85: Getting Referrals in a Respectful & FUN Way! By simply LISTENING to past episodes, Matt...

Welcome to the Mutually Amazing Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Domitrz, with the Center for Respect. The episode you're about to listen to was recorded when this show used to be called the Respect Podcast. So, you might hear that mentioned during this episode. Well, let's get to the show. This week, we've got Matt Ward. Matt helps businesses bring more caring to the world Resulting in more clients, more referrals, and more revenue. Matt, thank you so much for joining us.

Mike, thanks for having me on the podcast. I greatly appreciate it.

Oh, absolutely. And, and I've gotten to see you speak actually this year. So that was wonderful to get to see. And so to have you on now is great. Uh, we talk about respect here and respect has a lot to do with boundaries and in business, understanding where those boundaries exist for those who matter greatly to you and really to all people. Including those that may not want to be, let's say you're gonna go do like a, a golf outing or something. They don't wanna do that. How do you establish boundaries? How do you really honor people's boundaries in business?

Well, I, I think it comes down to the actual relationship. You know, the more you know someone, uh, the more you know and understand, uh, their, their boundaries. And certainly I think people will agree to do, do things even though it may be outside their comfort zone, but not outside Their boundaries. I once asked a guy to join me in a golf tournament and found out halfway through the tournament that he didn't enjoy golf, but he had agreed to come. Had I known he didn't enjoy golf, I certainly would have respected that and not asked him. But I think it's about having those conversations. You know, you talk about that a lot on your podcast, and I think communication is, is key to Respect and boundaries, um, in personal lives and in, and in business. Yeah.

One thing we teach people, whether it's work or intimacy, asking somebody, would you do this with me? Or is different than asking, what do you want to do? When we say, would you join me for this? They can feel an obligation that they're supposed to. And so they're saying yes, but they don't want to say yes. So people also struggle with their own boundaries. And that's why when you— somebody can ask a question like, hey, what do you like to do? Uh, and so you can do that together. There's no way that it can lean them, you know, it can feel like they're being pushed because it's just an open-ended question of which then you could create an experience together.

That's exactly right. The open-ended experience, the open-ended question allows for conversation that can flow in many different directions. Business conversations are all about how they How you learn more about other people, how you listen to people. Because when you ask that open-ended question, the conversation flows. And from that, if you're listening, you learn a lot about an individual. You know, I mean, if people have listened to your podcast, previous episodes, um, then they can learn a lot about you by just the things you've said on the podcast.

Absolutely. And it's always interesting when we say, oh, I listen. Well, are we listening without prejudgment and therefore really able to hear them?

Otherwise— Yeah, we don't want to listen to find something that caters to us, right? Right. We want to listen to have the entire open-ended experience, right? And so, you know, by listening to your podcast, I understand that you wrestled. You did cross country. You auditioned for a lip sync show.

Hey, I gotta give you credit, Matt. You have listened, that's for sure.

Well, and you also love sunsets.

Yeah, right? That is so true.

So there's things like this that just, if I was not sort of respecting you as a person, as a business person, then I would be sitting there listening to say, okay, what is Mike gonna say That aligns with my goals. And that is completely one-sided, right?

Right.

And so in that environment, as an individual, you're not caring for the other person. You're very self-centered. And so you wanna keep that, that perspective open, as open as possible, because, you know, now you find other things, right? You find things like the sunset, or, or where's the commonality in the relationships? That's how we grow these relationships. Relationships to deeper, more meaningful. And that is where respect grows even deeper, right? When the relationship grows, the, the respect is increased, I believe. Oh yeah.

Well, in a healthy relationship, right? And that's the key.

Absolutely.

Right. Absolutely. So I love that. And what I'm about to say is gonna sound bananas cuz it sounds like it's coming outta nowhere, but it's the word bananas. You, you talk about bananas. So the people are listening going, where's this coming from? But actually it relates. So how does bananas relate to business relationships and networking?

Absolutely. So I think, I think to some degree we've all been in a situation where we've been at a networking event, right? And we're in a conversation and somebody, a third party walks up, or maybe we're just by ourselves and we grabbed an appetizer or something and somebody walks up and within 3 seconds of approaching you within that personal space to network, they hand you a business card. The problem with small business is bananas, because bananas are the things that people walk into rooms and start handing out, not knowing whether we like bananas, are allergic to bananas, like the color yellow, or even hungry. There was no investigation, no understanding, no conversation around these bananas. The bananas are the analogy to the business card in the business world. It's like we buy business cards to just hand them out to anybody and everybody that Walks on the face of the earth or into a networking event or a conference. I don't believe that that shows respect for the individual in which you've walked up to, right? I have a personal belief that I never hand out my business card unless I'm specifically asked for my card. I'm not in the business of handing out business cards. I'm in the business of building relationships with people because that's how you go deep and that's how you actually do business with people that you know, Like, trust, and care about. And I think that's what the world needs more of.

Absolutely. I love that. And I'm the same way. People are like, oh, do you have a big stack of cards with you when you go to this thing? I'm like, there might be a couple of people that I'll offer a card to. I'm more likely to say, hey, can we stay in touch? And right there, we're more likely to say, well, what way would you like to do that? And if it's phone, if it's text, if it's Facebook, And we'll do it right there on our phones. Like there's no need to run around and it's sort of like plastering the cars at the parking lot at the grocery store, what you're describing, right? The old method.

Yeah.

Versus really engaging.

And I was at a networking event this week in Boston and there was a lot of people there. And, you know, I don't know, when you go to networking events, there's a lot, you know, there's like the fringe industries of type of people that show up and then there's the standard industry. So the banking and financial services and insurance, it's, there's a lot of those people that show up at networking events. And then the fringe ones are ones like, you know, maybe like the carpet cleaner. Maybe you go to a networking event and very rarely do you meet somebody who's a carpet cleaning person, right? And so, you know, it never fails that those financial industry sectors are the ones handing out their business cards. And I had this experience just this week in Boston where a life insurance agent Just handed me the card. And Mike, this all came about because years ago I was at a conference where I was an exhibitor and I had a web design company and I was walking down the exhibit lane, you know, the, the row of the vendor booths. And this guy Sean walked out and he presents his hand and, and I go to shake it. And then with his other hand, he goes to hand me a business card. And he says, he's like standing there like waiting for me to take it. And I just passed on it. I was polite. I didn't say anything about it, and I just kinda passed on the business card. And he said, oh, here's my card. And I said, oh, I'm all set, thanks. And he says, you don't want my card? And I said, no, what would I do with that? And he says, well, surely you know someone that needs a website. At which point I pointed at my shirt that said Central Mass Web Design on it, and I said, and why would I need that? And this is the problem. Is that there's no awareness, no, no situational awareness about who you're even talking to that you're trying to hand out your card to. You're, you're handing your web design card to a web designer.

Yeah, it's, it's amazing. I mean, that's truly amazing of how unaware any— and we all do it at times, you know.

And so at the time I called it the Pez dispenser, but then I realized I might have to change that. Because there's a lot of people in this world now that have no idea what a Pez dispenser is.

That's true. That is very true. Yeah.

Because they've kind of gone by the wayside, you know?

Yeah, it's so true. All right, well, you are about getting referrals, and here we're talking about business cards, and that's what you teach. So what is the respectful way? What is the fun way, right? So it doesn't feel slimy. And, you know, you said that the unfortunate, uh, unhealthy view of used car sales— how How do you get that way of getting referrals?

Yeah, so I think the right way is to care about other people. If you show up in people's lives on a consistent, regular basis, if you respect them and their business, then they don't want you to go away. And the byproduct of that is them giving you referrals. You see, because the reason they don't want you to go away, Mike, is because you're the only one showing up for them. Very few times now we get things in the mail, right? We get email thank-yous, we get lots of email, we get text messages, Facebook messages, things like that, but we rarely get things in the mail. And in my trainings and workshops and talks, I talk about going from the inbox to the mailbox because it matters much more when people receive physical things in the mail. You don't have to always give gifts, but— Just a handwritten thank you card that's personalized makes a huge impact. That's what happened with me with a mutual friend of ours who I, I had referred somebody to a workshop that Tamsen Webster was doing. And I attended the workshop and another speaker attended the workshop and Tamsen wrote a handwritten thank you card and mailed it to me, which was awesome. Right. But inside that thank you card, Were 9 postcards from my hometown of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Now, the impact that that had on me, that she listened to me, she paid attention, right? She connected with me in a way because I'm always talking about Hershey on Facebook to my friends and whatnot. And, and she knew that that's what I was all about. And so she included some postcards in there that I have no idea where she got them. Maybe eBay, maybe Amazon. I have no idea. But people don't mail stuff like that to me all the time. I had another client, and then they weren't actually even a client, they were an attendee at the, uh, Chimney— National Chimney Sweep Association. I spoke there, and these folks were a chimney sweep company in Kansas City, Missouri, and they mailed me a huge jar of Hershey Kisses in the mail afterwards. And I'm like, that is powerful. And these people, they, they cut through the social media noise that's out there, Mike. And now look, I'm on a podcast talking about them and their businesses, right? So that's when you stand out in ways, that's arguably the best way you could ever get referrals. And if you do it not to get referrals, you do it because you care, then you get referrals. It's just referrals are a byproduct of caring about other people.

Well, I love that phrase. That's just so brilliant. Referrals are a byproduct of caring. That's so powerful, Matt. Love it. How long does it take for people to get to that place where they have their business in a place that can draw word-of-mouth referrals? How do they jumpstart that?

So it takes a while, right? Because if you start a new business, it's very difficult to next day be getting word-of-mouth referrals, although it's possible, um, because your friends, family, people that know you will support you. But the likelihood is it takes time and you need to get the snowball rolling. One way you Yeah. The way you can jumpstart this is by doing this thing I refer to as a 20-20-20 plan. It's, it's very scientific. You grab 20 cards, you write out the cards, and one person gets a card, right? So you're basically mailing a physical card to 20 different people over the course of a month, right? So each of the 20 people get one card, and then you repeat that process the second month. That's the second 20.

Now, what's, what's in the card?

I get this question a lot, Mike, and it's as simple as, thank you for being there for me. Thank you for showing up.

Okay.

Thank you for being an entrepreneur and bringing your great gifts to the world. Um, congratulations on your son or daughter graduating high school. Congratulations on being an empty nester. Um, congratulations on, you know, your write-up in the local business journal, or thank you for supporting the youth. I saw the article in the Chamber of Commerce email.

Gotcha.

Things like that. It could be anything, right? See, when you start looking for these things, they just start coming up. They start popping up, and you'll find funny things to write in cards, and then you'll find serious things to write. They don't always have to be a thank you. And so once you do the 20 to the 20 people the first month, you take those same 20 people and they get a card the second month, and then you rinse and repeat the third month, right? So you've done now 3 months of 20 cards to 20 people, basically each person getting 3 cards over a 3-month timeframe. And I guarantee you, you'll get a referral. I can't guarantee you how much it's worth. I can't even guarantee you if you'll close it or if it's qualified, but somebody will send you somebody.

Are they in there? Is the card— is your card in there? Like, how do they know you have a— okay, so how do they know you have a business?

Oh, they know. They know. If you're mailing a card— so first of all, I was asked one time, uh, I just— this person asked me, well, I just became Facebook friends with somebody on Facebook, um, how do I get their address? How do I mail them a card? And I said, you don't, right? The relationship isn't at that level yet.

Right.

So the 20 people you pick, you're gonna have addresses for, and they know who you are, right? And you don't include your business card because the minute you do that It's now self-serving.

I— right, that's what I say. It goes back to what we discussed earlier. You're just, you know, blitzing everybody with a card.

Yeah, now, now it's marketing. It's not caring.

Correct.

Right? And so there are automated systems out there, Mike, that allow you to do, um, cards with like graphic fonts and pictures in them. And I'm not saying that those things are bad. I'm just saying we don't want to confuse those. Those are marketing and advertising. We still need to do those things. I'm just saying that they're— let's not confuse them with caring. Caring is about having an intent focused on an individual and executing on that intent, whether it's a card, whether it's a— you know, I saw a Facebook post by a friend, a speaker friend of mine in Toronto one time. She had gone to France. She came back and she said that she was back and she was like missing France, and I went on Amazon and bought a little Eiffel Tower keychain and mailed it to her. Yeah, and there's no benefit for me in that, right? But the first thing she did as soon as she got it, Mike, was went on Facebook and posted pictures of it, you know? And she knew who it was from. I just signed my name, Matt. I didn't even sign my full name. Now, if it's a fringe connection, if it's somebody that you met at a networking event and you think maybe possibly they might not— you know, there's a lot of Mikes in the world, right? There's a lot of Matts in the world.

Right, right.

So then you just sign your last name.

Yeah, trick I use, like, because I have a funky last name, really funky last name.

So everybody's going to remember that.

Well, actually, because of it, if you're, if you're signing, right, you sign in cursive normally. And so I make a point to do it in, in, uh, oh my gosh, what's the opposite of cursive? Print. Print. There we go. I can't believe I have a brain freeze.

Yeah, it's okay.

So they can, so they understand who it is, because I, like you said, there are a million Mikes. And if they can't read the last name, and you know what I mean, perfectly with the strangeness, it's a little— but it makes— it just helps. But you're right, I would never do that, right, to my best friend. I'm not signing Mike Domish.

Right. And the other thing is you have a very unique last name in which it's pronounced differently than it's read.

Right.

Right. And so for years I was pronouncing it in my head differently until I actually heard you explain it the day we spoke together at the same event. To the organizer. I heard you phonetically pronounce it. So if I was coaching you along, I would say maybe put the phonetic spelling in parentheses when you first start the relationship with people.

Right.

Right, so that they're pronouncing it right, because that is memorable, right? Yeah, it's brilliant. As Jay Baer says, that's a talk trigger. So that's something that people can talk about. So it's unique. And then afterwards, you just eventually start dropping your name because now you're Mike. See, here's the thing. If you're consistently staying in touch with people, which is the ultimate thing that you have to do to get word-of-mouth referrals in your business and to care about people and show respect for other people, you're gonna be showing up in their lives so much, when the word Mike is said in that home or that business, you're the first Mike they think of.

That's powerful.

There's a lot of Mikes out there, right? So like, if you're the one they're thinking of, then that's gonna produce referrals. And I firmly believe Mike, that people should be focusing their efforts on the type of people that they would want to have at their home, right? These are the people they get along with. I call it the high-five effect. And so the type of people you can high-five in any office environment, any place you are, these are the people you would invite to your, your children's weddings, your, you know, your backyard barbecues, your July 4th events, your Labor Day events, all of these things that you do at your home. I'm not saying you do invite them. I'm simply saying that the type of people you would invite, right, that you want in your life because they raise your game. Right. And you—

Absolutely. You're, you're a better you when you're around them. Right?

That's right.

That's right. Right now, Matt, that was all just for somebody getting started. What about the person who has the established business? What's one thing they can do today to start getting referrals?

So they need to go back to basics. It's just connection, right? And one thing they can do to jumpstart, um, is, is this LinkedIn approach. I call it the, um, the catch-up call, right? Which is just, hey, go to LinkedIn with your connections, the people that are active that are on the feed, and you send them a one-off message and it simply says, hey, what's going on? I haven't talked to you in a while. Would love to catch up. Right? And so you catch up and you try and schedule something, and 50% of the people are going to schedule something, right? I mean, when I did this, when I made a switch in my business from selling my agency to moving into speaking, I did this exact thing, and I had 55 calls the following week with people to just tell them what I'm up to and find out what they're up to. And 2 of them produced real referrals For real speaking engagements in other parts of the country than where I live now.

That's awesome. How does somebody know if they're doing referrals right?

Well, they, I mean, they should be coming in, right, consistently, and they should be tracking them. You know, are they monitoring, you know, are referrals a greater percentage of your business? Now we have to make the assumption that we're doing, we're, we're, Having real conversations with people. We've been in business a while now. If we're at the 5-year mark, maybe 50% of our business should be referrals, right? And if we're, if we're not doing it right, then we're probably asking for referrals. We're probably struggling. We're probably saying, hey, do you know someone that knows someone?

I want to pause you on that one because in the speaking world, this is recommended a lot. I'm curious what you think of it. People put in their contracts, That you agree to give me 3 referrals if I do a great job. That kind of a phrase. What do you think of that?

So if we find somebody that has that in the contract and we ask them directly if they enforce it, every single person I've ever asked who's a speaker that has said that they have that in the contract also tells me they do not enforce it. And the reason is they put it in the contract in hopes that they get the referrals, but they don't enforce it because they don't wanna look like They don't want to look like a fool. They don't want to be the the difficult person to work with, right? Right.

The minute you try and push that, make you look like a fool by putting it in.

I think so. Uh, I I I.

And by the way, years ago I think I tried it. I think years and years ago because people were telling me this is what you do. And if I remember right, we pulled it out fast because it was like it just feels like yeah.

Well, so it's the same reason I won't actually on you know on these um on cards and papers I put on the tables when I do a talk. It's the same reason I won't. Ask if you know someone that needs my service. Now, I know speakers that do that on these forums, and people do put stuff down, but I assure you that those are not referrals. Those are leads. Leads are not people ready, willing, and able to buy. A referral is something that is pre-qualified, Mike. The individual knows they need your product or your service. The person connecting you Has already explained that you charge for your service, that you're the expert, and they've already vetted the fact that the person needing your service actually needs the service and is willing to take your call. When we're in speaking engagements and people write names on sheets, half those people you can't even get ahold of afterwards, right?

They're just leads. Right, that is a very different— right, that's a lead. Now you can make that, and we do that. Now we don't do it, do you have a lead for us? We'll say, because this is what we believe, We want to get to more people earlier because of our topic. We want to avoid— so are there schools you think this fits in? And people will tell us their high schools, their— then the name of the people and all. But the difference is now, are you able to reach out and say, are you able to make that intro for us?

So notice the word you used there, Mike, was intro. I believe in asking for introductions, not asking for referrals. Introductions is different than asking for referrals. Introductions is asking for connections. It's asking for an introduction to another person. It's not asking for an introduction to a sale, right? And that's where people who get asked balk, because when you ask for referrals, you get one of two answers. Either the first one is, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know someone, and it's a lead, right? Because there's no way they know the referral right there and then and all their contact information. Or number two, they say, yeah, I know someone, I'll get back to you, and then you hear nothing. Ever again, right? Because they wanted to get out of this uncomfortable situation. When you're prompted, Mike, when you go buy a pizza for your family tonight and they ask you if you know somebody else that wants to buy a pizza tonight, how awkward would you feel?

Right, you hate it. Yes.

It's just all— so why do we as business owners expect that doing that same behavior will produce good results?

Exactly.

It doesn't. So instead What we want to do is say, you know, have a conversation, ask for an introduction. I think what you're doing is you're saying, hey, who, who can we reach, you know, quicker? You know, is there a school you know or something like that?

Right, that's it. That's it.

All you're really doing there is building a database. It's not even a referral.

That's right. That's what I was saying before. It's not unless you go back to the student or the audience member, the CEO, and say, hey, thank you for this. Would you be willing to make an introduction? Then the introduction can turn into a referral.

Absolutely. And, and only when— and, and it's imperative too that when we are working with our partners and our referral sources, that we are trying— we are training these people to give us referrals. When I had my website agency, Mike, I would get all kinds of leads from people, and I would push back on these folks to say, yeah, That new business, that's not a referral, that's a lead. If you could call that new business and find out if they would like our website service, then that would be great. Because I'm not gonna get through to this new business and they don't know who I am, right? Instead, if we say to the student in the audience, oh, this is amazing, are you able to have a conversation with them tomorrow and then I'll follow up with you after that conversation? One of the other pieces of wording I like to use, Mike, is— Is, um, yeah, why don't you give me a call and we'll strategize about how to make this connection? Because now we're very clearly training individuals who are within our sphere on how to refer us. And it's also important that if we get a, a referral that's not a good referral, that pans out to be not a good referral, that we go back to our referral source and we educate them on why that wasn't a good referral so they're not consistently giving us stuff that is just wasting our time, right? Because that's important too, right? We have to respect our time and their time because otherwise they feel that they did a good thing and it turned out it just— it wasn't as good as they thought it was because it was just invalidated, you know?

Right, right. Yeah. No, very, very powerful. I love this. And you have a few books that you think are helpful in this, and one of them I know is Never Eat Alone by Keith Rossi.

Yeah.

I've read that one absolutely, and Unthink by Eric Wahl. Why these books?

So Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi was the game changer for me. I talk about it in my talk. It's a very prominent piece of my talk. That book is about— it's about a lot of things, but really what I took from that book was the ability to give without the expectation of getting anything in return, and that's a very difficult habit to build. So you read the book and then you start practicing giving and you start to think to yourself, but when's my turn? And you start to suppress that thought and eventually it goes away and you only have that thought about once or twice a year. And so that's a big game changer for me. The other book, Unthink by Eric Worre, is really about the creativity to be different. And Eric is what set me on my journey to be a professional speaker.

Uh-huh.

His ideas on thinking out of the box and creativity are really a game changer when it comes to to doing things different in your business and frankly in your life. That's why I love both those books.

Fantastic. Thank you. Now what's the best way people can get a hold of you, Matt?

My website is mattwardspeaks.com. I had to throw in the last name unlike yours. People can get a hold of me there. I'm certainly out on the Twittersphere and the Facebook stuff. Feel free to connect with me on personal stuff and LinkedIn as well.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Matt. And I want to make sure that our listeners, uh, one, can find you there and that they know that they can find those links on our show notes. So if they're driving or whatever, thinking, how do I get that website? It's all in the show notes. So thanks so much, Matt.

Mike, thank you for having me. I greatly appreciate it.

Oh, absolutely. For our listeners, you know what's next. It is question of the week. This week's question of the week is, Mike, what's a quote that you really love That talks about respect in ourself as a human being. I love this one from Mahamat Saki. The quote is, respecting someone indicates the quality of your personality, end of quote. I think it speaks for itself. We'd love to hear your questions, your thoughts, and your ideas. And the best place to leave those with us is on our Facebook page at facebook.com/MutuallyAmazingPodcast. Of course, you can always contact us on our website at mutuallyamazingpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe to this show so you automatically get it every week. And if you could take one moment to leave a review, that really helps other people find the show, which we are greatly appreciative of. So thank you so much for joining us. May you make today and every day a life full of mutually amazing relationships.