How To Build An Army Of Referral Partners with Dean Jackson

Get your ego out of the way and realize that it's not about you, it's about them. And the reason that people often don't get as many referrals as they could is because they have a mental block. You've automatically put it in the category of something that you believe somebody is doing as a favor for you, and that's not at all what's happening. The reason that people refer anything is not as a favor to you, but as a favor to their friend. We're not trying to turn your clients into salespeople for you. We're trying to turn you into a dopamine dealer for them.

All right, here we are back again. Dean Jackson, are you my friend? Yeah.

I love it. This is good to see you again.

It is nice to be seen and nice to see you. I love collaborating and inventing cool stuff. And we decided that the name of this episode was going to be the Business Owner's Referral Toolkit, which is how to build an army of referral partners with customers, relationships, and some tips and strategies that you haven't shared before, and they're not available anywhere else. So my intrig o meters on, what do we have?

I love it. Well, you know, I have been fascinated by referrals for a long, long time. And this is something that I've spent a lot of time studying and seeing the practical applications of how to.

How to orchestrate referrals. And it's funny that, you know, we.

A lot of my study came from studying real estate agents, which get a lot of referrals. But the same. The psychology is valid across all businesses. Right. So I'm going to go right to the level where the reason we dive right in, the reason that people often don't get as many referrals as they could is because they have a mental block about asking for referrals, that they're thinking that that's what they're doing, that they're asking for referrals. And as soon as you say that, you've automatically put it in the category of something that you believe somebody is doing as a favor for you. And that's not at all what's happening. That's not why people refer. A lot of times, people who are business owners or. Or practitioners or service people or whatever it is, they feel reluctant to ask or to even bring up referrals because it feels like showing weakness or it feels like you're saying, well, I can't get business on my own and I need you to send me. Would you Please send me some business. And I think people block themselves that way. Right. So I'm going to clear that right up. Is that the reason that people refer and anything is not as a favor to you, but as a favor to their friend. They want their friend to have the result or the experience or get the help that you have, but they don't want it to be. And the only way they'll do that is if they feel that you definitely are going to make them look good. Because what they want out of it is, is they want to feel good and how they feel good. And I'll stop saying they. I'll say we. How we feel good is when we recommend something to somebody and then they acknowledge us later for having recommended it. And so I used. I like to take it down to things that we. There's no difference between the way we recommend books and restaurants and movies and all of those things. We are social creatures. We are.

We're genetically wired, predisposed to share good things with our tribe. Right? That goes back to our whole tribal instincts that the reason we formed a society was so that we could pool together for raising this quality of life and the productivity of the whole group. Everybody using their strengths or using what they're good at for the benefit of everybody. Right? Now, when you look at that, if you take a social situation, if I see you, and it's not unlikely, especially in our interactions or with our people, if I recommend a book to you or a tool to you and you then go and read that book or you watch that movie or you go to that restaurant or whatever it is, is when I see you again, what I'm, you know, somewhere back in my mind, I'm waiting for that acknowledgment that you read that book or that you saw the movie or you went to the restaurant or you tried the service provider and when you say to me, oh, I read that, that was so awesome, or that was just the message I needed right now, or I went to that restaurant, it was so great, or whatever it was. When you say those things to me, what happens is that my. I puff up and I get the squirts of dopamine and I feel good. This wave of acknowledgment comes over me, and that's what I'm looking for in that interaction. The reason that I recommended it to you is because I want that experience right now. When you think about that, that we've all been in situations where if that wasn't forthcoming, you may prompt it, you may Say hey, did you, did you go to that restaurant? And then they'll go, oh yes, it was so great. And then you still get the puff and you get the squirts of dopamine and you feel good. And so when you reframe it, that that's what's happening and everybody is wired like this, that, that's the feeling that we're looking to engineer for our friends, our sphere, our people who know us when they recommend us to their friends, their colleagues, the people that they know, that's level one of this, right? So let's have a conversation there for a second because that is the base camp here for making the journey up Referral Mountain.

Okay, well so where my brain always goes whenever I hear something like that is I go, okay, how do I systematize it? How do I automate it? How do I create a replicable experience? So you and I are both advisors and consultants and we essentially live on the quality of our reputations and many of the people that we work with also do. And in my experience, going from referral to client, that is invested financially and emotionally is like a one step process, right. Versus traditional marketing which is.

Going through many steps of familiarization. And I need to make sure I trust you first and sniff you out and you know, I'm not going to bring you home just in case you're going to be a baby eater. So how do we engineer this in a way that is replicable? And we can go from ask to gather to prepare. And I've got a system myself, but yeah, guide us through it. What's your, what's your process?

So there's the, so that, that, that motivation that I call that the secret psychology of why people refer, right? Is that this, in that moment when I recommend something to you that you had never heard of and it brings value to you and you acknowledge that value, that what happens is for that moment I am higher status in the herd than you are at that moment. That that raises my status in the herd right away because I'm bringing value. Now this goes all the way back evolutionary to where we were tribal, you know, in groups of 150 people that if we ever had to call the herd, if we ever had to, to separate or whatever, you can't get rid of the people who are the most valuable. You constantly have to provide and prove your value to the herd. Right? But if I'm a.

If I'm a taker from the herd, I'm not giving value, I'm not bringing, contributing anything New that puts my position in the herd in jeopardy. Right? So we're wired to continually, among our friends and closest people to add value. We want to do that. Now, when you start to think about that, that's actually what's happening now. We have to look at the mechanics of how referrals actually happen to bring it down to something actionable. And what I've discovered out of this is that all referrals happen as a result of conversation. And in those conversations, three things have to happen. First of all, they have to notice that the conversation is about real estate or money or whatever your category of business is, Right? They have to notice that the conversations about, I'll just use real estate as example, because we're all familiar with that and we can extrapolate from it. But they have to notice that the conversations about real estate, they have to think about you and they have to introduce you to the person that they had the conversation with. Those three things all have to fire in order for a referral to take place. Now you remember. So Joe Stump and I used to do big real estate seminars all over the country. And every month I had an opportunity, like a little laboratory there to get people. I would get 10 people to stand up and I would have them tell me the story of the last referral that they got. And what I was looking for was just tell me the name of the person, how it happened and what ended up coming. And so the stories that I would hear were 80% of the time somebody said, well, I got a call from Joan, who said that she was friends with my client, Mike Koenix, and that I helped Mike sell his house and could I help him help her sell hers. That's 80% of the referrals that come in there. I call those passive referrals. People just call you up and said, I was talking to my friend. They said, you could help me. That's 80% of the referrals that we get. Then the other 20% of the stories that I heard were I got a call from my client Mike, who said, I was talking with my friend Joan, she's going to be selling her house, you should give her a call. And I call those a reactive referral because now you have to do something, right? You have to call Joan and connect with her and make the connection there. Whereas with the passive referral, she was a one step process, just like you said, right? They show up and here we are. Now what I didn't ever hear, I never heard somebody talk about this third category of Referral, which I call an orchestrated referral. And an orchestrated referral is when you apply those same three things, noticing, thinking, and introducing, that you look at what's going on around you. That, let's say on Monday. I make it a point to think about who am I showing houses to this week? And I realize that I'm showing houses in La Jolla and they've got somebody looking for an oceanfront condo. And so I think about that and I look and scan my environment of my friends that are in my top 150 that live in oceanfront condos, and I might give them an opportunity. Now I say send a quick email. Hey, Mike, I'm showing condos this week to a couple from Las Vegas, and they're looking for a condo on the ocean in La Jolla, and I'm showing them in down the street from you. Have you heard anybody talking about selling in your building? We may be able to match them up with this couple from Las Vegas. That, that little thinking process of observing what I've got going on, observing who my clients are, and giving them the opportunity to feel good by matching up or hooking up their, their neighbor who maybe just yesterday when you saw them down by the pool, said they were going to be moving. That. That's a great win for everybody. Right? And it doesn't feel like asking for referrals. It feels like introducing a specific situation that's right in their go zone. And so we've got people who. One of the strategies we use, we call Market Maker Monday, where you use that as a strategy of thinking through what you've got going on and what's coming up, and is there anybody that would be specifically able to, to do that? And the other, you know, part of that.

That happens is it feels like it's a unique opportunity, too. Right? Because it is a unique opportunity. It's not. It's not like, hey, do you just let you know how important your referrals are to us? And you know, we're not talking about that. We're talking about a specific situation. And it makes such a difference the way you treat the referrals, you know, the way that you treat the. The orchestration of how you get referrals.

So as I look through that, and I think, you know, in a way, they're almost event driven. It's like you need a special reason or an event to create that unique thing. It's like, hey, this coming Saturday, I have a blog going on. Who can you think of who might want? And you've got a craft, that experience or that offer or that opportunity in a way that doesn't sound like it's contrived and it really does need to feel special.

That's exactly right. So that's where it has to be that way. And that's really a specific strategy. But when we do it on a general way, it's kind of like an add on to a strategy that we use to build awareness about the conversations that people are having.

That's really what the thing is, right, Is that.

Excuse me, we're drawing attention to the conversations that are going on. So one of the things that we do is we use a tool we call the world's most interesting postcard. And it's like a postcard newsletter, but on the back side of it is a post it what looks like a post it note graphic with a note that each month we highlight a very specific conversation. So we think if all referrals happen as a result of conversation, your clients are having conversations all the time. And I say to people, imagine if we could plant a chip in the ears of your clients, listen in on all their conversations, and when you hear certain trigger words, you're alerted that there's a conversation going on in, you know, in client number 37, and you can listen in and whisper in their ear how to turn that into a referral. One of the things that you'd have to figure out is what are we going to program the chip to listen for? What are the high probability conversations that your client is going to be in in the moments where they may be able to hear or have a recommendation? So you think about. I've shared this strategy with Melissa at strategic coach, where, you know, Dan has all of these books that he's doing, all the. The knowledge books and the quarterly books. Lots of titles, lots of different situations that are going. And what I said to Melissa one day was to. To demonstrate this, I said, melissa, I'll be you today. And I said, she usually comes in and asks if anybody wants to refer anybo while we're at the workshop with the little form for everybody to fill out. But most people are not thinking that way right then, like as they are in the field. And I said, so I modeled it. I said, okay, well, here's what I want you to do is take out your cell phone right now and enter my number in your phone under strategic coach Melissa. And then I want you to text me right now so that I'll have text me your name right now so I'll have your number in my phone so when it comes in, I'll recognize that it's you. Then if you're ever out in the field, you're at lunch or you're in conversation with an entrepreneur who you think that any one of these books that we have in the back of this thing would be an appropriate thing for their situation, I want you to text me right away and I'll send you a copy of that book to give to them. And now, so you imagine this thing that now all of everybody wants to feel like they're connected. Everybody wants to feel like they've got pull, right? Like status. So if you are so connected to Strategic Coach that you're out with somebody and you're talking about a book that might have a difference, you're talking about always be the buyer. That that would be a great concept for somebody to get their mind around. Or the four Cs, it might be a thing for somebody to refer or that would help them out. That if you're there at lunch, you're having that conversation, you're kind of telling them about that. And you say, you know what, I'm going to get you a copy of that book. And you pull out your phone and you text Melissa and you say, hey, Melissa, can you send me a copy of the, the book, the four C's book. And she's going to be able to reply back and say, hey, Mike, of course. So now you look like you're connected, that when Mike Koenig's talks, things start happening. He's got pulled. He's going to get me a book. Now Melissa's involved in a conversation with you.

Where you get to look like a star, you get to be the hero. And that's really the thing is everybody, all of your clients want to be a hero to their friends, not to you. And you're giving them the chance to be a hero to their friends. So that's really, you know, you think about all of those conversations. Every one of Dan's books is an example of a high probability conversation that one entrepreneur might have with another. And if it's not something set up to orchestrate the referral like that, that conversation may go by without any action being taken on it. You may have that conversation and you start explaining the four Cs to them and say, you should look up Strategic coaches. Look up, go to strategiccoach.com and, and see all. I've been going for years. I love it. And that's the extent of it. And then you show up at the workshops, and you see Melissa or whoever and say, hey, did my friend ever call? No. No. Well, I tell people about you all the time. I tell, you know, and that's. But you don't hear about it. And so what we want to do is turn the tables so that they're. It's not that they're telling people about you without you knowing. It's about them telling you that they've had these conversations. And that alone is going to multiply the number of referrals you get. Because for every one referral that comes in passively or reactively, there's three to five conversations that they've had that went all the way but didn't fire on all three levels. They noticed that the conversation was about something. They thought about you. But maybe they didn't say anything or they said something but they didn't tell you. We're not trying to turn your clients into salespeople for you. We're trying to turn you into a dopamine dealer for them.

That's great. So I have a couple ideas that popped up from listening to you. Those are really, really good. And what I was thinking about is, okay, again, how do I mechanize this? How do I provide a system? So.

Really the most important takeaway I got from this is you need to create a high quality problem solution activator inside the mind of your referral partner. So anytime you think of. So for example, one of them. I know I get a lot of calls. For example, this is like one is, I had cancer. So when someone hears that, so and so a friend of theirs got cancer, they're like, oh, I got to talk to my friend Mike. He survived stage three. And I started getting so many of those calls that it ended up taking up an enormous amount of my time. So much so that I wrote a book called Cancerpreneur, which essentially answered all those questions. And now anyone sends me a referral, hey, will you talk to so and so I'll say, hey, read my book. And if you have any other questions, then I'll talk to you, because it's all there. But that isn't a business challenge. In other words, I don't want to be known as the guy that everyone calls for that problem. That was a. That was a gift in, you know, sort of like a survivor's message.

Yeah.

And then you don't also don't want to be a low level solution. So, for example, I built a reputation early on in, as a teenager as a fix it guy. Like any kind of a technology problem. Everyone in my neighborhood and in my the town I grew up in knew Mike was a computer guy. So if anyone had a computer problem, they called me. And unfortunately, it was framed as though he'll just fix it for you on the phone. That was the message that went out. So basically I became Mike's free technical support hotline. It was like, solve this one problem, then I'm done. Versus what I really wanted and needed was, you know, business, business. So you got to make sure that you're not in the fix a emergency problem for free person, Right?

Exactly.

Yep. And so, for example, like one thing that from our previous episode here, I know both you and I would be good solutions for a business that needs to virtualize itself. Right now.

In the current state of the market, we've got a whole bunch of business owners, business leaders, who they didn't virtualize in time, or they're trying to find ways to have virtual teams connect with them effectively, be able to convert their business to being virtualized and being intimate, and also enrolling their clients and customers and being able to provide delivery in a virtualized way. And they need to do it fast, and they need their teams to be brought up to speed quickly and know what kind of tools to use. So.

That would be a situation where you'd say, look, if you know of any business owners right now who are struggling and they lost a big chunk of their business because they can't do things the way they used to, you need to get up and running, give this guy a call, right? So that way you could say, anytime someone says is in a blah problem, and you have to really create that. Install that subroutine effectively, as you say, install the chip.

And also.

Do it in a way that it's easy to refer. So I'll share. One thing that I've done.

That works really well is I do a strategy. I call it money Phone.

And there's a variety of money phone recipes. But one of them is when I get to know someone who is very well networked, and they're like, oh, man, I'm so glad I met you. Because I know people who need what you do all the time. What I do is is either right there on the spot, I make a little video on my phone. So I pull out my phone, and if they're next to me, if you're in the phys in physical proximity, I'll hold it up and say, hey.

Let'S say if I were with you, it would be, hey, Dean, you and I were Just talking about how a lot of people, you know, need help virtualizing their businesses right now. And I thought we'd make this video together that you can share with anyone who ever needs help to introduce me. So you'd say, hey, this is my friend Mike. And you'd say whatever you need to say about me. And then I'd say, now if you'd like some help, Dean has introduced us by text. You can just respond back and I'll send you a link so you can get on my calendar. We can have a brief conversation, I'll see if I can help you out, and then blah, blah, blah. Okay. In my studio, I make referral videos all the time. And it's just basically a hey, we got introduced through my friend Dean. You know, Dean is a really brilliant guy and knows how to solve big problems. And I'd like, I'm. Blah. I can help you with blah and the same kind of message and I make it easy to share. So again, it's something that I always tell people, no, just save this to your camera roll and, and that way anytime you meet someone, you can forward that video right to me and to them in real time. And I found that if, if, you know, five minutes goes by, nothing's going to occur. And when I see a referral like that come in, boom, I'm on it. I've got pre programmed key codes in my phone that are like little mini autoresponders.

Yes.

So you know, they're like one of them is, here's where to schedule on my phone. I've got a whole bunch that are examples of work I've done that are work samples. Right?

Yeah.

And so that's really useful. The other thing that I do is like when you were talking about Melissa earlier, put me in your phone. Well, a lot of people don't know this, but there's a service that. And I'll give you a link right now so you know what it is. And I'll set this up. And it's at go to paidforlife.com QR but it's a little online tool that lets you create a QR code that has your whole contact record embedded in it.

Yeah, I love it.

So then you can tell someone, hey, hold up your phone, bring up your camera and just point it at this QR code and it'll automatically add my contact record to your phone.

Isn't that amazing?

You can do that. You can also do one that automatically initiates a text message.

Yeah.

So that way it's like scan this. And all you got to do is type in your name.

And it'll send me a message with your info in it. Isn't that great?

Yeah. I'm super excited about QR codes again. I thought they had a lot of potential. When they first came out, I was really excited about it, but it proved to be such a hassle because you had to have a reader and nobody knew what to do with them and you had to go download this app and whatever. And now and all you have to do is point your phone at it.

Isn't it great?

So amazing.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, it's so easy. And yeah, it's because they built it into.

Every phone, every Android, every iPhone. You just bring up your camera app and point it and it's there.

But that's a really good clue. Now what, in your experience. Let's talk a little bit about events that get people's attention and hooks, memorable hooks. How do you become the memorable person? Who has the solution and what kind of information have you found you need to share to.

Increase the trust in the shortest period of time? I like to think of it like this. The Dan and I started calling it the Civitas moment, which is. What's the one word?

Offer.

What is the shortest story that needs to be told to elevate you, build trust and create a transaction moment? Because ultimately, from a business perspective, that's what we're looking for.

So you're saying now, outside of referrals, is that what you're going.

I'd say inside a referral. So how do I go from referrals? Referral to an enrolled customer, a closed deal in the shortest period of time through your lens?

Yeah. Well, I think that you normally like it when you look at how we're programming that chip. What you were talking about is being aware of what those situations are and orchestrating it so that the first. The way that that starts is then immediately on a path that leads to the next domino that leads to them doing business with you. So a book is a great way because it starts off with the reason that they.

Are being introduced to you in the first place. Right. Because the book title is the clue or placeholder for what the result that they need is. Right. And so that's why I'm such a big fan of having a book. And books are so highly referable. Right. That. And it's not even feeling like referral, it's giftable. That I'm going to get you a copy of this book that. That feels like the right thing. So how do we do it? We start programming people to recognize or pay attention when they hear these conversations. And I mentioned about the world's most interesting postcard. What we do on the back and is have a little post it note message that says hey Mike, just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about buying their first house this month or you hear someone talking about putting their house on the market or going virtual or virtualizing their business or switching from online or from in person to online piano lessons or whatever it is, whatever that is. Just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about this, then a little bit of amplifier about why you might be hearing that. Then if you do hear someone, give me a call or text me and I'll get you a copy of my book how to virtualize your business in one weekend or whatever the title might be. It's got all kinds of tips for how to step by step get your business prepared for being the new virtual world. That that's a very simple thing, right? Then the next month we may think about another type of high probability conversation, but use the same pattern. Just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about. Insert high probability conversation here. Here's the reason why you're going to hear that. If you hear someone talking about it, give me a call or text me. It's always easier to have your client who already knows you, likes you and trusts you to call you than it is to have them tell their friends to call you. We're not trying to turn people into salespeople for you. We're trying to recognize that their friend has a need and offer something that will make them look good to their friend. Right? If you do that every month in the PS of an email, as a postcard in your newsletter, in whatever you're doing, you're going to find that the number of times people recognize those, those things were slowly programming people. And your subconscious mind picks up on that long before your conscious mind does. I had this amazing experience, Mike, that was both amazing and startling at the same time. I was we have a community of real estate agents and in one of the forums somebody had posted a note that said does anybody know where I could get carpet overnight? Because we have a closing tomorrow and the painters just spilled paint on the carpet and ruined it. And I noticed something amazing happen. My brain, without even thinking about it, immediately started singing the Empire flooring jingle. It immediately went into 800-588-2300 empire, which I realized in that moment had been smuggled into my brain without my permission and had been living there rent free for over 20 years waiting for the moment that it got triggered by somebody saying where can I get same day carpet? Same day carpet. Same day carpet. 800-588- and that's the way that your clients that if we could trigger that in your clients every time they have a friend that brings up something that could be solved by something that you offer, that's what we're looking for.

Quite brilliant. That's. So the bottom line is.

Having that referral tool now putting together a great memorable jingle is another thing altogether. That'd be another episode which is creating an amazing memorable hook.

Right. But that pattern of suggestible language where just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about this and if you start every message like that, our brains are going to pick up on that pattern. Right.

That's good. One thing that I've been doing that's definitely helped me. So you've got the book and I'm a big believer. I've written a ton of books myself and they've always been great referral. And I know you've got 90 minute books where you've been able to produce them rapidly. One thing that I found is faster and easier is.

So when I'm working with my clients now, one of the first things that I'll do is work with them on the story. And I always call it creating a category of one which is very similar to this. It's like how can you own a concept in the mind of a client? So the best example that always pops up is, is Tim Ferriss created the category Lifestyle Design. And prior to him coming up with that concept, that category didn't even exist in the book world. But he created it. He was the first. And then it actually became a real category because it became so popular. When he wrote the Four Hour Work.

Week Lazy Man's Way to Riches was that.

Yes. Oh my God. So good. Yep. Anything like that, free money or money at a discount always sells well. And what I started doing is I thought, well, how can I manufacture status and positioning and elevating someone or their business and also creating a category of one in the shortest period of time Because a great way is if you're visible, someone who's visible in the media. Of course, if you're famous that helps. And if you're directly associated, that helps a lot too. To this day, one of the best things I ever did is years ago I did a product with Tony Robbins and he did this amazing intro for me that is the narration for my sizzle reel. You know, it's like, holy cow, has that opened up some doors. It's like one of those one in a lifetime things. If you can get someone to narrate, but what else can you do? So what I started doing is I started writing for Entrepreneur magazine. And now when I work with someone, I help them figure out, what's your story?

What is it? What's your category of one? It's the shortest, the fewest number of words for someone to raise their hand and say, I've been looking for you all my life.

And what I did is I'd write the article. I'd do an interview like we're doing now, usually around 20 minutes long, which was essentially a who are you? What do you do? Why do you do it? Who do you do it for? With an offer embedded, can't be too salesy because it's in a magazine, after all, or an online publication. But then a direct link back to them and you can use that as a referral, which is, hey, if you want to. So let's say you meet someone and the way you introduce yourself is if you want to learn a little bit more about who I am and what I do, just check out this article about me and Entrepreneur magazine. It's an instant elevation tool. And then I always make sure there's a direct link back to their website or whatever the offer is. And then we scheme together. Because one of the things that you can do when you're a writer in a publication is you can say whatever you want. So I called one guy, I called him the Warren Buffett of lifestyle investing. We actually manufactured the category lifestyle investing, trademarked it, and bought the domain.

I love it.

And so getting back to if you don't have a book, just make sure you've got a highly elevated article where someone else is telling your story for you. Much like the power of a great referral. And years ago, one of the things that I tried to do if I wanted to meet someone is I try to create a circumstance where three people in the same week mentioned my name to the person I wanted to meet. Because if multiple people that you already trust say it, it must be true.

Yes. Yes.

So what are some ideas you have about maybe some other ideas for elevating your.

Positioning and creating a moment or creating a multiple referral opportunity or maybe some other strategy that's natural, non sl and effective? Does anything pop into your head?

Yeah, I think you hit it on the head. Like, you know, you look at different situations where if somebody's being. If you're being introduced to somebody from three different people at the same time. You know, we had an example here when I was talking about this, paying attention to your environment of where the referral opportunities are.

A few years ago, State Farm, who has a big office here in Winter Haven, they also had an office in Daytona beach, and they were closing the Daytona beach office and they were going to move 300 people to winter Haven to the office there. If I were a real estate agent in that market, I would look at my Sphere, my top 150, and see who do I know that works at State Farm? And I personally know four people that work there. And if I were to send an email to all four of them saying, you know, hey, Cindy, I just saw that they're closing the Daytona beach office and moving 300 people to winter Haven, who's handling the relocation internally? I'd love to get them some of our guides to Winter Haven house prices, give people an idea of what's available here. That if I did that with Cindy and Patty and Nikki and Keith, and all four of them, if three out of the four of them know that you're the guy mandling the thing and they're all introducing me to you, that's all of a sudden I'm the guy to know. Right.

That's kind of like the reverse event prediction system, where if one of the things we had was you have to create an event or an experience or a reason why. But this is. This is the other one where you're observing an event and it's an event prediction system. So I love that. That's really smart. And then knowing who the influencers are, not necessarily the decision makers, go to the influencers first.

Right.

And yeah. Behaving in a space of service.

Yes.

Yeah. So again, you're not being the buyer, Right. Always be the buyer or always be the buyer, not the seller, saying, yeah, what a great way that changes the power dynamic. But it does require some thinking and some practicing. So.

But orchestrating referrals is one of the most valuable things that you can do, you know, and we always, when you build up a presence of it in your business where you've got a metric, like a metric we use is something called return on relationship, where we look at your existing clients and the people that know you, like you, trust you, and how many repeat and referral transactions you get divided by that number to give you a sense of what your return on relationship actually is. And that number, then your goal is to try and raise that number. Like right now. It's one of those things that's happening in everybody's business. That metric, not the metric, but the data is there to calculate that metric for the last 12 months. Whether you've been consciously paying attention to it or not. Every business in the world has had some number of transactions in the last 12 months and hopefully some number of those were repeat and referral. Maybe it was zero, but it was some number between zero and all of them.

Divided by the number of people that you have gives you a sense of how your return on relationship is. So we, you know.

That'S. That really is quite brilliant because I was thinking through it. What I've historically done in the past is I've always got a, you know, an ongoing list of my clients, customers over the past 15, 20 years or so and I can sort them based upon what they've invested over time. You know, the cumulative total.

Yeah.

And what I've never done before is found out where did they all come from.

Right.

You know, what was the source of that relationship. And if I would have been paying attention to that, that would have been something I would have been cultivating and managing and building. Not just a purely business. Again, there's this, you know, having purely mercenary relationships are not long term relationships. Right, right. When they're purely transactional, they're always short lived. But having something where going and saying now what else do you need and how can I provide more value? And keeping that top of mind and also asking them how can I best serve you? You've been such a great source of referrals to me. Are there some tools or resources that I can give you that would.

Help solve some of your core challenges or pains and blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. And I know I had pop up just yesterday which.

You know, I had been known again for a long time as a go to guy for online marketing video stuff and for years I maintained a buyer's guide, a gear guide of what to buy and what to use and how to set up your studio. And I hadn't maintained it in a little while and I had a whole bunch of people ask for it after I had demonstrated my studio. So, you know, and I realized, oh, I've got to, I've got to make that again.

Yeah.

So. But that's good. Well, what else? Is there anything else that's popping into your head in terms of the referral toolkit.

That we didn't touch on?

Well, I think that's really, I think we've really laid a foundation for people. You know, I think that's really the most important thing is to realize that it's happening. If they can overcome. I mean, we started with overcoming the mindset of why they're not putting referrals front and center. Get your ego out of the way and realize that it's not about you, it's about them. And that.

Now we know why they happen because we want that to feel good and that we want to.

Then orchestrate the conversations, you know, realizing that it's all going to happen as a result of conversation. So if you can recognize what those conversations are and then be able to be forthcoming with something that would allow them to be of value when that conversation comes up, that's really what it's going to come down to. Right.

Once again, simple and brilliant. And it's just a matter of tweaking a couple little twiddle bits in your brain. Twiddle bits, twiddle bits. Very good. So, well, let's bring this episode to a close. Dean, do you have any resources or tools we should send people to on your side? And then I've got a few as.

Well for that that I have a report at getting referrals.com that is specifically that, if you can. It's actually a report called the Secret Psychology of why People Refer Real Estate Agents and How to be the Only one they refer. But if you just replace Real estate agent with chiropractor or you insert your field here, this is the, it's the most concise, like.

Explanation of all of this stuff that we just talked about.

Great, great. And I've got a couple as well that we mentioned on here. One of them is the QR Code Builder. So if you want a rapid, easy tool, because some of them are paid, I actually got suckered into paying for one once. And of course, when I quit paying, they quit working and it wasn't a good tool. And I found something that you can use for free. So you can get that@paidforlife.com QR. It's already set up and working. I also talked about this money phone strategy. It's a psychological formula for building referral videos and also.

How I do all of my business now without writing any proposals at all. And you can get that. There's a video and a download and the whole book. In fact, you can have it for free@gomoneyphone.com and then two that we mentioned in our previous episode, but mentioned here, one of them is a virtual studio tour of my studio that I operate in with the gear, and that's@paidforlife.com studio tour and then a gear guide. So video equipment, tools and resources, including.

Everything that I use all the way down to beginner stuff. That's@paidforlife.com gearguide and I have one more, and that is if you're doing zoom meetings and webinars and you want to look great and sound great and make sure your team does, too, this is something you can give your teams, but it's 25 strategies to make them look great. That's@paidforlife.com zoomtips and that is a step by step short video. And I tried to make it as entertaining and as fun as possible.

I love.

Really is good.

Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. So in the meantime, you as the viewer, listener, if you enjoyed this and you know someone who could benefit from Gene Dean's genius. Gene's genius. Dean's genius. Make sure you send them this episode, which is to send them over to Capability Amplifier, refer this episode and also head on over there and please comment and upvote it and give it some stars because that's what helps people find it. And, well, I can just say thank you on behalf of myself and Dan Sullivan and Dean. Anything else you want to add before we wrap up?

Wrap it up. That was great. All right. Time being on your two episodes. Love it.

Yeah, it's. I love creating with you. I love your genius. I appreciate that about you. So let's let everyone go and we'll see you soon in the next episode.