Agency Forward

Chris DuBois 0:00
Hey, everyone, today I'm joined by Gary Searle. Gary is a referral strategist who helps companies build systems to generate consistent, high quality referrals. He has worked with early stage startups and scaled up to serve high revenue companies, helping them shift from passive word of mouth to intentional referral pipelines. I wanted to have Gary on because most agencies rely on inconsistent referrals and miss out on building predictable systems actually generate them. He also promotes a culture of referrals framework inside companies that I think many agencies can benefit from. In this episode, we'll discuss just that, building a culture of referrals inside your agency, how to reward clients without hurting trust, tracking the quality, and not just quantity of referrals and more. Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency. For most it's unpredictable, it's slow and it's usually expensive. Jia flips that. It's the all in one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline. Gia automates lead gen follow up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing. You can check it out and get some free bonuses at get gia.ai/dynamic agency and now Gary Searle, it's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward. What's the first mistake that agencies make in referral campaigns? So I think the

Gary Searle 1:39
first mistake that people make when it comes to referral campaigns is they don't actually have a formal, structured plan in place. So there's most of the time it's either sitting in waiting and hoping for referrals, or they might do something simple. And I'm sure you've had this where people have come to, you know, oh, if you happen to know somebody who would be a great client of mine, I'll give you 10% commission, they think that's a referral campaign. It's not. There's no real structure to it. And when you don't have that structure, that's when you get the sporadic and inconsistent results. And that what leads people to believe that you can't get referrals consistently, but the people who actually have a proper, structured plan in place will always say the opposite, at least if they're doing it correctly.

Chris DuBois 2:21
Yeah. And that's where I like, the type of referrals that I stand against, and where I've, like, coined the term referral reliance is because most agencies will just like, they they knew some family, friends or something, to get their first clients, and like, they introduce them to someone else, and they introduce and I've had some clients grow to, like, over 2 million in revenue, and they have never closed the deal, like through inbound, through outbound. It was just purely referrals. But then those dry up because they don't have an intentional system for actually doing those. And so I guess what is, what's step one for actually creating, like a pipeline for referrals?

Speaker 1 3:01
I think step one would be identifying what referrals you want. So is it more of the same? So looking at your existing client base, do you want more of the same sorts of clients? Or actually, are you looking at, I want to actually expand into different markets, and then that actually leads into them what referral sources to focus on. Because if you want more of the same clients, you're probably going to go to your existing clients and try and make and try and make that a primary focus on how you get more of them. But if you actually look at your existing client basically like, I actually don't want more of those clients. I'd rather have different types, then you might want to start building partnerships with other businesses, because they can help you tap into different markets and different ideal clients. So that's probably the first thing to do is actually identify what types of referrals you want. Referrals you want and who your ideal clients are, and if you've got that nailed or not.

Chris DuBois 3:46
Yeah, I think that's the it's like a would be the right word. I don't know. One of the challenges, I guess, of running referrals is that, like you at some point in your business, start to mature, and you're you're growing, and like, you know who the best fit is, but all of your past clients weren't that. And so when they start sending you referrals, they're all people who believe you're doing something that you used to do in the past. And I find a lot of agencies get stuck in the like, I still have to say yes to them because, like, I want to stay in good graces with these people giving me referrals, but so now they're taking on work that's not the best fit, which, in reality, they could actually refer that away as well, too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 4:29
So I actually have an example of that. So now I'm beginning to work with sort of I call higher caliber companies making more money. And when I first started this company, it was different. I was working more with startups. So what I've done now is my services that aren't necessarily applicable to those companies. I've actually got somebody who is a referral partner for me who does what I used to do, and now I refer them to him, and whereas then, if he speaks to anyone that's higher than he would normally, typically work with, he refers them to. Me, so if you do actually get those referrals coming in, and you still want to at least do the right thing, it could be to refer them to somebody else who you recommend, who does that thing that you used to do, or serves the people that you used to serve

Chris DuBois 5:11
right but step one in that is actually narrowing down who do you actually serve, so that you can find those partners, which I think is where most agencies get stuck, which is what I do for coaching. So I guess. Okay, so you figure out, do I want more of these or not? How do we actually start building out the campaign to find those referrals?

Speaker 1 5:36
Yeah, so one of the things we do, let's say you want more of the same types of clients. What you're going to try and do is you're going to build what I call build what I call a culture of referrals within your business with your existing clients. So with that is that they know that you want referrals, they know who you want to be referred to, and they know how to refer people to you, because it's really easy for you to say, oh, I want more referrals. And then your clients are like, Okay, but how on earth do I do that? Because not everyone's adept at giving referrals, so you need to give them absolutely everything that they need in order to be able to refer to you and identify good referral opportunities. Because it could be something as simple as somebody mentioning just a small thing that they would just pass off as, oh, that's just a passing comment. But to you, that's gold. That's like, absolutely that person is a perfect client for me. So they need to be able to identify able to identify that thing and then say, Oh, actually, I know somebody who can help you with that, but they might want to first find out a little bit more about it. So it is going to be around that when it comes to climate referrals, if it's you're tapping into new markets, it's looking for the companies that serve that marketplace, and then the first thing you want to do is, how can I bring value to them? Because it's all well and good. You go into them and saying, Oh, would you be willing to refer people to me for this thing? But they're not necessarily going to completely die unless you've already got a great relationship with them. If you're looking to reach out to somebody who doesn't have that relationship with you, they're going to want to see some return on that. They're going to want to want to see some value. And it could be that, actually you just serve their clients, and it gives you them something that they can't currently do, and maybe they've got no referral partners, and actually they're like, this would actually improve our customer experience. So this is valuable to us, but let's say it doesn't do that. What would actually be valuable to those partners in order for them to actually refer to you, and it's identifying

Chris DuBois 7:20
what that would actually be? Yeah. So I guess within that, how are you how are you measuring, like, the quality of referrals against just quantity? Because everybody wants more referrals, but the right referrals are probably even more important. Yeah.

Speaker 1 7:35
So this is actually a common mistake I see, is a lot of people, they just look at it in terms of the amount of referrals they're getting. So let's say this referral partner or this client is referring this many clients, but actually, what if they're referring you 100 different people, but none of them convert, or they take too long to convert, or they when they do convert, they actually end up leaving very quickly because they're not the right clients for you. So it's looking beyond just the quad quality, the quantity of the referrals that have been sent to you, and looking at things like speed to conversion, how well they convert, whether they're the right clients, whether their lifetime value is higher than other ones, and then looking at which sources of those referrals are bringing you the best types of referrals. And it could be that one of them is actually only sending you one referral a month, or one referral every couple of months, but actually they're the best types of referrals, and they're the ones that actually stay actually stay the longest, spend the most money. So then you would look at, okay, even though this one on the surface looks like a less efficient referral partner, what if there's things I could do to actually help them to send more referrals and more of the same, because they're actually the types of referrals I want, and that's when it becomes about quality over quantity,

Chris DuBois 8:38
right? Insert reverse engineering, like, what are you doing with them? To get more of those from other people? Yeah, the something. Or, let's just shift gears entirely for a second, because this popped in my head with on LinkedIn, I get hit by so many people who want to, who make like, the cold pitch of like, hey, I want to be able to refer you business and and they expect me to be able to refer back. But I don't think that people realize like there is a cost to someone giving a referral, because they're putting their reputation on the line. Right? If I refer you business and you don't deliver, I now look bad, and my status is lowered. And so how? I don't even know what my question. I just wanted to get that out there as, like, it's super annoying when people think I'm just going to, like, put my reputation on the line for someone I have never met, never talked to, or anything. I guess. Do you have, like, a system for knowing, like, who can I send referrals to? Like, what? What is the point where it's like, yeah, I know that this is a good person to refer because I guess we can then take that and back, reverse engineer it for okay, how do I become that person for others?

Speaker 1 9:49
Yeah, so to answer the question, first, I would say that I do actually reach out to people that maybe I don't necessarily know that well and actually go see whether they want to form a referral partner. Share for collaboration with even myself and my clients, and that's because I've identified them as a potentially good person for that and the things that I look for, and then you can reverse engineer that back to you is looking at things like case studies, testimonials, what other people are saying about them. So if I see somebody that everyone, like someone, writes a post on LinkedIn, and they're saying, if you want personal branding, this is the person I recommend, and then you or somebody asks for a personal branding and the same people are promoting them, recommending the same person, over and over again. I've seen that where somebody says, Oh, I'm looking for a copywriter, and then all of a sudden, 10 of the comments send the exact same person that tells me that that person is really good at doing what they do. So that's something that I might then reach out to and say, Oh, I saw that loads of people were recommending you as a good copywriter. I'd love to see if there's a chance for us to collaborate and partner up in some way, because I know that they're probably doing great work. And then beyond that, you can also speak to certain people, and it's people you've worked with before that's obviously easy, you know, they do great work, but if they haven't, maybe they can demonstrate what they do in some way. There might be a really quick, efficient way that they can demonstrate their expertise. That would tell you that this person is great, and another one that I get is through content. People that are really great at creating content are usually very good at demonstrating their expertise through that content, by saying things that other people don't say, or in a way that's slightly different to what other people say, and that breeds a bit of confidence. I've got one person who I have referred to and recommended so many times, and I've never worked with her, but I know from her content and the people that talk about her, that have worked with her, how great she is, so I'm more than happy to recommend and refer her. So it's looking for proof of results and proof of people who have recommended them previously, right?

Chris DuBois 11:39
So how should, how should agencies, like, balance kind of client referrals versus partner referrals, right? So we're finding people online. That's that's one thing to be able to say, like, hey, I can these people have the skills that you need, versus, like, going right to your clients who you've hopefully gotten great results for already, and they trust you a little. Yeah, yeah. How do you how do you balance those?

Speaker 1 12:03
So it might not necessarily be an evil question, but it goes back to a little bit like I was saying earlier on, about in terms of the types of referrals you want. Do you want more of the same, or do you want something a little bit different? If you're looking to tap into something a little bit different, probably partnerships is your best way to go, because your existing clients generally are going to recommend like. For like, we just have a habit of building friendships and relationships with people that are like us, not everyone, but a majority. If you do want more of the same, there's probably and you have a lot of either existing or past clients, you're probably going to want to really tap into that and start building that cultural referrals and get people to refer to you more often. So I think that's the main difference, but maybe actually you want a bit of both. Maybe you actually do want more of the same, but you would also like to tap into a new market, because you're expanding the business. Maybe then, instead of focusing purely on client referrals, maybe you can start tapping into client partnership referrals and affiliates and things

Chris DuBois 12:56
like that. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess when you're doing like client referrals. And I've had a client this past week asked me about this. So this is probably great timing. How should you incentivize clients to like, should you have some sort of reward program or, like, give them some kickback for referrals? Or is it, like, do you just purely base it off the goodwill that's been robbed by getting someone a great result.

Speaker 1 13:24
This is actually a really important question, because a lot of people get this wrong, or they don't think about it to the degree that they should. The incentive that you give can make or break the referral. So for some people, the incentive could be a Monetary Commission, and they're actually incentivized by that, and they want that, but for other times, it can actually harm the relationship. So let's say you've got a client where they have had amazing results with you, and they actually just want to give back to the person that they're referring because they're like, I've had amazing results this. I want the same for them. And then you offer them a Monetary Commission for that, they can actually be like, Well, I wasn't doing it for that. I actually don't need the money or don't need the money, or don't want the money. And actually, I think it would actually make my friend think that the only reason I referred them is because you've given me money for it. So for those people, maybe something like a donation to a charity would actually be better. So you could say, okay, normally when somebody gives me a referral, I give them 10% of lifetime value, for instance, but I know that in this case, that's probably not going to be something that you would particularly want. How about if I give that to a charity of your choice? Would that be something that you'd be happy with? Quite often, they'll say yes to that. But then you could also look at something like, let's say my someone isn't incentivized by money, but they might be incentivized by better access to you, or more exclusive offers that you don't give to other people, that you only give to your clients, that refer people, or or it might be that you can give them an experiential reward, like tickets to a sporting event that they love. Maybe you know they're a massive football fan, and you send them tickets for that, or you buy a really nice meal for her, for the person that referred and his wife, or something like that, is looking at what's going to incentivize that person. So in order to send more referrals, sometimes it is just the I want to do great things for the people that know and trust me and you referring them to you does that, and you might not even have to give them any kind of reward, or it could be a mutual exchange, or referrals beyond a Monetary Commission. So it's looking deeper into what's going to incentivize the people who will refer to you and do refer to

Chris DuBois 15:21
you, yeah. So I guess is it like a should you be doing this proactively, or when people start sending you referrals, find ways to incentivize them to continue sending referrals? Yeah? Or you just build a program, I would be

Speaker 1 15:38
a little bit more proactive in trying to find out what's going to incentivize individual people before they send a referral. You it could create a bit of friction if they send you a referral and then you're trying to figure out what reward they would like. If you already know what that is, let's say then you've got your referral network, and the people are referring to you, and you have next to them in on on your CRM or system, or whatever you're using. This person would like to be rewarded with this specific thing when they refer to it might be a charity donation. So you know that the moment they refer someone, you're going to send some money to the charity of their choice. And that's great, because then it's going to incentivize them to send more of them because they're like this person supporting a charity that's really close to my heart is going to give a decent donation to it, I'm going to do more of that and look for more people to refer. So I would be a little bit more proactive in trying to find out what's going to incentivize each person that refers to you before they actually do it.

Chris DuBois 16:32
So what are some strategies that you would recommend agencies are using now in order to just generate more referrals right off the bat.

Speaker 1 16:45
So I think the first thing that they need to do is look at what sources they're actually using in order to generate referrals. So are they only, at the moment, trying to get client referrals, and let's say they only work with a small number of high paying clients. They're probably not going to be able to send a huge amount of referrals at that time, so you might need to expand to affiliates, referral partners. Maybe you've got employees as well who can become referral sources, or word of mouth sources. So I think that's one of the strategies I'd be looking at. And then also looking at the entire customer journey, and looking at where those referrals could be coming from, and how many you currently get in. So it's looking at things like during the onboarding phase, even the awareness phase of your marketing, where it can actually generate referrals, how you're retaining your customers, and then when you retain them, turn them into advocates who do refer other people. So essentially, you're looking at the entire journey that people have in working with you and getting them to send more referrals, and then looking beyond just client referrals and expanding those referral sources,

Chris DuBois 17:41
and then, so once you get the source down, what kind of outreach messages I guess you're using, like, are you just very open about it? Like, hey, we're looking for referrals. Let's go. Or is it more of a, you know,

Speaker 1 17:53
so are we talking, talking more here in terms of, say, partnerships or other businesses,

Chris DuBois 17:59
either or partnerships or client referrals even,

Speaker 1 18:02
okay, so if we are talking client referrals, I generally would recommend that you actually install this into a point where it actually becomes something they are aware of the moment they onboard, or maybe even before they onboard. So we use that one first, and then I'll go back to let's say you started and you started and you haven't actually done this already. So the first thing what I might do on the onboarding stage is say something like, we regularly invest into improving the experiences and the results of our clients, and in order to do this, we do ask our clients if they would be willing to refer to us. So my question for you today is, if in three months, maybe six months, whatever you can choose that milestone, but if in three months you're really happy with the results, happy with the results and the experience you've had working with us, would you be willing to refer to us? And something as simple as that, adding that into your onboarding stage can actually go a long way to get more referrals. Because how many clients, how many companies do that when you actually first start working with them? Hardly anyone mentioned anything about referrals. I can't remember the last time I had it. So something as small as that can make a big difference. Because then the moment you start to talk about referrals and saying, Who can you refer to us? It's not a surprise to them, and that's when it becomes a bit of a problem. Is when you ask for a referral and they're not expecting it, then they're like, all of a sudden they're put on the spot. They're like, Who the hell can I refer to this person? But they you've actually done great work from there. They actually do want to refer to you, but they just don't know who and how to do it. So you're giving them all the tools they need in order to refer, and you're making sure that it's top of mind for them. Now let's say, for example, you've already started your business, you've already onboarded a lot of clients, and you wanted them to start sending you more referrals. What I would do is start to breed that culture referrals within the entire company. So you start to talk about it, creating content around it, and you can start to do things like client feedback sessions, where you're like, Okay, we want to improve our services, improve how we deliver the results to our clients. Would you be willing to spend some time with us to actually do like a survey, typing or an audit, whatever you want to call it, and start. To tell us how we can be doing even better to serve you. And then from there, one of the questions could be something as simple as, would you be willing to refer other people to us? If they say yes to that? You can then maybe start asking them, if they say no, it's a good sign actually, you need to improve even further. And you can start to ask them, why wouldn't you? So it's little things like that. It's just creating that culture of referrals from top down in the business,

Chris DuBois 20:20
yeah, I like the concept of culture of referrals. I think is that important? Sticking point said, Yeah, most none of my clients, I think, are asking, like, about the referral question early in the onboarding. Excuse me, I'm not asking that question early in the onboarding. Now I need to start doing that, and so, so you've integrated that into your your onboarding. Do you do you just wait for the timeframe? Is there, like, also a so, like, with getting testimonials, right? One of those key points is, like, you want to do it when the clients had a high where it's like, they just got this huge win. It's like, let me ask them for this great testimonial. Is that also the best time to ask for a referral? Or should you stick to certain timelines that you kind of preset?

Speaker 1 21:10
I do believe that the best time to ask it again is when they've had a great win. So a common mistake that I see people doing when they ask him for referrals and testimonials and things like that is that they ask them at the end. They ask them when they've basically off boarding them and they're actually about to leave, and whether that's through lack of experience, lack of results, or worse, that they've had all the results and they don't need you anymore, you don't want to be asking them at that point because they're not on the high of having achieved the best results. So let's say that you know, generally, your better client's best result comes after three months of working with you. That's probably the time when you're going to ask for the testimonial on the referral. And I actually generally do marry them together and ask for the referral at the same time as you ask for the testimonial, because it's really easy to ask that testimonial and then say, okay, great. Would you be able to refer me to somebody else? And you can even have a name in mind. You can say, I saw you're connected with this person, they look like the perfect client for us. Do you know if they would be interested in achieving X right now? They may say yes, they may say no, but if they say, Well, I don't know, actually, would you be willing to have a conversation with them? Yeah, sure. So it's little things like that that can make a big difference. So I think bringing it together and asking for the referral at the same time as a testimonial is a great thing, and doing it when they've had what you would generally class as the biggest win in working with you, and whatever that might look like in your specific business.

Chris DuBois 22:28
So I like to break when I like want to learn something new, I like to break it up into the mindset, skill set and tool set. Because if we start with the mindset we're thinking right, then it's super easy to start adopting the skills, and then we can look at the tools like we can't using tools. Doesn't matter if we're not. We don't the skills actually do this on our own first so I guess mindset wise, having that, that culture like, for referrals, like, and just believing like this is something we're going to do makes sense for the skills. What are, what are some of those skills you think we need in order to be able to even get in there and ask for referrals.

Speaker 1 23:06
So in terms of skills, I think the biggest thing is your communication skills, your ability to articulate what it is that you want from people, how they can best do it, and actually making it as easy as possible. So I think leadership and communication skills is hugely important. And then if we're looking at it from a mindset perspective, it goes back to the idea of being proactive over over reactive. If you're in the reactive mindset around referrals, which most people are, it's like they're great when they happen, but they'll happen when they happen, sort of thing, they just keep doing great work. And we're bound to get referrals. You will get some, but you're not going to get them consistently. But if you're proactive about it, and you know that I have to do these things in order to get referrals, that's when you create some consistency about it and some predictability, because you know that it could be as simple as if I know, if I asked for 10 referrals, I'm going to get at least two. That's just a random number that I picked up. But it might be that you know that's the number it is for your business. So it can be as simple as asking for that many referrals on a weekly basis to know that you're going to get two referrals. It can also be that you know that if you create two new collaborations this month, that will usually bring you around five to 10 referrals. So if I want five more referrals this month, I'm going to go and start a new collaboration. And I know from previous experience with those collaborations that I'm going to go and do that. So it's knowing where those referrals come from, where you who your best referral sources are, and having the mindset of being proactive versus reactive. Awesome.

Chris DuBois 24:31
The last part for that, what tools would you recommend people start using?

Speaker 1 24:37
So in terms of tools, do you mean in terms of like tech tools or

Chris DuBois 24:42
anything to make their life easier, I guess

Speaker 1 24:47
so for me, I think the the most important thing is a tracking system to know your numbers, because you're not going to know your numbers off the top of your head. You have to know them and have them written down. So it could be as simple as a CRM I tend to call. Mine an NRM, because it's my network network relationship management. So I have my client relationship one, and I now have my network one. And so for my referral partners, I'm tracking everything from who they're sending, how often they send them, when they send them, how likely they are to convert the percentage that they do, the lifetime value of those clients. It's all these things that makes my job easier in knowing where to put my focus when it comes to referrals, because, like anything, it's really easy to be like, I'm going to go and get more referrals in the same way. I'm going to go and do more cold calls, or I'm going to put out more content. But you can do these things until the cows come home, but it doesn't mean that it's actually going to produce results unless you're actually putting your efforts into the right things and doing it in the right way. I

Chris DuBois 25:43
like that you brought up the NRM, this is maybe a pro tip for anyone the so I'm using HubSpot for my CRM with the growth tool, like whatever system I'm on, one of their plans as like, the basics for everything, but the as a coach, I don't have tickets, like I don't need to run tickets, and so I just use that as a pipeline to create a, essentially, an NRM. I don't call it that, but I might now where it's essentially all my relationships, and it's like, the stronger the relationship, the further down the pipeline they are. And I can just go in this weekly, monthly, however long, and just look at the people on that list and say, who haven't I touch base with in a while, and I can just go talk to them. And it actually worked. Last week, there's another coach haven't chatted with for months, and we're doing some content together into a podcast, a couple other events and stuff. And it was just like, oh, look, that's probably going to lead to something, maybe not a direct referral here, but it's like having that sort of a relationship management platform for your network and not just your customers, I think is huge.

Speaker 1 26:47
Yeah, definitely, because it's so easy that, let's say you build a referral partnership with someone if you don't have that tracking system in place, let's say it doesn't produce results right away for you. It's really easy just to forget about it and be like, Oh, in six months time, they randomly pop up and one of your pieces of content, you're like, Oh, my God, I actually had a referral partnership with them, but nothing's happened. If you'd actually been proactive in reaching out to that person and actually have a system where it automatically pings it up saying you haven't spoken to this person in two months, I would send them a message at this point or see if you can create some sort of collaboration. That's the easiest way to track it. Do Not Track those things, and you do not have some sort of automation there or something that is going to bring it to your top of mind, you're going to forget about it. Because we're human, we do forget about these things. And it's we're building a lot of relationships, having a lot of conversations. As business owners, you're not going to remember every single conversation that you have on a daily basis. Before I was doing this, the amount of times where someone would randomly show up on my news feed, I'm like, oh my god, I haven't spoken to this person, like six months, but we had an amazing conversation the last time we did. Why didn't I reach out to that person? It's because I didn't mark it on my tracking system and it didn't have anything to remind me.

Chris DuBois 27:56
Yeah. So the law of reciprocity says if I do something for you, you're gonna feel like compelled to do something back for me. So I guess, how often are you like proactively sending Referrals Out in order, in hopes that it just gets people thinking about refer you more, really, so that they want to send referrals back to you to kind of repay that debt?

Speaker 1 28:19
The short answer is, every single day and every single day that I'm working. So I don't go a single day where I don't make at least one introduction. It's usually more than one. And there is a difference between introduction and referral. So referral is when somebody explicitly needs that service, and you can refer them to it. And one things I do is, when I'm on a conversation with someone, I'm regularly trying to find out what it is that they need, things that they're working on, skills they're looking to build, because they might need something that I don't offer, but my referral partners do. So that can be a really great thing for people to start doing when they're in conversations with people, is don't just think about your own needs and think about what people need that's related to what you offer. Think about it in general, and in the moment they mention anything and you're like, Oh, I know exactly the person to introduce them to go and do it beyond that, just making great introductions by saying like, say, for example, again, use a copywriting example. You know an amazing copywriter, and you can introduce somebody that is showing up regularly on your news feed and your content, engage me your posts, and you can, I don't know if you need a copywriter right now, but I know it can be really hard to find amazing copywriters. If you ever do need someone, or you have a client, or somebody else that does I highly recommend this person. Just wanted to put you two together, hopefully something comes from it, or it can be that someone else in your network, you think would make a great collaboration between one another, and you'd like, I just put you two together, because I think actually, there could be a great opportunity for you to to refer to each other. You're two people that I both highly endorse and highly recommend. So I wouldn't hesitate to put you both together and just create that value. So the most important thing for me is that I am making referrals and instructions every single day, because I know then that I'm putting myself in the best position for it to come back. The Law of Reciprocity thing can be taken to the extreme, sometimes because they. Makes people think that okay, if I make this introduction or this referral, they're going to send me a referral back. It doesn't always work like that, but you do know that if you refer to 10 different people over the course for a month, they're going to come back from somewhere. You don't necessarily know where it's going to come back from, but it will come from somewhere. And it's the same with any form of marketing. If you put out an ad, you don't know the specific person that's going to buy from your ad, but you know that somebody will. And generally, if you have previous history of results, you know that if I put spend this much on ads I target in this way, do this thing, I'm going to get a client from it. It's the same with referrals. If you make the right referrals, make the right introductions, have the right conversations, you know that the referral is going to come you just don't necessarily know

Chris DuBois 30:39
where they're going to come from. Makes sense. All right, I got two more questions. For you as we we wind down with the first me and what book do you recommend every agency owner should read?

Speaker 1 30:51
So the hard thing is, I actually don't know that many amazing books on referrals, and that's one of the reasons why I'm going to be writing one at some point. There's some good ones out there, but they're not necessarily the best. The the one that I would probably recommend is endless referrals from Bob Burke. I think he is one of the best who still talks about things that are still applicable in today's marketplace, in this today's online world of doing business and things like that, and for agencies and any business in general. So if I was going to recommend any book on referrals and the place get started, I would probably say that one. But the truth is, there's not that many amazing books on referrals out

Chris DuBois 31:31
there. Awesome. Yeah, good opportunity for you.

Speaker 1 31:35
Yeah, definitely. It's something I'm going to be doing because I'm like, there needs to be more books on this and doing it, talking about it in the

Chris DuBois 31:41
right way. Last question, Where can people find you?

Speaker 1 31:46
The best place to find me would probably be LinkedIn. Now, if I'd been a few weeks ago, I would have said Facebook, but I'm actually more active on that. So if people want to connect with me, see my content, have conversation with me. I would say, connect with me on LinkedIn. That would be the best place. And then, by all means, they can come to you and say, can come to you and say, Can I have an introduction to Gary? And I'm sure you'll be willing to do that and kind of practice what I preach on the whole introduction referrals thing.

Chris DuBois 32:08
Awesome. All right. Well, Gary, thanks for joining. You're welcome. You

Speaker 1 32:12
had some really good questions, some questions I haven't been asked before, which is always great, and that's one of the things that I look to kind of measure the quality of a podcast on is the questions that I asked, and you asked some really good questions, and in a really good way as well,

Chris DuBois 32:26
awesome. I should probably also end by saying that Gary and I met because we disagreed with one of my posts about referrals, chatted, jumped on, decided to jump on a call to talk about it, and realized, Oh, we actually align. We're saying we kind of believe the same thing. We're just saying different things in order to get there, and that led to this podcast and everything. So look at that people. You can have actual debate that that leads to you changing opinions and being aligned. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 32:55
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that. I love it when I can have that conversation with somebody on something. Quite often we are more aligned than we think, but we just have to talk about it. And it's great when you can disagree on something, but then actually see where each other's coming from and just have that

Chris DuBois 33:09
conversation. Yeah, it actually led to me changing a couple things within my own practice for like, how am I thinking about, you know, just pieces of marketing and so anyway, thank you for that. And, yeah, glad we were able to make this happen. That's the show everyone. You can leave a rating and review, or you can do something that benefits. You click the link in the show notes to subscribe to agency forward on substack, you'll get weekly content resources and links from around the internet to help you drive your agency forward. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai