Ep 382: Transforming Failure into Referral Success with Stacey Brown Randall

Let’s dive into an enlightening conversation with Stacey Brown Randall, award-winning author, speaker, podcast host and founder of the Brown Randall Group, where she helps business owners generate referrals without asking. Stacey’s entrepreneurial path, from an HR consulting firm to her thriving coaching business, is a testament to resilience and learning from failures.

Discover the critical role of tracking referrals, a practice that doesn’t demand complex systems. Stacey’s straightforward approach involves a simple spreadsheet, offering invaluable insights into lead quality and referral sources. Explore her powerful insights on focus and clarity, which have transformed her coaching program and client results.

Stacey’s journey is a reminder that asking for help and embracing failure can lead to unforeseen beauty. So, tune in for actionable advice on business growth and self-improvement. Remember, every failure is a stepping stone to success!

Episode Highlights:

06:04 – The business was successful. This is the biggest thing I learned, it didn’t have a sustainable way of filling that prospect pipeline. There was always feast or famine. There was always the entrepreneurial roller coaster of the highs and lows of like, “Hey, I’ve got a client. Yay, I’m doing something for the bank. Let me put my head down and do the work.” And then look up and be like, “Oh, snap, the work is done and there’s not another client.” Except for I kept saying, “Oh, snap, the work is done and there’s not another client” for four years, for over four years. Just didn’t ever figure out that prospecting piece, that filling of the prospect into the pipeline piece.

11:51 – When we ask people for referrals, we’re actually violating the science, which is why people run away from us when they see us coming at networking groups. Like, “Oh, I don’t want to be that person.” And when we just wait for it to happen, we’re using hope as a strategy. Hope is a beautiful thing, but it is not a business strategy. And so these things we’ve been told, they violate the science behind what makes referrals actually happen, and it was just me figuring it out and uncovering that. And to be honest, it was over time that I was teaching it to my clients, that I was like, “Oh, yes, that is working.” It’s not a fluke. It’s not my personality. It’s not that this just works for business coaches. It’s not that this just works for extroverts who have as much energy as I have. It’s not about being female. It’s not about being younger. I like to think of myself as younger and probably considered older, but whatever. It’s not about those pieces to generate referrals. And so, when I could eliminate all the things that made it about me, and then I could have people who are very different from me in very different industries with different genders, and different extroverts versus introverts, and it worked for all of them, then I was like, “Okay, it’s just a strategy.” And that’s what we need to understand and deploy. But it’s got to be rooted in all the ways that referrals actually happen.

22:04 – Any of the applications for people to work with me, they have to tell me, “How did you hear about Stacey?” It’s a standard question that’s required. And sometimes they don’t know, and so we take, “I don’t know.” That’s fine, but you should be asking those questions through your processes. Or just when you’re in that first conversation with a prospect, you could be like, “Hey, by the way, I don’t think I know this, but how did you hear about me?” It’s a simple question. Most people kind of expect it, but tracking it should be super simple. So, we’re talking about four columns in an Excel spreadsheet or a Google spreadsheet. What I’m looking for is the date. I think it’s important that you track the date. Now, one of the reasons why I tell my folks to track the date that that prospect entered their world is because you’re not going to close every prospect. And we teach a strategy inside our coaching program at the beginning of every year. We remind our coaching clients exactly how you go back to anyone referred to you the year before that didn’t become a client and the correct way to follow up.

28:11 – The number one thing that every single person who works with me, who decides, “Yes, I want to take control of my referrals. I want to get more referrals. I want to build a referable business,” the number one thing they all have to do–it’s why it’s also available for free, like I talk about on my podcast, it’s in my book, it’s on my website in our resources link–is identifying your referral sources. And most people don’t come to me with that tracker I just talked about for the last five years. Most people come to me and they’re like, “Oh, I don’t know, some people refer me. It’s great. I wish I could have more of them.” And so I then have them recreate that data from the last three to four years. You could just avoid that headache if you started tracking.

33:18 – If I don’t want to start until 9:00 a.m. in the morning because I want to be present to getting them out the door and then I want to work out, I want that. If I want to be done at 3:00 p.m., because usually I’m just tired and my kids are starting to come home from school or the Uber mom driver has begun, I want to be present, and I don’t want to be on my phone every time I’m in the car with them. So, I have built a business that has satisfied my financial desires. I think you can work as little as you want and make as much money as possible. Fundamentally, there’s nothing wrong with that. But, for me, I have made sure that the business has always fit the lifestyle, and I learned that through trial and error. So, I went from one-on-one coaching. You’re going to tap out when you run out of hours to sell. Then I went to the online course model and while it’s, I was going to say fun, but I would be lying. It’s like kind of fun. That launch model is really, really hard and I lacked and missed the connection with people, and then through a few other trials and errors landed at this coaching program that I have. My online programs are still available. If the coaching model is not right for you, you can certainly come into one of my online programs and learn a strategy and go implement that and have success.

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