for a referral. One to many, right now. Are you ready? Okay. All of what I'm saying is true. And by the way, the risk of insult is the price of clarity. When it comes to referrals, that's nine words. Write it down. The risk of insult. Everyone on Zoom, Just write it down. Gina, write it down. The risk of insult is the price of clarity. I will risk insult by clarifying more profits, and I hope you will too. So here's the way I'm going to ask all of you. We are sold out for the annual event. It's November 8th, 9th and 10th. There are a few members that are coming in, but our team really did a great job. Mike and Kevin and Gina and of course, Denise and Eunice and Joe. We've done a great job. I've written the copy and we've gotten RSVP's from members. Maybe there's eight or seven members and we've Assigned seats for them, but we want a certain amount of seats for non members. Because how could you possibly relate to anyone and tell them what Joe's like without them seeing it in person? Right. There's no way they have to experience it. Look, parents, raise your hand. Experience is the best teacher, right? I disagree. Experience is the only teacher if you're a parent. And so experience is the only teacher to see if Genius Network is right. So I'm going to ask for a referral from you to think about. Now, listen to what I'm saying. Be very specific. As we heard in one of the talks, if you can think of one person, one, not two, not three, not five, one person. Now, that pause is important because I'm having you think so do that, too. Pregnant pause. If you can think of one person in your life right now, colleague or friend, who you think is a good fit for Genius Network, and they're in business making a million dollars or more, and you think they would be a good fit and they would come to you and say thank you. When the doors close on Sunday around 1pm on the 10th of November, and everyone's leaving. Thank you for inviting me to this. I had no idea. And thank Alex for enrolling me into Genius Network as a member as well on Saturday, because that's my job. So I want to enroll you in the thought of one person you can think of. There are 23 seats left. There is capacity. It's at the Marriott.

JW Marriott.

JW Marriott. The fire marshals there says 350 seats. We're going to go a little above that and pretend like, you know, we don't know what we're doing. And so those 23 slots, and maybe less, because it's every day I'm having the team, say, 22, 21, 20. But if you can go to Eunice, Eunice, raise your hand. She's in the back. If you can go to her and just give her a name and a contact, and then please reach out to that person and say, hey, Eunice is going to call you and it's about this event. There's a vetting process. There is an application, right? Then that person, if they make it to the event and they're a problem child, I will hold you responsible for that. All right? Okay. Time out.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

How painful was that? I gave you time to think about it. Some of you are saying, well, I have no idea. Great. But I bet a good percentage of you, maybe 10% of you are thinking, yeah, I got one person. Then those 23, 24 will be gone immediately. So that's one to many. One to one is done by your sales team, by HR, by whomever, when they're dealing with people. And then this is the fastest, easiest, most economical way to increase profit without spending a dime a penny on advertising. It's a lost art. We have creative avoidance because of squeeze pages, because of email, because of text. I sent out text and email, and we got referrals. But I told Joe, hey, if we still have slots, it's September. Let's ask them because they're engaged here. And then if we can do a little teaching along the way, we'll do it. So I hope that was helpful. Please use more referrals. So you go from 10% to 90% and I'm done.

That was great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, obviously, I'm the benefactor of that sort of ask there, so I appreciate that. Does anyone have any questions for Alex related to any of this?

Yes, please.

Sarum, ketchup.

And the one thing is, you can role play and practice asking for referrals because not every script wins. The craziest things will win. And then once it wins, you just do it again and again and again.

And again, by the way, because compared to what you just said there and what I said this morning, it was masterful. So how many of you now have a person in mind as a result of just the way that he presented that?

Put it high in zoom, too. Nice and high, not nice and high. Write it down. I do. Yeah.

Awesome.

By the way, virtual and physical are two different things. I can't say how many of you on Zoom. You say, please type it in the chat. I'm sure you guys know that I make the mistake all the time.

So type in. I do. Like we're getting married or something.

My question is, what's your name? Oh, sorry. My name's Adam. Adam Bensman.

How long have you been a member?

A couple months. And I did actually already refer someone who's coming to the Genius event. I talked to them this morning, and they're already paid and ready to go.

Welcome. Thank you.

And their name's Cody Landles.

Can I Ask you a question?

Yeah, bet.

Why do you think they're a good fit?

He's just the way he's wired. He called me up and he said I have a new goal this year. I want to spend at least $75,000 on myself on education. And when after I joined I had a ton of value in the this is my first event by the way, side note, on the sales side, the video library is a gold mine. I felt like I received the value before I even showed up. And I think people need to think of that place as the place to go to ask questions on demand. So after I had all that I hadn't been to an event and I referred Cody and I said, hey, I just joined this group. I wanted to join for three years. Finally did and I love it. I think this would be a great place for you to connect with like minded people, learn things you didn't think you needed to learn and get problem solved. So that's what I said.

So Adam is a referent, you know, like note to self, he's a referent without even coming to his first meeting. I think that deserves a sitting ovation, don't you? Holy sitting ovation. And then the reason and I'm going to tell on myself because I want it to be transparent. You know what I'm doing, right. I'm trying to assist with my friend so it doesn't work as hard. That's why he has no hair. So why do you think I asked you? Why do you think he's a good fit?

Because then it educates everybody else on them starting to think who's the right.

Person to and I'm not selling anymore. Now I pass the baton, you know, the genius network baton over to him. And plus what a great way other than a 10 minute talk which I recommend you do as soon as it's available because it's the fastest way people will gravitate towards you. What a great way to be known just with a share. So great job, Adam.

Yeah, thank you. So my question was on referrals, where's the depending on the type of business I see referral incentives either having a place and sometimes they don't have a place. And I'd be really curious because I run an association membership association as well and I've hemmed and hawed on whether or not I should provide an incentive because it's kind of insulting to go to someone who is making a very substantial income and be like here's 50 bucks or 100 bucks or even $500. It's just. So what are your thoughts on what type of business and how do you draw the line on some sort of reward or incentive or just straight up asking?

Adam, we've never met, right?

Yeah.

Okay. I can't believe he asked me this question, because it's a layup for a teaching point, and I wouldn't have covered it except for him. So this is my experience. There are people with far more talent than me and specialists in areas that I don't have experience with. But here's what I know. There's transactional businesses, and there are relational businesses. I'm not a transactional business, and Genius Network is not transactional. That's the thing he can't stand. It's kind of like holy water to a vampire. I mean, he just goes away. Right. So with transactional businesses, incentives are there. And the challenge with that is those referrals come because of the bribe. If you're parents, you know that if you told your kids that, hey, you'll get this, you get to eat dessert before dinner. If you do such and such. Well, they're not changing their behavior. They're changing it because of the bribery.

Right.

And then probably there's more of them to love by the time they're 15 eating dessert before dinner. Right. But in this case, I would say in a relational business, never give an incentive, ever. They refer because they want to protect the community or the culture like we do. That's why we don't go out there. We get applications from the outside, but they're heavily vetted. And you can blame me. I rewrote the application. It's very heavy vetting because we want to protect this community. So what's the fastest, easiest way to protect a community? Refer. I would love Genius Network to be by referral only. So that's my answer. No incentive. We don't have any incentive.

No. And let me speak to that, too. It's a great point, too. I've had countless people say, can we do an affiliate thing? Because I can get a lot of people to join Genius Network. I'm like, no, because it's going to attract people in a way to where, yeah, it would bring in a big money grab, but it would be a completely different type of audience, and that's not the way that I want to do it.

And he's got it dialed in because I'm a paying member. And Every year since 2017, I've been doing a morning panel breakfast where there's about six or seven, sometimes $800,000 in new members coming in. And I'm paying for membership, so not only do I. Do I not get paid, I actually pay Joe. Right. And he still can't ask for referrals, so I don't know what that's about, but we want it. I'm the vaccine to that disease from this morning. Right?

Yeah. I guess the bigger question is why? Why do you do it?

Why do I do it?

I mean, I know why, but, like, you know, because we have a relationship and there's a lot of.

I'll tell you why. Three words. I love you. That's the truth.

I love you.

Thank you. Why would I do it? Why would I possibly do that?

You know, it is because of relationship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if you needed help, which I will help.

Right.

That's what. You help people that you care about.

Yeah. My life was on the line in a hospital nearby. He shows up with Cherie and he's there for three hours. And I'm on my deathbed last year, and it doesn't look like I'm on my deathbed now, but that's what he does, so that's what I do. And plus, I'm good at it, and I don't trust anyone else doing it, so I'm a control freak. So that's why I do it every year. Many of you have come through those morning panels, you know, and not everyone loves me. Some people say he's too salesy or whatever. Get over it.

Yeah. And I'll tell you, the people that are on the panels, for the most part, yeah. It's the only time, and I'll even say this at the annual event, that it's not. You know, when we've hired people, they want to try to orchestrate everything in order to ascend them into the pitch and everything. I'm like, no, I don't do that shit. Like, this is. It's not like, let's pick the speakers. So that at this particular time, you know, we have an optional breakfast session. That's the only time that there's going to be any sort of promotion. I am usually not even there.

He's forbidden to be there because he's in the sales suppression department. As far as Genius Network goes, he's not allowed in the room. Right. One time he was.

Well, a couple of times I went in and said, hi at the very. Towards the end. But yeah, yeah.

So cool.

Yeah. By the way, I want this also because I become conscientious about, like, people just feeling, oh, we're just trying to set up for you to, you know, hear a pitch or whatever? I mean, are you seeing the application of what he's talking about in your own business? Because if you're not, I want to make sure we go there and talk about that deeply. And we'll bring Dean Jackson on on this too, because Dean's masterful at this.

Can I ask you a follow up on it? When I got the text, did you write this text? Can I say just how impressed I am with your enthusiasm, your action, your wisdom, appreciate you jumping right into the group, blah, blah, blah. Wait, hold on a minute. I found the wrong one.

I was gonna say that's not me.

Yeah, that wasn't. You know, I'm so sorry. I thought I had it pulled up. The gist of it. I took a screenshot of it, actually. The way that the referral, when I was first asked was very, very well done.

Basically, I wrote it, probably.

So the idea was training the team that you led with, or whoever asked. Maybe it was.

Mike.

Mike. Maybe I just need to. Was that you that wrote the. Yeah. Can I. I would love. Then I'll punt it back to you.

And by the way, we don't ever do a canned personal message like that to everyone. If you got a message like that from us, that was individual.

No, it was. It was awesome. I shared it with my team. But I'd love to hear you break it down, the psychology behind it, because it was incredible.

I would say there was a little bit of like, okay, I know what I'm doing kind of a thing, but truly, we had a new member who came in who has asked a lot of questions, asked a lot of like, hey, what about this? And how does this work again? And can you check my email password on this? And so when we see that, we see that enthusiasm right up front, then that's when I shot off the. Can I just say how impressed I am with blah, blah, blah. And then I said, well, let me just alley oop that into a, please tell me, you know, five or six people just like you who we could bring into the group. So. And then he responded, well, that's a hell of a referral ask. And the whole goal of that was like, okay, if I see people who are jiving in very, very quickly, well, then A, I know they're a right fit. So I know we already had a good match and we're weeks into that relationship at that point. But then, B, I know he's got to surround himself with people who are great, and I know he Also appreciates what we're doing, which means he'll appreciate when I ask as well. So I think when you see these people who dive in pretty quickly, enthusiastically into what you're doing, don't feel like you have to earn it first. Capitalize on that right away. That was really where that came from.

Here's another nugget. Let's say someone's upset with you and they're now a detractor. They've given you a low score, they're pissed off, they're upset, whatever. It may not be your fault, but they think they're always right. Right? And believe me, I've done this a long time. The customer, the client, the patient, they're not always right. In fact, most times, they're not right. So that's the worst mantra I've ever heard. Remember, risk of insult is the price of clarity. But once you know that you have that, you know what will throw them off and kind of, you know, reframe them, as Bernhoff in the back would say, is ask them. Well, give me the number one reason why you wouldn't refer us to a client or to a colleague. What's the number one reason why you wouldn't refer us to a client or to a colleague? Now, I'm going to. If you're a parent, you've probably done this. Don't think of a pink elephant on a lazy Susan on a table going round and round right now. Okay? So I'm actually asking for the referral, but I'm also diffusing the. The upset of that person and a deterrent and a referent. I don't know. You can ask Mark. Food poisoning at a restaurant, that person will tell 10, 20 people not to go. But if great food at a restaurant may be two or three people, you know, many times, tops. Unless they're evangelical. So look for your reference. They're there. But no one looks for referrals. They look for referrals, but look for reference. Those are the people who are actually referring. And this is. He's a referent. Okay. You know who he's a number one referent to? Strategic coach. You know who's the number one referent to? Genius Network Strategic coach, Dan Sullivan. So there's an ecosystem here. Get it started. The sooner you start it, what a great initiative for 2025. Your ad cost will go way down, and then you'll be bathing in profits.

Okay. I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. They're over here.

Do it now. Come on.

Thank you.

Watch them.