The Most Effective Method to Acquire New Members with Mike Garrison

Hello and welcome to Mastermind Mastery, the podcast for professionals who want to create and run successful peer advisory councils, or as we call them, PACs for short, or they're also known as peer groups or business mastermind groups. I'm your host, Tina Corner Stolz, founder of Elix Council, where I've been in the industry running groups since 2005 and now help those like you with education, certification, and support wanting to do the same. At one time, I ran 10 groups, nearly 100 members, and sold my groups For a Good Multiple and recently released my second book, Your Seat at the Table: How to Create and Run Your Own Peer Advisory Councils, published by Forbes, and grateful to you that it's an Amazon bestseller. I invite you to join each week where we share strategies and techniques to successfully launch and become a master of running your PACs. You'll hear insights, perspectives, do's and don'ts, learn from my and my guests' mistakes, successes, and get the inside track to key takeaways. Each time we have guest, we'll be having a bit of fun. So are you ready? Let's get going and dive into today's episode. Hello everyone, it's Tina here. We have a special event coming up in November in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's the first ever national open conference for anyone wanting to run and already running peer groups or mastermind groups. Join us for 2 days, VIP reception with the keynote speakers, and a full day of upping your game and running groups with peers like you who are experienced or just want to get more knowledge before starting their journey and creating their first group. This conference is for you if: 1, you're already running groups and you want to be better, or you want to be the best. You want to learn from other experienced moderators and get inside tips to the latest meeting techniques. Or 2, if you're thinking about creating and running groups and want all the knowledge on how to do it right and learn from veterans, then this conference is for you. But time's running out. There's only a few VIP tickets available and the conference has limited capacity. So as soon as we hit it, we're going to have to close registration. So join us in downtown St. Pete, November 9th through the 11th. It's the best self-development gift you can give yourself. And don't you want to be the best at running groups? See you in November.

So hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I'm the host Tina Corner Stolz, and this is the podcast for you if you are looking to figure out how to create and run successfully what we call PACs, which are peer advisory councils for short, or peer groups, or as many people, you know, relate them as mastermind groups. So I'm excited about today's topic because it's actually not about running a group, but it is about a key point of how to create a group and also those right fit members that you're putting in it. It's also a topic I kind of equate to bowling. So my guess before I tell you who it is will probably kill me for saying this. So bowling, when people always ask me like, do you want to go bowling? I'm like, no, not really. But I know it's fun and everything, but I think about putting those shoes on that other people have worn. And all of that. But when you get there, you're so glad that you get there when you have fun and you're with your friends. And so after the fact, you have a great time. So today's topic and our guest is Mike Garrison, and Mike is out of Roanoke, Virginia. And Mike is what I put in the category of an expert on referrals. And the topic today on referrals is how I equate it to bowling is because referrals, it's like for a lot of people is like, I can't ask, I can't do this, I don't want to do it. But I know once I do it, it's just an amazing outcome. So with having Mike today and when I met him is I love his approach. I've been in sales my entire life and his approach is what I have found the best in regards to this and just love it. And I think he has a great story. And you're going to hear about that today. And so I welcome Mike Garrison to the show. How are you doing, Mike? How's rowing?

Good. Excellent. I've, I've never had networking compared to bowling before.

Exactly.

I like it though.

There you go. See, that's always something. So you have a really successful background in regards to how referrals really can make a difference for people with your experience at BNI. Right. And so would you tell our listeners a little bit about, well, first of all, what is BNI? And then how did that shape to your whole concept about referrals today?

Well, it's been a while since I was in BNI. I used to be a multiple franchise owner and, well, Ivan Misner was still the owner of BNI. I think it's been sold to a venture capital firm. Um, he I was very fortunate. He invited myself and another guy to help him franchise referral training around the world. So I've been on both ends, franchisee and franchisor, and I didn't enjoy either, frankly.

Right.

I can tell you about that too. Yes.

Oh, yeah. But I did, I used to love BNI when I was in it because it changed my life. You know, my first sales job, I actually got that sales job because a guy came and spoke at one of my senior year classes at George Mason University, which, uh, it was a public relations class, and this guy Mike Hoover came and talked about referrals. And he, uh, I was like, oh, that's great. That's, that's good. I like sales, kind of. Let's do it. I've been in the military, jumped out of planes. I could do sales. Little did I know. Little did I know. Well, I signed up and, uh, he said, all right, now go cold call. I was like, really? Really?

Yes. Right.

But I had the itch, like, because I had taken this step forward and I wanted to do referrals, but I had no idea. There weren't a lot of books back then. I think Harvey McKay's, you know, Dig a Well Before You're Thirsty, I think was one of the first books I read kind of talking about that concept. And, um, that, by the way, that is the OG book, like the Bible's first, but then it's Harvey McKay. And, uh, I'll never forget. Going to, you know, mixers and, and there's a lot of excitement associated with it, but it kind of ends up being like a bowling alley because you're like, oh yeah, I got to put on another pair of them skanky shoes.

Yes.

Because what nobody teaches you how to do is to have all your own equipment the first time you go to really make it yours. And so that's what Tina Corner Stolz taught me, primarily because of one guy named Art Radke. Art Racky was the franchisee for BNI in the Washington, D.C., Virginia area. And he's literally one of the top 3 mentors of my life, a huge part of me becoming a Christian, an unbelievable gene. Like, he's a savant when it comes to relationships. And Art taught us how to do stuff way beyond BNI because BNI was about this opportunity. It's about a system. And Art was about training and empathy and compassion. Because of who and what he was. And so a lot of the time— one real quick story— whenever we would get on these, I always had a lot of part-time kind of volunteer people to help me run all these groups. At one time we had like 45 groups. It was insane. And, um, they would go to conferences. I'd tell them, hey, when you go to the conference, it's a little bit different. We do things differently. We don't do, we don't do anything nobody else does. We just do a lot more. Okay. On average, we had 5 to 10 hours of free training available, high-end training for all of our members. And the first day, whenever a new director would go with me to a conference, they'd come back, you know, you're right, man. These people don't really know how to do it, do they? I'm like, well, just don't say that. You know what I mean?

Right.

Yeah. They own the franchises. You're too— but just be chill. And inevitably, I get a bunch of hate mail after the conference about how my people were going around polluting all the other people. But that's really the secret, isn't it? Right? How can you like going to the bowling alley? How can you enjoy it? How can you be part of a league?

Which leads us— this is a good segue into like, why do you think it's so hard for people to ask for a referral?

Well, there's a lot of kind of tertiary issues, but the primary issue is fear. And so most people, um, adolescence, you learn a lot of patterns to survive psychologically. Adolescence, when you have a more mature brain but you don't have power. And so, yes, and so, well, the same thing happens with referrals is when you don't fully understand a complete referral system as being marketing, meaning we measure it, we can predict it, we can forecast it like the big people do at companies that you and I have worked for, where you don't say, hey, I'm going to make quota. They're like, now show me how you're going to make quota. Like, how's it— like, so for me, referrals are marketing. And, and so what happens is, is we, we revert back to high school and referrals become a popularity contest. And that's when I think a lot of that, it's even worse now with social media, the rise of just worthless, you know, peacocking on, you know, the internet. We, we get in this thing that it's about volume and it's about display and it's about all these things that have nothing to do with it. It's about math. And, and in referrals, you can't beat AI, you can't beat email marketing, and you can't beat advertising when it comes to volume. Or flash. Instead, you have to focus on quality, and you have to be focused on exactly what works. That's what I would say. So when you're afraid, when, when referrals for you are like a popularity contest, you not getting referrals becomes a, like, a devaluing of your identity. And so that's a lot of what I do with my clients is help them build up a different relationship with referrals. It's still hyperpersonal.

It is.

But it's math. Yeah.

So that's interesting. So two pieces here is number one is, is, you know, a lot of times I think people are reluctant, or I think about why do I get reluctant to ask them for referrals? Because I'm, to your point, fearful I will not get a good answer. That's number one.

Number two, that will happen. Yes.

And then two, I worry about, um, If I ask for a referral, that must, you know, people have to get past the mindset of it doesn't mean your business isn't successful and you can't generate business. It's not that at all. It has everything to do with the— so really the best type of business is through a referral. And so it doesn't mean that you're not successful either or that you're lazy, you know. And so I just want to ask for referrals because I don't want to do all the hard work of, you know, whatever. So when you know, like two things. When is— is there a right time to ask or not? Does it matter? And then kind of what's a good opening line for people to use to ask?

So I would— I joke around and you've laughed at this before, but I'm like, don't be a referral beggar. Hashtag referral beggar or hashtag referral predator. Psychologically, I went— my dad died, you know, 6 or 7 years ago, and I was like, I went through this really dark period where I was like, is all of, all of my stuff bullshit or not? Like, is, like, is anything I'm talking about real? And I stopped worrying about how to get more referrals, and I started focusing on why people aren't getting more referrals.

Mhm.

And the, the reality was that we, that we get into this mechanism where we fail to understand the medium. So the medium is is conversations. If you do this really well, it's conversations that occur when you're not present. Like, to be very, very successful referrals— I specialize in financial advisors and small business owners. These are very busy people. They're very affluent. And ironically, the most successful ones get almost all their business by referral, period, because they can't afford to do anything else from a time basis. They can't afford to have lots and lots of low-level meetings with no effect. But when you get, when you get into this, the, the real secret is having conversations that your referral partners enjoy having. So stop asking for referrals for yourself most of the time, and instead ask for referrals for other people. And that's why in my book, the macro and micro strategies— macro meaning things you do all the time, high-volume micro, things that are very targeted and reserved for special situations where we have high probability of success. The number one macro strategy is being a giver, right? Not a talker, but a giver.

Like, and tangible.

Well, you, like, I always ask people like, hey, do you have a system for getting referrals? And like, you know, most people don't. Most people that think they have a system don't. They're just begging, right? Because they ask all the time, you know, the nightmare, give me 10 names. Oh, right. Anyways, the problem is I say, okay, that's cool. What's your giving system? I go, you have to have a balanced system if other people are going to get meetings for you. You have to have a balanced system. It doesn't have to be tit for tat. Right? It, it, it's, but it's about impact. And, and that's the thing. Most of what I do with my clients, and I argue and fight and argue and fight with them, is getting them to focus on having giving conversations most of the time because A, you can have more of those with your clients. That's your number one referral source. They like giving. They like it when you're giving to them as opposed to taking. Also, with COIs, which is all I focus on, other than like—

which, by the way, for the audience, is centers of influence. There we go. Okay.

Or, or golden geese. But like COIs, guys have people hitting them all the time for referrals. They very rarely have people authentically looking to give to them on a systematic and predictable way. And that's what separates you. I always say, how can you be welcome into another conversation? Very rarely is that when you're trying to get something, right?

Yes. And it's, it's why on a previous, um, episode we talk about this concept, Ford, And, you know, everything you're talking about is relationship. Running a peer group, right? Mastermind group is relationship-based service. It's all about relationship. So, you know, I know something that, like, you and I have talked about in the past is, for example, you know, you love fly fishing, right? That is a passion of yours.

Just a little.

Right.

And so if anybody wants to, like, really connect with you, fly fishing is that kind of a conversation that is a good one to have.

Right.

But you only know that as you work to get to know someone authentically so that they really believe that you really are trying to connect. Because it's through that conversation, right, that all of these things come out that you can figure out how it is you can help them.

Right.

Because you learn about them and it will trigger something like, oh, I know someone that you should meet because you have this in common or whatever it might be, right? So, yep, there's that connection. So that's kind of— you have a favorite saying that you open up a conversation or you end it that you've always told me, depending on if it's Monday or Tuesday or it's Thursday or something. So tell, tell what that is.

So first I'll give a little context. You ready? So the context is professional marketers do more research than people realize. It's not about shotgun or Chicken Little marketing. You run outside, shoot your shotgun until something falls out of the air, you know. And so the easiest way to do referral research is to ask on Monday and Tuesday— and I tell all my clients this, they laugh— on Monday and Tuesday, the question I always ask is, how was your weekend? On Thursday and Friday, the question I always ask is, what are you doing this weekend? And those conversations Maybe they don't do anything, but they take you 10 seconds. They slip a little bit out of the mode. We gotta stop being so stereotypical in how we converse, like break out of the Instagram scroll mode and get into a real conversation.

Mm-hmm.

The reason I tell my clients to do that is because that's when you find out stuff. It's not every time, but every month I hear from a client, Mike, you won't believe what happened over the weekend. I'm like, I bet you I know what happened over the weekend. Right? This happened, or I found out this, you know, what, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's that simple. You have to have these automatic small little questions that are macro.

Yes.

All the time. But then you also have to be listening. Mm-hmm. You know, because there's lots, there's lots of good research out there, but if you don't look at the data, if you're not paying attention, if you're not focused, If you're not watching it, it has no value.

Right. So one thing before we kind of, there's two things I wanna make sure we cover before we, um, have to wrap up. And one of them is, is that you talk about kind of, we've talked about fear earlier, right? Mm-hmm. And so there is an art science of how you care. For a referral, right? So can you expand a little bit on, on that and the importance of that?

So there are, there are very few questions that you could ask that I would love more than that question because I wrote the book about it. It's called Can I Borrow Your Car? And, and it's really about a type of culture that you develop internally first. Around referrals, and then externally through your network, through your team and things like that. It's basically don't wreck the car. Referrals are a lot like, um, cars. I mean, like, I am not going to let somebody walk into my garage that I don't know and borrow my Ferrari. It's not going to happen. And by the way, when I do get comfortable enough to refer a Ferrari, I let the person know it's a Ferrari. I want it back at least as good as it left. And you better do something extra because you're putting mileage on my classic. Right. And so that's kind of the culture is the reason people don't get more referrals is they don't understand risk mitigation as a process and a system. One of the things that you learn if you coach and work with financial advisors is everything's about risk mitigation, risk evaluation. What is the perception of risk of my clients about a certain way of investing? What are the potential rewards? And what you're doing is, is you're interacting relationship, you know, because an assessment will only do so much. And what you figure out is how does this person perceive risk? The reason people aren't getting more referrals is they don't understand how the people in their network, their clients and their centers of influence, even their family members, like if your mom's not referring you, something's wrong. Mine does, right? She's an 81-year-old. She talks to everybody though, like she's the expert of all experts. But, but being able to perceive risk and understanding how, how you enter and exit conversations, how you follow up, is everything. It is. You and I have both had our cars wrecked before.

Yes, we have.

Yes.

Yes.

Not by the same people yet.

Mm-hmm.

It'll probably happen. Yeah.

Well, and it's, you know, as we kind of— I want one more question for wrapping up. And but to that point is even the simple gesture of the follow-up back to the person who referred to say how things went or thank you and all of that is critical. And so many people don't do that. And every time I do that, they are so grateful, like, ah, Thank you for letting me know. I'm like, this should be standard.

Why do you have to do that? So I follow up with everything. You and I know this. This is why we get along. And people are like, so why do you follow up so much? I go, well, risk mitigation is part of it, but I just want you to think about it. If I am intimately involved in a referral giving process, that's 2 to 3 times more referral conversations that I'm involved in. Like, I've already got stuff at risk when I'm getting referral, when I'm giving a referral, or when I'm a referral. I'm going to be involved. And the reason I'm involved is those conversations give me data about the people. They also increase my relationship quotient with those people. This is, you have to follow up because it's marketing for God's sake. Like what? Like you're missing the layups. Stop trying to shoot from half court.

Right. Right. And so as we wrap, what would you suggest to our listeners? One or two things they could do to begin their journey on, you know, giving and getting, right, more referrals.

I would, in addition to buying my favorite book, which would be my book, and And really, because that kind of lays out the, the car thing, it's a really great metaphor. It really works. But the number one thing is this is you go to the people that matter the most to you. Okay? The people that refer you the most business, the people that you want to refer you more business, centers of influence or particular clients, and you push. And instead of pushing to get, you push to give. And this happens. And every time my clients do, it works. Every single time. And it goes something like this. It would be like, hey Tina, this is an authentic conversation. You know, I've asked you it before, but like, what kind of referral can I give you that changes the game for you? What, what kind of introduction could I make for you that would, if not change your life, change your year? And here's what happens. Often people will be like, oh no, Mike, it's all great. You're doing fine. I don't stop because then we're stereotypical. I'm just like that chatty person. At the Chamber of Commerce who promises you anything. I go, no, I'm serious, Tina. I'm really serious. There's got to be something. Tell me. Don't— like, I don't know if I could do it, but just like, tell me what it is. And people will tell you. And when they tell you, no matter what happens, you've both won because you all of a sudden you had a very authentic, real conversation about what somebody really wants. Really ironic is we just had a great story about that. So got time for a quick story?

Quick story. Yeah.

So one of my clients did that, just did this 2 weeks ago. His best friend is named Tommy and great client. He said, Tommy, what would be a great referral? Ah, you don't need to do anything. And he kept pushing. He kept pushing. And Tommy says, I want to meet a venture capital guy. It would change my entire career. And so my client tells me this the next day. He's telling me about it. I said, hey, that's great. You're for the next month. Every conversation you come up with, by the way, do you happen to know anybody in venture capital? Boom, right? And then he, then I was playing around telling another client about that story and that, and at the end of the conversation with that client who was in Kentucky, the first client was in Philadelphia. I said, by the way, do you know a venture capitalist? He goes, 2, one of my best friends owns it. We've, we've made the introduction. That's the power. That is this, right? I don't like— you and I are referring back and forth, but I still haven't given you enough. It's not even close, but it's going to happen, right? But—

and everybody heard that. Yes, it's true.

Like, well, you know, it's no, no illusion. But the reason this works is because it interests me more. I like— I'm going to— anyone that asks about any type of mastermind type group is going to hear about you. In fact, everybody hears about you anyways. But when we get to that point where I know exactly who to introduce you to, I'm engaged. Like, I'm not just doing it passively. So there you go.

Yeah, you're right. And I know that's your intent anyway, that you're my advocate out there. So, you know, I already have that positive positiveness about our, you know, relationship. So, yeah, as closing, Would we always end with what is the one takeaway you would love the listeners to take from our conversation today?

You're worth it. I mean, ultimately, if you're the type of person that wants to help other people, you deserve more referrals. And the only thing that's stopping you is believing in yourself and then taking the time to move out of aspirational talk and get into looking at it like marketing. Yes. Your work.

Perfect. Excellent. So Mike, thanks for being a guest today. How can people reach you if they want to do that?

You could go to my current favorite website, which is www.caniborrowyourcar.com, and you can buy my book. Yes. If you read the book, And you like it or hate it, call me up. Let's talk.

Excellent. So they can, they can figure that out. Go to that site, caniborrowyourcar.com, right? Excellent. Well, thank you. Great insights. I really encourage everybody to read Mike's book because there's actionable steps in there for you to take, literally a plan that can get you going and starting you to feel really comfortable with this whole concept. And so definitely valuable. And one of the biggest reasons I wanted Mike on the show today is because as you look at building your groups and/or adding those specific members, they're really going to come from referrals. Right. And it makes the whole sales cycle so much faster and better and a higher quality, to your point. So thanks again for everyone for tuning in today and look forward to seeing you next week. And until then, go make it happen.

Hey, moderators of groups, thank you so much for listening to today's podcast. To get access to today's show notes and exclusive content and resources, visit TinaCornerStolz.com/podcast or LXcounsel.com, where you can also become part of an exclusive online community, attend our academy, or get free resources, templates, checklists, and more. And you can even contact me there as well. So if this episode resonated with you and you know someone who can also benefit from listening, please share with them by taking a screenshot and even posting on your social media. I also love reviews and appreciate hearing from each of you, those actually doing this wonderful work. Please tune in next week for another episode of Mastermind Mastery.

And I'll close by sharing something my mentor did after every learning moment.

He shared a shiny pebble from his pocket with anyone he passed knowledge to and asked them to forward that pebble knowledge on. So now I encourage you to go pass on a pebble, the takeaways you learned today, to either your existing groups or fellow peers. Now go make it a great one.