Stop Networking Harder: Service Business Growth Runs on Referral Systems

Nate Grossman: I got off call recently with a founder two years into a career ownership coaching practice. He told me he needs more people in his funnel. That was his read, volume. So I asked what volume looks like right now. 800 conversations in the last year, three closes. More conversations was never going to fix that. Every one of those 800 starting with him interrupting someone who is not looking. The people actively researching his category. Reading the directories, listening to the podcast never once ran into him. The reason that persists is structural. He does not own a single surface. His only public page is a template the franchise system controls, and he cannot edit it. So there is nowhere for someone researching the category to land. And nothing that keeps working after a conversation ends. He has no follow-up schedule for the candidates who said not right now. And no trigger at the moment a client buys, which is the moment which is the one moment a referral is easy to ask for. He is offering a cash bounty for referrals into a system with nowhere to put them. Until he owns something, every month starts to starts back at zero. And that's this week's growth ceiling.

Simone Henry: ask a founder doing three million a year where their best client came from, and you will get a name. Somebody who knew somebody every time. Now ask them to show us where that lives in their business, which field in the CRM, who owns it, what the number was last quarter, and what it should be this quarter. You get silence. Well, here is what we see when we look at referrals in a business this size. It's the highest converting lead source the business has, and the cheapest one too. And the only one with no owner, no process, and no number attached to it. Anything else performing that well would have a dashboard by now. Most founders have referral history. Very few have a referral channel. History is what already happened to you. A channel is something you can count on next quarter. And when referrals slow down, founders reach for more networking. I am guilty of this, I have to say. but I'm gonna get it together. This episode is gonna help me. More coffees, they do more events,

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: and it feels productive. But you can't fix. A missing system by adding more people to it. The relationship is not what's missing. The system that turns those relationships you already have into referrals, you can predict that is what's missing. So today, Nate and I are digging into where referrals actually live in your business, why the network harder instinct keeps failing, and how to build a referral engine that runs whether or not the founder is in the room. I'm Simone Henry, he's Nate Grossman, and this is the Growth Ceiling. Welcome.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, all right. That was great. So everybody out there listening, this probably this may sound familiar to you. nearly every service business, maybe well, a lot of them, let's say. Qu quite a few. Yeah, nearly everyone. between one million and ten million runs on referrals. And you know, maybe this is dependent on the industry as well. Some industries are more referral dependent than others. but almost none of them can predict their referral volume. The channel that built their business is the one channel that you know oftentimes nobody even manages. and what what what happens is like the the founders kind of file that quote unquote unpredictable referrals under marketing. It's a marketing thing, right? And they conclude that they just need more visibility. They need to go out there and like you said, Simone, get out there. I'm short on customers. I need to go networking again some more. More top of funnel, right? More visibility, more networking, more top of funnel. So they spend money and the calendar and their their calendar time on that one pillar. but they're probably they're they're kind of, you know, trying to solve a problem that is somewhere else, in other words. So the stakes, you know, what do we what do we what do we risk losing in the business here potentially? Business development resets to zero every month because it runs on the fo on the memory of the founder and what and the founder's calendar, you know, and every month you start over. Meanwhile, the highest converting, highest retaining lead source in the business sits unmanaged. That's the growth ceiling for most of this audience, and it compounds. The the longer referrals stay accidental, the more the founder becomes the only business development asset the company has.

Simone Henry: All right.

Nate Grossman: That is a liability. Not a I wouldn't even call it an asset. That's kind of the opposite. so anyways.

Simone Henry: So in operations terms, referrals are the only lead source that most of these businesses have that carries zero acquisition cost and the highest close rate. And it's also the only one with no owner, no process, and no number attached to it. Anything else performing that well, you would have built some sort of visibility system around it where, okay, let me. Let me see where where these referrals are coming from, right? and let me track them. Who's who's bringing me the most referrals? You know, are what what are these referrals buying the most? How long are they staying? All of that, right? We would have been tracking all of that. But because they are referrals, a lot of people, a lot of founders, they just kind of leave it up to chance, you know, and I've I've asked. Ask clients this a lot too. Like, so your business is based on or you know, most of your business comes from referrals. Is that true? Yeah, that's true. Great. Do you have a system built around it? When's the next one coming? I don't know. Just when somebody thinks about it, yeah.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: That's what happens.

Nate Grossman: Yep. Yeah, they had they have they had three referrals in March and none again until July. your revenue is fine all so far on the year, but you know, month to month it sometimes can get terrifying, right? So this is

Simone Henry: Right, it's not very predictable.

Nate Grossman: often what people see, yeah. And you know, oftentimes the founder all will say something like, You know, we just need to get our name out there more. You know,

Simone Henry: Right.

Nate Grossman: that's that's a common common phrase we hear. and again, the the default diagnosis is it's it's a vil is a visibility problem. So therefore we need to fix our visibility, right? So we're gonna join another networking group, we're gonna sponsor an event, we're gonna post more on LinkedIn, we're gonna hire someone for outbound, spend money and hours generating awareness among a bunch of strangers. But here's the deal. That is a wrong approach here, I think. The found the founder, the business owner, is trying to build new relationships to compensate for extracting nothing repeatable from the ones that they currently have. But the math doesn't work. Okay. If you have a stranger from a networking event, it could be potentially years away from producing what one systematized past client relationship. Produce this quarter. You know, there are other ways, in other words, to to be more effective around it. that visibility work that you're that you're doing grows that pool of people who could refer you someday, right? But it doesn't really do much for the people who would refer you today if there was a mechanism that you had in place to activate them. you can't really n network your way out of a system gap in in other words. every new relationship that you add on that front end, you know, lands in the same leaky bucket, as it were.

Simone Henry: All right.

Nate Grossman: We can we could probably talk quite a bit about at length about different situations like examples of this, but

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: this is actually something that I'm encountering currently with a a client of mine who wants like their referral system, the referral channel, referrals, I'll say, are their best converting, best opportunity right now. But they don't have any kind of system around it. And so They are getting out there and they're joining networking groups. They are they haven't as far as I know, they haven't really done sponsorships yet. But you know, they're not really doing much that I'm aware of with activating their current clients or their past clients, which you know could be the r the warmest referral sources that they have. so

Simone Henry: So you kinda want the the current clients to kind of bring the bring others along.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: yeah.

Nate Grossman: They're the ones they're the ones who actually know what it's like working with the business, right? And this

Simone Henry: Right. That's good.

Nate Grossman: is actually something that I'm that I'm working on them with currently. They have done they have gone and asked their their current client base as like a survey questions about, you know, what it's like working with them. And from the results so far, you know, they they they come back with we love the customer service. Okay. But they're not really talking about that anywhere on their their website and what they have available. So that then could become something that we focus on to kind of help generate those referrals, right? That is the thing that we want your referrals to talk about because it is the thing that made them happiest, right? so encouraging that and systematizing that, that that's what we're talking about.

Simone Henry: Absolutely. So, but what we don't want to have happen is like the calendar filling with virtual coffees and events, and none of which have any kind of follow-up attached. And, you know, CRM that has no fields for referral sources, anything like that, right? You don't want your business spending your scarcest resource, right? Your founder's hours on top of a funnel that's not measuring at the bottom of it.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. so I guess let's think about how this fits into the our V our the V three framework here. And basically, just to kind of put it succinctly, the the default is we gotta work on that visibility, the visible pillar. We're gonna we need to attract new clients, we need to attract new potential sources of referrals through networking, capture their information. Maybe. and when in reality it's it's actually more a question of the valuable pillar, right? You are activating the clients that you currently have and making them that much more valuable to you. which is where your referrals really need to come from.

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: Alright, so let's keep rolling here. I think just to get to the the heart of the matter, When when it all boils down, there's no system. And we've we've kind of mentioned this already, there's no real system around referrals. And nobody really owns referrals, quote unquote. There's no moment in the customer experience as it's currently designed to produce referrals. No one has defined what a good referral really looks like, and nothing is tracking whether or not they happen. So those referrals arrive as gifts. You know, you're just happy when they arrive, you know, and and thankful. And maybe you give them a gift card in return, right?

Simone Henry: Mm.

Nate Grossman: But that's it's really makes it hard for that to count on that as a channel, actually. all right.

Simone Henry: Mm.

Nate Grossman: So what what the like the kind of like the mechanics of this, the referrals are coming in, they're pleasant surprises, so they don't get treated like a channel. There's nobody auditing the channel because it feels like luck, right? How do you how do you how do you count on luck? but unfortunately it's it's th it's when you're viewing it as this happy accident that ends up creating a gap there.

Simone Henry: That's interesting. I never really thought about it that way. they you think, I just got a referral. it wasn't that nice. That was beautiful. You

Nate Grossman: You're right. Yeah.

Simone Henry: don't you don't think of it as wasn't that wonder it, you know, you think of it like, it it was so nice of so and so to mention my name and to to tell other people about me. You don't think of it as a lead channel, somebody mentioning your name. in in their circles wherever they happen to be, you know? and and if you're not if you're not thinking of it, you're thinking of it as a, it was just nice of them to do it. You don't think of it as an actual lead channel that you can you can actually manage and count on. Like this can be a real thing

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: in your business, and it can be a consistent lead source in your business.

Nate Grossman: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Simone Henry: That's really interesting.

Nate Grossman: yeah, and and it cuts down on customer acquisition costs, so you know, if if nothing else. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Absolutely, right? Doesn't cost you anything really for to have somebody mention your name.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: so yeah, and I I have heard people say that, either they forget to ask or they don't really wanna be asking people to to refer refer clients because then I look needy or I look like you know, I'm I'm just bothering them too much. You know, that kind of thing.

Nate Grossman: Right. Again, but that is because it's you're viewing it as more of a task than as a viable channel, right? if if it's a task, tasks are easy to kind of like, you know, forget and not do it because you're they're kind of a chore, right? Like

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: or because you feel like you're imposing.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: But if you are s if you've if you switch your your mindset and you're thinking about it in a different like this is a viable channel. then things get different.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: another problem here that that we encounter with this is that, you know, any referrals that do come into the business are basically tied to the founder themselves because of their connections, right? Of their their charisma, you know, their charm, their charisma, whatever, whatever that is, right? Yeah.

Simone Henry: They're the ones with the relationships. Yeah. Right. And they know the business inside out, right? And so they they have all that marketing and messaging knowledge in their head. They have that passion for for whatever the business is doing. And so exactly, right. So they go out and they just talk and you know,

Nate Grossman: Yeah. And they love to talk about the thing that they do, right? So Yeah.

Simone Henry: with all this passion. around it and that brings in people love it and they bring in the the

Nate Grossman: And people love that. I mean that is that is like

Simone Henry: leaves.

Nate Grossman: They're like, we want, we want more of that. We want to hang around this this person, right? but unfortunately, what ends up happening is that effort by the founder ends up being load-bearing in the business,

Simone Henry: Right.

Nate Grossman: right? If if that is the thing that it's generating these referrals, which is basically the only thing supporting the business,

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: what happens if that if that founder leaves the business, right? Dun dun dun. You know, like yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Or, you know, he breaks his leg and s he's in the hospital for two weeks and you you know, and do just like not get

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Simone Henry: any leads for two weeks straight.

Nate Grossman: He I'll tell you what, he's gonna get a lot of get well soon cards from his employees or from the from

Simone Henry: Yeah, true, right.

Nate Grossman: like you're coming back, right? You know, like and so

Simone Henry: Yeah. That's true.

Nate Grossman: so yeah, that that can be a problem. but unfortunately, because it it's coming in, right? Because this is a thing that converts.

Simone Henry: Are you done?

Nate Grossman: you know nobody is thinking there's a problem there, right? There's

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: why why do we need why do we need a system around that? We got s you know, Captain Joe so and so doing you know, bringing things in, like it everything's great. So yeah. No one no one wants to think of the you know, you know, God forbid situations, but you know, hit by a bus situation, right? But this is yeah.

Simone Henry: Right. Yeah, we don't like to think of it happening, but it happens all the time and we and because we know

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: this is it's a part of life. I used to work for a I used to do some marketing for a a funeral home. And you know, their attitude was death is a part of life. It's gonna happen. we don't the only thing that we don't know is like when or how really, but we know it's gonna happen. So We need to plan for it. And we can.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: You know, it's like it's not it's not thinking about it's not being morbid necessarily. It j it's being proactive rather than reactive.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, it's worst case scenario planning, you know. Think of it that way, if you need a clinical definition, I guess.

Simone Henry: Yeah. Absolutely. And it's like, believe it or not, getting referrals can be a system that you plan for and you can activate and it can be predictable. So, you know, when you're talking about when you're talking about putting together a system like this, you need four components. You need an owner who owns Who is responsible for these referrals? you need a trigger. What is the trigger that fires off the ask? You know, is it when when the customer reaches reaches the end point of their engagement with you? When it when they reach 75% completion of the engagement, is it three months after and you've given them a chance to actually, you know? use your service or your product and love it and then you ask for for that referral. you know you want to know what is what is what do you want them to actually forward on to somebody else? What do you want them to say? What assets are you gonna give them in order to make this happen? And you want a record. You want a log. Who was making the referral? Where where did the client come from? Who referred them? And are you are you incentivizing this referral? Does the person who referred the new client get a reward for referring that client? So

Nate Grossman: And it should be the reward in that case, by the way, should be something that is You know, it doesn't it shouldn't be obscene, right?

Simone Henry: Mm.

Nate Grossman: But it needs to be effective, let's say, you know. I think.

Simone Henry: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And incentivizing them to keep making referrals. it's something that that makes them feel good, that's maybe useful to them. and maybe something that they that they can't really get easily somewhere else, maybe, you know? maybe something that's unique to your company.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Which, by the way, needs to be the thing that you use for your positioning. But you know, that get that's a little outside of the scope of our conversation here,

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: but needs to be considered. yeah, there's just so much when it comes to actually operationalizing this and systematizing it that need that you need to consider. One thing I wanna jump back real quick that we that we neglected to mention was when it comes to the mechanics of you know the situation and i think you kind of touched on this but the part of the problem is that nobody has defined a good referral and so that makes it hard to actually spot one

Simone Henry: That's true.

Nate Grossman: so especially when it especially when it comes to automating it right and

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: to letting people other people know who to be looking for and and what to listen for

Simone Henry: Right.

Nate Grossman: You know, you n you need to have a good idea of that in your own mind so that you can tell other people, yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: And then you can tell your clients like what to look for, right? You know, you may send them a message that says, you know, thank you so much for being such a great customer. Do you know somebody who is like this and like that and does this and does that and looks like this and looks like that, that could use our service, you know, that could use a new. blind spot mirror that could use some you know vitamins or

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: would benefit from you know from an electric car whatever you know give them give them those specifics and so that when they do see that person it'll click in their minds yeah let me tell them about such and such and by the way here is

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: my You can sign up right here. Here's my special link and I'll get credit for that referral.

Nate Grossman: Yep.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: you could like what what I've done is actually create a web page for referrals that

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: basically outlines everything that I that you know what who I'm looking to meet. I

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: even make it so easy as at the bottom of the page you can you can actually copy text that you can drop into an email if you want. Yeah.

Simone Henry: I love that. I love that. See how like Nate is just like he thinks about all this stuff. It's just so well thought out. It's so great.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: I need to copy mate, that's what I need to do. Yeah.

Nate Grossman: okay, so so when it comes to automation, how how can we how can we I think you di were you touching on this? I don't I don't know if we've actually gotten into this yet. How could how can we automate this?

Simone Henry: A little bit, yeah, we did touch on that. So yeah, when you're in order to automate a referral system like this, you'll you will need a trigger. When when does when do you ask for this referral? Do you ask after the client has finished using your product and they've gotten You know, that's when you ask for the review and then a referral and a testimonial. Do you ask, say you're a coach and the person has you've been working with this person for three months of a six month program and then you ask for a referral and they're doing well,

Nate Grossman: So there's so there

Simone Henry: you know?

Nate Grossman: So so there's a action that

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: that occurs, that could be a trigger, a time, you know, somet

Simone Henry: Yeah, there's a timeline. Yeah.

Nate Grossman: something happens at a certain time. So th actions time, what else? That's

Simone Henry: Yeah. you wanna give them you wanna give them an asset. You wanna tell them who who is perfect for your product, your service. you wanna tell them you may want to give them some sort of an asset that they can use, maybe a QR code that they, you know, that they can share with their friends or a special link they can share with their friends. you may even tell them what to say. You know, I know of or I've been using such and such a product and it's been helping me tremendously. You should give it a try. You know, you may want to tell them exactly what to say. and you all of this can

Nate Grossman: And I I was

Simone Henry: be packaged up and automated and delivered. And like Nate said, he created a page. You can have it where after a certain a certain amount of time of your client working with you. You send them to that page. You send them an email or you send them a text that says, Hey, check out this page. I would love it if you'd refer me to to your friends or to other people in your network. Here's a link to my referral page with information for you. You know, or what if you set up a formal affiliate program where you say, hey, now that you're in our system, are you loving are you loving what you're seeing? Are you loving what what you're what's going on here? Go ahead and sign up for our affiliate program and you get paid or you get incentivized or you get rewarded for bringing us referrals. And when they come when they come aboard, you'll get this much or you'll get this reward.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: You know?

Nate Grossman: So again, like having idea of who exactly it is that you want to be referred to is crucial. Can't can't stress that enough.

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: Having an idea of how you're going to reward the person who is referring you. Very important.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: having an idea of when that referral should take place, either through an action or a certain time. Gotta gotta figure that out. That allows you to automate it. In your system.

Simone Henry: Absolutely.

Nate Grossman: But what we want to stress, I think it's important for us to stress here that we are not taking you, the person, out of this, right? By no means. everything that you've done, yeah, it's

Simone Henry: It just means that you thought of it ahead of time. It's still you.

Nate Grossman: just it's it's you're basically automating the reminders, right?

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: and maybe maybe there's a a link that gets sent or something like that, or maybe it is maybe it is a gift card that you're sending automatically. Based on certain triggers, et cetera. You know, when when a a referral actually is converted, at that point, then you could reward the person who referred them, etc. But you're, you know, you could put a personal touch in there at any at any step so that it's not taking you completely out of the picture. Like your personality should definitely come through. Yeah.

Simone Henry: It should come through, absolutely. But automating it, it means that you never forget it. I think that the statistic is 70 or 80 percent of of your clients are willing to give you a referral, but most of them forget to give you a referral simply because you know that's right.

Nate Grossman: And you forget to ask. Yeah.

Simone Henry: If you don't ask They are not gonna remember.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: And not because they don't want to, but because they're living their lives and they're not thinking about you twenty four seven.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. In in the last ninety days, to to our listeners out there, how many referrals arrived without you personally asking or being in the room when it happened? I want you to write that down. just take 60 seconds, count it count them out. If you have zero, that means every referral you got was founder generated, right? So that means that you were responsible. And your business development is exactly as scalable as your the size of your calendar, or or the lack thereof, right? So okay.

Simone Henry: Absolutely.

Nate Grossman: Let's let's let's kind of switch flip the script here a little bit. so referrals, let's let let's think of referrals in a different way slightly. Referrals are an output of your customer experience rather than a result of your you know networking visibility actions on the front end. Okay. If you are giving great customer experience, Then people are going to want to tell others about you. Just like someone said. What was it? You said eighty percent statistically, is that right? That's a lot.

Simone Henry: Yeah. Seventy to eighty percent. They're willing to give you a referral. You just gotta ask

Nate Grossman: And you can engineer this this whole thing, okay? You you have to stop trying to meet people who might refer you someday. I mean, don't get me don't get me wrong, like networking is great, meeting new people is great, okay, but that isn't necessarily as reliable a channel as someone who already knows the great work that you do. Okay.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: That's what we're saying. And And so basically, you know, you're gonna build that system that lets the people who already trust you refer refer you. And that's what we're gonna that's what you're gonna work on this quarter, right?

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Okay. So let's talk about what changes when this stuff is actually implemented and it's working well.

Simone Henry: So your referrals, they get an owner and a number, the person isn't a number, the referral is a number, the record in your system has a number. and so somebody is responsible for that referral flow, and the business sets an expected referral count per quarter, which turns a hope into a managed channel with variants to investigate. So you know that referrals are coming. It's just a matter of how many this quarter this quarter versus last quarter. And it becomes

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: it becomes a system. and

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: that ask gets turned into a delivery. You actually create those assets and you make sure it gets into the hands of a happy client so that they can then go and and make that ask on your behalf. they get those reminders, they get You ask them for feedback and testimonials and you can have them use those testimonials in their ask. but it becomes a defined moment in every engagement. And it's tied to it's tied to the value that you've delivered for them. and so that you can help engineer that referral conversation, right? And you deliver that asset to your client. That they can then go and ask for that referral. Right. And it just becomes part of part of your customer journey. And then the referral sources get equipped, just like we said, we deliver those assets, give them, give them a one paragraph description of who the business serves best so they know who to look for. What does that ideal client look like to you? And let them know so that they can then they'll recognize this person when they see them. Like, I know, I know who that is. That's you're describing my best friend Shana, you know? Let me go tell her about

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: you guys, right? And so you

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Simone Henry: let them know and you give them that asset so that they they know exactly. who to go to. They'll recognize that person when they see them. They've got the asset and they and they know how to make that ask. And it just becomes automatic for each client. Nobody, you never forget to ask.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. And just y if you go so far as to create the actual text of the email that you want them to send. I mean, you know. so

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sometimes people do it with testimonials too.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it it when when when you're when we're saying

Simone Henry: Like you don't know what to say? Let me tell you. Let me give you some ideas.

Nate Grossman: it here, it it kind of sounds crass to a certain degree. you know, I get it, but there's there's there's the concept of low friction. You want to make this as low friction as possible for

Simone Henry: Absolutely.

Nate Grossman: the people who want to remit recommend you. You have to help them, tell them how to recommend you.

Simone Henry: Okay.

Nate Grossman: You know, maybe they're not used to doing such a thing either, right? So think think about that. So here's here's the thing that doesn't change amongst all of this.

Simone Henry: That's okay.

Nate Grossman: Again, keep networking, right? That's okay. Networking is great. Don't stop networking. relationships are actual assets that you retain. And those those relationships that are with centers of influence, right? Which is these people come into contact with the people that you want to be in contact with. All that kind of stuff does compound and you know keep keep doing it. You're also going to keep delivering on the work that makes people want to refer you. Don't by any means give up on your customer service. That is crucial. and you know the system that you'll be building is going to help route that goodwill, you know, where you where you need it to go. and goodwill is one of those things that you cannot manufacture and you cannot buy really. it's it's an intangible asset, you know, that it you can actually I you know, I know people who help value businesses that take goodwill into consideration when actually put trying to put a dollar amount on a business. Like this is this is a real thing.

Simone Henry: They do say your your what? Your net worth your net worth is your net worth now. So

Nate Grossman: Network is your net worth. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Simone Henry: gotta keep doing

Nate Grossman: But there's the concept of transferability in when you're trying to exit a business as well, right? If you're trying to build that value in the business, you want that goodwill and the ability to network and to use those referrals to travel with the business when it goes to the next owner. It can't be completely tied to the current business owner. And They're the only one that owns all those relationships. That is unsustainable for the next owner. so that's what we're talking here. You're not, however, you're not going to automate your the relationships. Okay. There's a certain amount of relationships that you can't. I mean, that's just the way it is. Like it's that person and you know, that they have something between them. There's there's no amount of drip sequences that are gonna gonna fix that. But you know, hopefully if you do it right, the system that you're building schedules in a human moment. You still have to have a human in there promoting that relationship and making the contact and being the face and having face-to-face, you know, maybe person to person, in person, potentially. That's one of the best, right? But certainly, you know, on video calls at the very least, phone calls, you know, used to be that that was like the real the real deal, right? And some people still swear by it. I think it's a generational thing, but you know, we we won't go into that. But great, you know, if you have so and so's phone number, you know how you know that you can call them up, have a great conversation with them, outstanding. Some of that stuff you're just not gonna be able to recreate. That's okay. That's okay. But everything else, the scaffolding around it, you know, that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: All right. let the technology help you. Absolutely.

Nate Grossman: okay, so when when this is you know put into in put into work and it actually is operating in the business, your referred leads cl are going to close faster and they're gonna stick around longer, right? Which means that you're going to have to get fewer customers, right? Because you're getting you're having the same amount of revenue, if not more, already. And It doesn't you're not in that constant roller coaster, right? Helps to smooth out that roller coaster. so that is working on that valuable pillar. Okay. Working on that valuable pillar takes the pressure off the other two, right? It's the the visibility and bringing in new leads is not as crucial to the business, in other words, because you already have a good cushion, you already have great revenue coming in from the clients that you're currently with because you're giving them great delivery, you're making their lives better, et cetera, et cetera. having predictable referral flows means that you know, business development switches, right? The the founder isn't necessarily the one on whom it all depends anymore. And so That helps the that viability portion there in the business. You know, the business can actually stand on its own two legs, in other words. and then when you write it down, who you serve best, who your ideal referral is, whatever that one pager, or you know, one paragraph, whatever, one sentence, at least something, you're sharpening the positioning that helps to drive that that visible pillar. Okay, like w I think I've mentioned this earlier. The things that the c your customers are talking about, the thing that they love about you is the thing that you're going to use to attract more customers like them.

Simone Henry: I'm sorry.

Nate Grossman: You know, that becomes part of your messaging, part of the your positioning, right? Which is part of the visibility pillar that we talked about. and so if you're fixing the the right thing. in the business, even even the parts of the business that you weren't working on are stand to benefit. That's that's the that's the point there.

Simone Henry: It's a beautiful thing.

Nate Grossman: man, compounds.

Simone Henry: no.

Nate Grossman: All right, let's see here. So we're gonna do a rapid application round. How can we actually implement this in the business right now, starting today? All right, so number one, you're going to list your five most referral-likely relationships. Those can be past clients who got a clear result. Plus maybe you have some COIs, some centers of influence who share your audience. And you're gonna write one sentence that defines what a good referral looks like for you.

Simone Henry: Right. And so then you're going to turn that sentence into a short forwardable paragraph and send it to those five people with a personal note. It this is not a a blast out to your whole list. This is just for those five people. It's probably going to be manually handwritten or manually written, but manually sent, but you're sending it to them. These are five

Nate Grossman: Could be could be handwritten.

Simone Henry: individual messages and You you're gonna write them once and personalize them to those five people.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Okay. Number two, you're going to find the value peak in your delivery. It's that moment where the client sees the result and says, my God, this is amazing. Right. It's that moment where that is where you start, that is where you okay, so you enjoyed that. Now will you give me a referral or will you, you know, write write a recommendation or something like that, right?

Simone Henry: Yeah. So now you're gonna put that into a project template as a task with the owner. So you may be using a project management software or a or a CRM that includes tasks, and you're gonna assign that to somebody and it's going to fire for every engagement. So it's gonna have that a trigger, every engagement, whether or not the founder remembers. And if so that if the ask if the ask is in your system, it's always gonna be remembered, right? If it's in your memory, it might as well not exist.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yep. and as you go along, you know, if you've been in business long enough, you know where those moments are,

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: right? And you know what causes them. So,

Simone Henry: Yeah, if you're using like a a a CRM with an opportunity pipeline, you can even you know have some sort of a a tag. this person, this person said the thing that I was waiting for. And you're gonna move them to that next

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: spot in the pop line pipeline, that triggers off that ass or triggers off the message to them to to make the ask.

Nate Grossman: Yep. Number three, here we go. From today, starting today, you're gonna know where every new lead comes from. And you can't manage a channel because you can't manage a channel that you can't see.

Simone Henry: Right. So this is a required field in your CRM or in your project management system. You're going to create a field for a referral source and take a look at that and look at that count. As is it going up? this actually sounds to me like two fields, right? So you may have a field for your referral count for that for that quarter. And another one in each of your client records that says, okay, this person was referred by that person. And so you are going to be keeping track of these numbers and who these referral sources are.

Nate Grossman: That's good point. Yeah. Knowing who knowing where they came from means, you know, you could go back to that same source and find more, essentially. So

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: yeah. Very important. Don't forget. Okay.

Simone Henry: Well, you may want to recruit more people like that referral source. Yeah. I think that's what Benjamin Hardy calls super

Nate Grossman: Yes, yes, in fact, yeah, almost certainly you will. Yeah.

Simone Henry: who's

Nate Grossman: Yes. Yep. Absolutely. Superconnectors. Is that similar similar? Yeah.

Simone Henry: Mm. And yeah, and connectors, yeah, absolutely.

Nate Grossman: okay, so the the founders who are gonna who break through this ceiling are not necessarily the best networkers. they're the ones who treat referrals as a designed output of that valuable pillar instead of a happy accident. Okay. Your your get your get retention results and the referral system working. and your business development stops resetting every month

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: because the engine runs on the value you already delivered in st instead of on your calendar. Visibility gets you leads, viability gets you out of the weeds, and value sets you free.

Simone Henry: That's right. So if this episode made you suspect your real constraint is not what you've been treating it as, book a growth clarity call. It's 45 minutes, there's no pitch. And we'll map your specific situation against the V3 framework. And you're gonna leave with a clearer view of where to focus next. This is a no obligation call. And if you're not ready to talk yet, that's perfectly okay. Just subscribe to the newsletter. And each week we'll break down one real growth constraint that we're seeing and how to spot it in your own business. And the link to subscribe to that newsletter is in the show notes. And don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and share it with another founder who you see has some growth constraints. Subscribe to the growth ceiling wherever you listen. We'd love that you're here. We'll see you next time.

Nate Grossman: Thanks a lot.