All right, today's topic is what I call the referral maximizer. And this is how you can leverage your relationships with evangelists to maximize the amount of referrals you get from them. As a refresher, before we get started, I want to remind all of you that this content is focused on you.

So please use the chat feature to send me questions. Everyone should be muted now. If you have a question, you can either chat the question to me or just tell me you have a question and I'll unmute you and you can ask it directly.

We'll take about 35 minutes-ish for the presentation and then I'll take questions for as long as you like. You can follow up with me at my email address right there, dlorenzo, dlorenzo.com, or go to the community website, post your questions or you can watch the replay there. I also send you out a link directly to the replay.

And then my phone number is right there. I live for your phone calls. I am locked away in quarantine as you are, so call me and I'll be happy to talk to you about what we covered today.

Our goals for this session today is number one, to identify and engage evangelists. As a refresher, there's a difference between clients and evangelists in my world. An evangelist is someone who's never used your services, but they refer you anyway.

And in my case, I have been fortunate and I have never had a problem with the IRS, so I don't bother, oh, okay, sorry. I've never had a problem with the IRS, so I am thrilled. I am absolutely happy to refer Steve Klitzner to people who have problems with the IRS, but I've never needed to use his services, knock on wood.

So I'm an evangelist for Steve. That's the difference between an evangelist and a client. Now, if I had used Steve's services and I referred him, then I'd just be a client referring him.

So in my world, an evangelist is somebody who's never used your services, but they refer you. Personal injury attorneys see this all the time. Criminal defense attorneys see this all the time.

Evangelists can be highly productive. In fact, in many practice areas, you will find 80% of your referrals come from evangelists and only 20% come from clients. In our previous session, we spent a lot of time focusing on how to get clients to refer us more frequently.

Today, we're talking about identifying and engaging evangelists. The second thing we're gonna do today is talk about getting inside referrals. What does that mean? That means getting referrals from people within your industry.

So those of you who are attorneys, how do you get more referrals from attorneys, referrals from other attorneys? I know as lawyers, this is a big deal to you. We're gonna talk about how you can get more from within your industry. When I work with CPAs, I work with architects, I work with financial advisors, I often find that we can activate more referrals inside their industry by doing some of the things we're gonna talk about today.

I also wanna talk to you about group membership. One of the things that I've found is a big problem for professional service providers, particularly for attorneys, is they join a group and they think because they joined the group, business is just gonna fall out of the sky and hit them in the head. That's not true, and you guys who are with me today on the presentation here on the webinar, I know you all, so I know that you realize that you can't just join a group and expect business to hit you in the head.

So we're gonna go through how to get business if you do decide to join a group. We're gonna talk about building a referral team. I find this is an underutilized strategy.

The concept of a referral team, having a handful of people that you can connect with who will be helpful to you and will look out for you and are constantly gonna refer business to you, it requires work, but if you pull it off, it can be highly effective and profitable. And then finally, vendors, using vendors as a secret weapon. Throughout my entire career and even now that I have a home office, I've always been able to connect with my vendors to attract business.

My vendors are particularly good evangelists for me because I've trained them to be, and I'm going to teach you how to train your vendors to be a secret weapon in terms of referrals for you. Number six, reinforcing referral behavior. Oh, I almost forgot, this is a critical element both for client referrals and for evangelist referrals.

So absolutely gonna spend some time talking about that. So those are the six things we're gonna accomplish during our time together today. Let's talk about evangelists.

If you get one referral from someone, they have the potential to refer 10 people to you. That's always been my philosophy. So your antenna needs to be up for people who say things like, Dave, how do I know when somebody's going to be a good client for you? That's a question that an evangelist asks, right? Or what do I listen for in a conversation so I know if somebody's a good client for you? When people start to ask you questions about your business, you should immediately be curious because one of two things is gonna happen.

They're either looking to have you invest in a project, they wanna figure out how much you make, they're looking to count your money, or they are like you and I and they want to help you because they know that if they help you with referrals, you're gonna help them. So you're at a social function, back when we had social functions, or in the future after we get a vaccine and there are social functions again, and people start talking to you and they say, hey, how do you know when somebody's gonna be a good client for you? How can you tell when somebody's gonna be a good client for you? Or even on the phone or on a Zoom call, how can you tell when somebody's gonna be a good client for you? When people ask that, that's a red flag that that person can absolutely be an evangelist for you. So you need to be able to do three things at that point.

You need to be able to provide them with listen-fors. What's a listen-for? Well, that's a buying question that your potential client would ask. So for example, hey Dave, have you ever dealt with the IRS? That would be a buying signal that somebody needs Steve Klitzner's services, right? Hey Dave, what do you know about the IRS and how they work as far as collections? That's a big tip-off that somebody's looking for help with that.

Hey Dave, what do you think happens if you get a DUI a second time? That's a tip-off that somebody might need a criminal defense attorney who specializes in DUIs. So when you hear things like that, or when you hear things like, tell me a little bit about what area of the law you practice in, or what kind of law do you practice? That person automatically should go to the top of your list as a potential evangelist because they know that all you guys don't do what they see on law and order, right? They know you guys don't go to court every single day. They're asking about a specific practice area.

So they're more sophisticated than the average person when it comes to knowing about legal services. So when you're identifying an evangelist, that's the first step. You gotta give them a concrete listen for.

And then the second step is, you need to describe in as much detail as possible your ideal client. Don't describe your current clients, or don't describe your average clients. Describe your best clients because you want them to be looking for people who are like your best.

This way, if they fall slightly short, you don't get a god awful crappy client, you get a mediocre client. Or they might hit the nail on the head and give you your best client. So describe your best client.

And then the third thing is, give them an example. Do a mini case study for them about the value you provide, how the people find you, what they ask for when they come to you. Describe the situation to them in detail.

If they find you one person, if an evangelist ever comes to you with one referral, they have the potential to get you 10 referrals. Because referrals are just like roaches. There's never just one there.

There's always dozens and dozens and dozens there. So it's incumbent upon you to do the things we're talking about today to keep evangelists active and referring you, all right? So if you can get one, you can get 10. Number two, there has to be mutual respect between you and the evangelist, as well as a natural synergy.

So, you know, Klitzner is so easy. Steve Klitzner is so easy to use as an example, because he connects with CPAs really well. Steve does IRS controversy work, and whenever he has an IRS issue, he generally needs the help of a CPA to either recreate somebody's books, or to help somebody straighten out their books because they haven't been keeping their books well, or they just haven't tracked their expenses at all.

So he refers work to a whole cadre of CPAs who in turn refer him back. So there's a natural synergy in the work. There's also a mutual respect.

He's not gonna refer somebody to a crappy CPA, just like they wouldn't refer clients to him if they didn't respect him. You have to have that mutual respect and that natural synergy. Now you may be thinking to yourself, well, the natural synergy, Dave, that's a good point, but the mutual respect, doesn't that go without saying? Well, no, it doesn't go without saying, and here's the reason why.

We all know that guy or that woman who operates on the fringe, and they've always got a deal or some hustle going on. They're generally people who are referral sources because part of their hustle is they try and put a little money in your pocket so that they can somehow either take advantage of you or they're looking for you to do something that's operating on the fringes of either ethical boundaries or moral boundaries. Well, that person is not respected by the people he's referring to you.

I think you may be able to take his or her referrals, but you gotta be really careful when you connect with that person. And the reason why you have to be careful is because generally those people who operate on the fringes of society, the ethical fringes of society, people usually think that everyone they're connected to operates on the ethical fringes of society. So there are a couple of people in particular who I know from my B&I days, and some of you who are in the Miami or Fort Lauderdale area may know some of these people as well, who some people think they're ethical business people, but from connecting with them, we know they operate on the fringes of society.

And I tend to not take referrals from those people unless I knew the person they're referring independently, if that makes sense. I just have a big, big issue with somebody who's perceived as a fringe operator sending me business because I don't wanna be painted with that brush. Let's see, we have a chat question here.

And I think I'll take the chat question right now. Steve asks, how do you deal with the potential referral who asks whether you have handled a specific issue that is novel for you, but within your wheelhouse of expertise? Ah, really good question, Steve. This is actually an excellent question.

So Steve's question is one that comes up almost every day in consulting. It's less frequent in the other professional service disciplines. And what he's saying is, so the client says to you, hey, Dave, have you ever done any succession planning before in an architecture firm, right? If somebody asked me that right now, I would say, listen, I've done a ton of succession planning in corporate businesses.

Back when I was at Gallup, I led those engagements. And I do succession planning all the time in law firms. And I've even done a couple of CPA firms, but I've never done an architecture firm.

So how would I handle that question? Or in Steve's case, he may have handled thousands of purchase and sale of healthcare practices, but he may not have ever handled the purchase and sale of a radiology clinic, let's say. And that's what they've asked him to do. So how do you handle that question? Because you certainly don't want to lie and say, yeah, we do it all the time, of course.

No, what you say is, you know what, Mr. Prospect, that's a great question. Thank you for asking. I've never done the purchase or sale of a radiology clinic.

I have done pain clinics, and I've done hundreds and hundreds of medical practices. And I know that there are some unique aspects of radiology clinics. One of the things I've discovered over the years is that I'm really good at getting to the heart of the issues when it comes to purchase and sale of just about any business.

So what I promise you is this. We will launch our time together with a discovery phase of the engagement. And I will lay out how I typically work on purchase or sale of medical practices for you.

And then I will delve deep into this specific issue. And I'll give you what I think are the pressure points. I'll give you what I think the plan is.

And from there, you and I can agree whether or not we move forward. So the engagement investment is going to be broken down into two parts. Part one will be this discovery phase.

And for that, I'll charge you $7,500. And part two will be actually helping you with the purchase or sale. And for that, you'll pay me $10,000 plus a success fee of, you know, X. That's how we'll wind up breaking down the investment.

And that's how we'll wind up breaking down the engagement in our work together. So Steve, to answer your question, number one, you're always direct and honest when somebody refers business to you that, hey, listen, I haven't done this specific thing before, but it's in my wheelhouse. And you explain why it's in your wheelhouse.

And then if you feel you have to make them comfortable, you set up your engagement so that there's a discovery phase upfront, and they will be imminently comfortable with you after the discovery phase. And that's one part of the investment. And then the second part of the discovery phase, the second part of the engagement is the actual engagement.

And they have to make the second part of the investment. And if they're not comfortable, you know, then you don't move forward. That's how I handle that question when it comes up.

And what I've found is that those types of engagements, and I share this with my clients, those types of engagements always go very, very well, because I am really sensitive to the fact that the client knows I haven't done this before. So I follow every guideline that I lay out for the client. I make sure that I cross all my T's and dot all my I's.

Let me know if that gets it for you, Steve. Let me know if that completes the answer to the question for you. I'm honest upfront.

You should be honest upfront. And then you do a discovery phase and then the actual engagement so that the client is completely comfortable. All right, number three, common clients.

Common clients are one of the things that really will bind you to an evangelist as a referral source. So as I mentioned, people who do IRS resolution work, who are attorneys connected to CPAs, sharing common clients, that binds you guys together. They know that you do good work because the client loves you and the client talks about how great you are.

So engaging evangelists through common clients is fantastic. In fact, that should be part of your intake. If you have a specific profession or a specific person who you know tends to be a good evangelist for you, part of your intake should be to ask for your client's specific person.

So part of Steve's intake is, hey, who's your CPA? Part of a doctor who's a specialist intakes, they ask, hey, who's your primary care physician? Now in that case, they ask because they got to send the medical records back and forth, but also getting referrals from those people and sending referrals to those people would be a great way to grow a practice. So figuring out who else services the client that just came in the door is a great way to discover other evangelists. Common causes.

When you're working on a common cause with someone else, that person can be an evangelist for you. So for example, if you handle issues related to trust and estates all the time, who else has a common cause to be interested in estate planning? Well, if you do high-end estate planning, if you do affluent individuals, people who have favorable jurisdictions for affluent individuals share a common cause with you. So it would be great for you to connect with people who have tax havens in Isle of Man, let's say, or in Panama.

Those people have a common cause with you and they can refer you clients who have invested their money in their jurisdiction with someone else, or who are looking for an attorney to help them repatriate their money. So a common cause is another way you can find an evangelist. Finally, shared values.

I mentioned about mutual respect and people who operate on the fringes of society. There are also people who are known as folks, just their reputation is they have the highest ethical standards. You wanna be known as one of those people and you want to be connected to other people who have the same types of values that you have.

Now, if we set aside that for a minute and we talk about politics, or we talk about investing in the arts, or you wanna talk about something along those lines, shared values can be things like that. We both value the arts as a public service. So we wanna make sure that the arts are always something that is viable in the community.

That I would consider a shared value. And people who are on the board with you for the Philharmonic or the ballet are gonna be great people who are gonna be evangelists for you. So those are some of the ways you can engage evangelists.

Let's look at inside versus outside referrals, okay? Those of you who are lawyers, and I think everybody today who's with us are lawyers, getting referrals from people who are within your industry is terrific. And many times I hear people tell me, I love to engage lawyers for more referrals, I just can't figure out how to get more referrals for lawyers. It just happens, I don't know how to make it happen.

I'm gonna teach you right now how to make it happen. The first way you can make that happen, getting more referrals from people in your industry is to have either a specialty, a niche market, or a level of expertise. You've heard me say, and you've heard Steve Klitzner say, he only does IRS resolution work.

Steve is not a threat to people who do tax planning, so they refer him work. He's not a threat to a personal injury attorney because he doesn't do personal injury work anymore. He used to, he doesn't do it anymore.

So those people refer him work. He's not a threat to any other attorney. So attorneys from every practice area are happy to turn their thorny IRS clients over to Steve because he's got specific expertise.

Even within your area of practice, you can have specific expertise. I work with a woman up in Maryland who is a family law attorney, but her expertise is guardianships. Other family law attorneys come to her for guardianship issues.

She is like the dean of guardianships. She's just built that reputation. That's her brand.

People perceive her as having that expertise. Now, your certification by the local bar or regulatory association as a specialist, that can help. That can be helpful.

But having a reputation as someone who does great work in this area is fantastic for this. There's a gentleman up in Broward County, actually, who is a former prosecutor, Pat Tracy. He is known as one of the best DUI defense attorneys in Broward County.

He knows inside and out how to impeach a DUI case. He knows inside and out how the machines work, the calibration, how the calibration can be off, how police officers testify in DUI cases, how traffic stops are conducted and the 50 ways they can go bad. Pat Tracy is known as the guy in Broward County if you ever get a DUI there.

And that's the kind of thing that will get you work from other people in your industry. Pick a narrow niche, hammer it home. Those of you who know my client, Brad Gross, who's an intellectual property attorney, he's got a couple of areas where other intellectual property attorneys connect with him.

And one of them is managed service agreements. Another one is in the nutraceutical industry. Brad has experience defending his clients in the nutraceutical industry.

That's fake vitamins, in case you didn't know. He has vast experience defending his clients against investigations from the attorney general in every state in the 50 states. Way back when, 10 years ago, Brad had a client that got sued by every attorney, literally every 50 attorneys general and the attorney general in Puerto Rico.

So Brad defended his client in all those jurisdictions. He assisted in the defense in all those jurisdictions. And he's highly familiar with defending advertising claims in the nutraceutical industry.

Other intellectual property attorneys forward him those cases because number one, they don't wanna deal with them. Number two, there are some specific defenses that Brad has used and he knows which ones work where, he's cataloged them all and he's intimately familiar with that process. So expertise or specialty is one way to get more referrals from other people in your industry.

Leadership is another way. So you join the intellectual property section of the state bar. If you're gonna do that, make sure you get into a leadership position or at least on a leadership of a committee.

Why? Because it raises your profile, it gives everyone a chance to see that you're ethical and that you're decisive and that you're just an upstanding person who they would trust with their clients. Being in a leadership role is a fantastic way to build credibility. It also confers a level of expertise on you.

So if you're going to join any group or organization, and this is gonna be a giveaway for later in the presentation, leadership is critical. Certification, I touched on this. Any type of legitimate certification is always going to help you with people inside your industry.

I wanna caution you that everyone in your industry knows which certifications are BS and which aren't. So get the good ones, ignore the bad ones, ignore the ones that are BS. For example, there is a group out there right now that has created the, I think they're calling it the Law 500 or what they're trying to do is they're trying to take the entrepreneurship certification that's out there and create it for law firms.

And what you'll find is when you dig into their Law Firm 500 or whatever the hell they're calling it, that there are some firms on there who are not the fastest growing firms in the country. There are firms on there that aren't growing at all. In fact, there are firms on there that haven't grown in forever.

I know because they wanted to become my clients but it didn't work out for one reason or another. That certification is not something that I would recommend you tout because every attorney who's talked to those people knows that that certification is BS. So if you're gonna get a certification, it's gotta be something that everyone in the industry respects and everyone in the industry knows is real.

And then finally, the fourth one, and this is one of my favorites is teaching. Bob Amsell here in Miami is a criminal defense attorney. He's a friend and client of mine.

He teaches at the University of Miami Law School. He teaches a class. He doesn't get paid a lot.

In fact, it probably costs him money to go and teach. Why does he do it? Number one, he loves to teach which is the reason why you should teach in the first place. But number two, huge credibility.

So if I have a case that's complex and I wanna co-counsel with somebody and I'm a criminal defense attorney, well, I've talked to Bob and he's really smart and he's a very personable guy but he teaches at the University of Miami Law School. Who better? My client's gonna love the fact that he teaches. It's gonna have credibility and he definitely must know what he's talking about if he's teaching it to other people.

I highly encourage you, even if you just go and deliver a speech occasionally, once a quarter, as a quote unquote visiting professor or guest lecturer, that is a terrific way to leverage some stature and you'll find it rewarding if that's the kind of thing that you like to do. And these days, you'll be able to do it via Zoom or via webinar. Teaching is a fantastic way for your peers to recognize that you really have a great deal of knowledge.

All right, group membership. Let's talk about that. So if you're going to join a group, the best group for you to ever join is a group that has your ideal clients in it.

If you have the opportunity to join a group where your ideal clients are all hanging out, you need to go there and shoot the fish that are in the barrel, okay? Anytime you can join a group with your ideal clients, that is fantastic. A close second to that is to join a group of evangelists who interact with your ideal clients. So Klitzner, if he could go and join, he's the IRS problem resolution guy, if he could go and join a group of accountants and they would let him go, he should go join the group of accountants and hang out with the accountants all day long because accountants would send him cases.

So those would be great people. Those of you who do trust and estates work, might not be a bad idea for you to join a group of accountants because hanging out with those people will definitely rub off some cases on you. So ideal clients or ideal evangelists are the best.

Anytime you can go and join a group that has industry status, I highly recommend you do it. So what does industry status mean? If you can find a group that is the, let's say the Mensa of healthcare lawyers, join that group. In the world of trust and estates, here in Florida, there's a group, and the name escapes me now, but there's a group that has status, they only let certain trust and estates lawyers into the group, and they have a specific criteria.

Joining that group confers a level of status and expertise on you. For those of you who handle international trust and estates work, for example, STEP, which used to stand for the Society of Trust and Estates Practitioners, now these days they're just going by STEP, that's a group that has some industry status. There are some high profile people who handle trust and estates work who are in that group.

So I encourage you to look for groups that will confer that type of status on you. In addition, you'll find that the relationships you develop in those groups will not only be strong, but they'll be profitable because those people tend to be at the top end of the profession. They tend to be folks who do very, very well within your specific practice area.

So one of the things that litigators have told me over the years, and Doug Kay is on the call today, and he and I have discussed this, is the Litigation Council of America has a reputation of letting in people who are very, very good litigators. And my experience has been that whenever I hang around with people who are members of the Litigation Council of America, particularly members of the subgroup, the Complex Commercial Litigation Institute, those folks are highly sophisticated attorneys. They're very, very good attorneys.

That has some industry status, it has some cachet associated with it. So if you can join a group like that, I think you'll get some status within the industry, and also, other people in the group will want to connect with you because they will believe that you have the same status as they do. Then there's community status.

What does that mean? Well, there are different groups that have different reputations throughout the community. For example, I hearken back to my days in BNI, and in Miami-Dade County, at one point, there were probably 20-something BNI chapters. And the chapter that I was in happened to have a reputation as a chapter that passed a lot of business.

And I think the year I was president, maybe 2009, 2010, no, it had to be 2011, I think the year I was president, we passed $7 million in business. And at that time, that was the most business passed by any chapter in all of Miami-Dade County. And we had some status within the BNI community.

People would refer to people in our group because they knew we would refer back to them because we had some sort of status. There are other groups like that. There are groups like that in every community where you join the group and there's some status associated with it.

The example I'll give you is Entrepreneur's Organization. People have to apply to get into EO. If you get into EO, you have a business that does over a certain threshold in revenue.

You have to have a certain number of employees. You have to be in business a certain number of years. So that conveys with it a level of success that the community has accepted you.

So there's a status associated with it. Other people in that community will refer to you because you've gotten in there. You're a member of that community.

So those people will be evangelists for you. And then finally, there's some general business status. So this comes with winning awards for best employer in your industry sector.

There are other awards like community service awards for your business, that sort of thing. Those things are very, very good and people will feel comfortable referring you because you've received that level of status as well. But when you get to that level of status, you're part of an alumni group of people who's won that award or has that level of status.

So you can refer back to people and they can refer to you. For example, in 2000, I won. I was named Crane's 40 under 40 in New York City.

And they had a reunion actually. They had a 15 year reunion in 2015 and I went to New York and there were other people who were named in that year with me. And a lot of them had gotten there, had connected there, gotten connected to one another.

And there are people that I'm still in touch with from those meetings. We used to have every year when they gave out the award in New York, they have a big dinner. I would go when I worked in New York and I would reconnect with those people.

They would refer to me. I referred to some of them because there was a community status associated with that. Your groups, your awards that you win, even your college alumni, if you work it appropriately, can be an evangelist network because of the status associated with being part of your class and graduating as a member of your class.

I graduated business school and I was enrolled into the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society. At the time, I had no idea what that meant except that I had to pay a fee, a one-time fee to be enrolled in that because I was in the top 1% of my class, I was eligible. It turns out that that was a pretty good thing because I've gotten referrals from going to their meetings.

I'm now asked to present on a quarterly basis to educate them on some of the topics on which I'm an expert and I get referrals as a result of that. So those general business groups that convey status on you can be highly successful from an evangelist point of view. You need to follow the steps that we're talking about today to leverage them.

Avoid ego traps and this is something that I touched on briefly. Even if super lawyers is gonna have a dinner where you think you're gonna be able to network, avoid it. You don't need to be part of that.

That's an ego trap, okay? Anytime you see somebody willing to give you an award because you paid for it, that's an ego trap. Those are not evangelist communities. I have a personal thing about them.

I don't wanna go into it here because if you get me started, I could talk about that for an hour but you need to make an objective judgment whether something is an ego trap or it's a legitimate group that can be a group of evangelists for you. And if you think you might be falling into an ego trap and you want a bucket of cold water thrown in your face, give me a call. I will evaluate the group for you.

And super lawyers, it's BS, you don't need it. Just my own personal opinion. All right, build a referral team.

Who are the people who win when you win? The people who win when you win need to be part of your referral team. What are some of the basics? Well, first, your CPA, right? We don't have any CPAs on the call today. Those of you who do your own books, stop doing your own books.

Get a CPA. It's not that expensive to hire a CPA and you need to leverage that CPA not only to do a great job with your books but also to refer you business. Your CPA has to be a part of your referral team.

Your banker, all right? If you learn nothing so far from coronavirus and I learned this lesson the hard way, if you wanted to be eligible for the PPP, you needed to have a personal banker. And if you don't invest enough money to have a private banking relationship, go to a community bank and sit down with the person who's going to enroll you in the bank, put your account there, put your personal account there, put your trust account there, have a relationship at a bank. That person will refer you business because they appreciate your business.

Chase doesn't care about my business, all right? Citibank doesn't care about my business, they don't care about your business. And Bank of America doesn't care about my business, they don't care about your business. Wells Fargo doesn't care.

People care, institutions don't care. So if you've got a ton of money and you can get a private banking relationship at an institution, God bless you, go for it. If you're like everybody else and you want a private relationship with a bank, go to a community bank, put your accounts in a community bank and that relationship will pay off for you in referrals.

Finally, your attorneys, okay? Here's the thing, all right? And this is a different presentation but I'm gonna mention it here. If you have an issue, don't handle it yourself if it's not in your area of expertise. The phrase, an attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client.

I mean, the reason that's a cliche is because it's true, right? So if you're gonna buy a house, get an attorney, don't try and do it yourself, right? If you're gonna write out a will, don't do your own will if you're not a trust and estates attorney. In fact, even if you are a trust and estates attorney, have somebody else do your will. If you're in a partnership, have a partnership agreement drawn up by another attorney.

The number one reason why, aside from the fact that you probably don't have expertise in those areas, is the referrals. Those are relationships. Anybody you give money to should refer you.

You still with me? Everybody still there? Good. It's funny, I ask if you're still there and here's the reason why. We just had a power outage here and I have an uninterruptible power supply that all my stuff is plugged into as well as a cellular backup.

So I guess you're still with me. Fantastic. Aha! Man, all that money I invested in this equipment finally paid off.

All right, let's get back to the presentation. I can't wait to tell my wife. She thought I wasted all that money.

All right. Your attorney. All right, let's see what else we got.

An agent. If you're doing a book deal or you have a speaking agreement, your agent will be a good resource for you. They should be on your referral team.

When we did the publishing segment, I told you about my relationship with my agent. I had a couple of them over the years. For speaking purposes, you may wanna have somebody, but if you do have an agent, they'll be part of your referral team.

And then subcontractors. If you're a sole practitioner and you've connected with people to help you do work with your clients, subcontractors or co-counsel are great people who should be referring you. So you need to engage with them.

This is one of my favorite parts whenever I talk about this topic with my clients. You're not taking advantage of your vendors right now. All right.

Your vendors pay you for a service and you're happy if they just deliver the service. Well, that's a minimum requirement. You need to have the referral talk with your vendors upfront.

What does that mean? When you engage a vendor, you need to make sure your vendor is trained on describing who you are, what you do, and what your competitive advantage is. And then your vendor needs to make sure that they can go out and sell you as well as you can sell you. And your vendor should prove that to you by being able to recite your value proposition back to you.

Part of the service your vendors provide, and I'm talking about vendors in every area, is referring you, okay? So the guy who does your office supplies, the woman who handles your UPS account, all of those people, anybody who does anything for you should have a way to provide added value through referrals. Everyone who's an independent business owner belongs to some type of group or organization. You can speak to that group or organization.

So that vendor should be connecting you. Your vendors are in and out of other offices all day long. They know about other people's businesses.

They should be connecting you. So have the referral talk upfront. Let the vendor know that in addition to paying them for whatever the service is, you want them to introduce you to two or three new people every month.

And if you tell them two or three new people, you'll definitely get at least one referral every month. My pool guy was just here today, okay? And my pool guy is very personable. And until coronavirus broke out, he didn't talk to anybody, but now he's talking to everybody.

So I have coffee with him whenever he comes. And when his truck pulls up out front, we put the coffee on and I leave the coffee on the counter and he comes and I stand six feet away from him. We wear masks.

And I told him at the beginning of this that if he ever connects with anybody whose pool he cleans, who's an attorney, I would love to meet them. And today he texted me, he was on his way, and he wanted to introduce me to somebody. And we did a FaceTime with a lawyer that he knew whose pool he cleaned today that he thought I would like to meet.

So if my pool guy can introduce me to people who can do business with me, every vendor has the potential to introduce you to people. So have the referral talk up front. Your vendors will be thrilled to do this because they know if they put money in your pocket, they're gonna stay with you.

You're gonna keep them forever. Here's the critical thing. If you want referrals from your vendors, you gotta pay them on time or pay them early.

Now the pool guy I just mentioned, I could write him a check. I could go on AutoPay with his website, but I give him cash. Why? Because he likes cash.

I'm not gonna sell him out and tell you that he doesn't report it. I'm sure he pays taxes on that, but he likes cash. So I'm one of his favorite clients.

So he's happy to refer me because I do things for him that really make him feel good. I pay him on time. Sometimes when I was traveling, I would pay him three months in advance because I might not be here when he would come.

And I didn't want him to wait for his money because I know he's a small business. If you want referrals, you have to treat people the way you wanna be treated. You gotta refer them.

All my neighbors have pools. I introduce them to Dennis. Why do I introduce them to Dennis? Dennis does a great job and I feel completely comfortable referring him.

And I've referred him to all my neighbors. And what I tell my neighbors is this. If you're happy with your pool guy, call me the day your pool guy lets you down.

My guy will be here in an hour because that's my commitment from Dennis. That's how I give him referrals. And when my neighbor's pool had a leak and his pool guy couldn't come for three days, Dennis came, worked on the leak overnight so that they could refill their pool and use it the next day.

Dennis now services their pool. I mean, these are the kinds of things that you do for your vendors so that they will come back and refer you over and over again. Put them on notice.

If they don't pass you a referral over the course of a month or two months, you gotta go to them and say, listen, the last guy who helped me with this service used to send me two or three referrals a year. I haven't seen a referral from you. You have to know people who can refer me.

Let me teach you how to refer me and then I need you to help me with this. Folks, you're paying these people, okay? Although you're paying them for a service, there are other people you could pay for the same service who would refer you. Make your vendors work hard for you, not just from the standpoint of doing the service, but also from the standpoint of referring you and then treat them like gold when they do refer you.

Finally, you gotta interview vendors constantly, all right? I love Dennis. Dennis is the best pool guy, but Dennis could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I mean, we're in the coronavirus era.

So anytime I meet somebody else who's a pool guy, I talk to them, I see how they work, and I have business cards from other pool people in the back of my mind in case something happens and in case I need somebody new. But when I interview them, I always ask them if they pass referrals to their clients. And you know what the response is about half the time? They say, you know, it's interesting you mentioned that.

People have asked me for referrals and sure, as long as it's a two-way street, I'll refer you, you refer me. I'm happy to do it. Sophisticated business people operate like that.

Force your vendors to do it for you. You'll be amazed. Your vendors will do it.

The good ones will absolutely do it for you. All right, our final segment today is referral reinforcement. And this is critical.

What does this mean? It means you gotta recognize people when they refer you. I could call this the three R's, referral recognition and reinforcement, but that's a lot of alliteration. So let's talk about referral reinforcement.

Bare minimum, somebody tries to connect you with somebody else, always pick up the phone, reach out and say thank you. Even if it's the crappiest referral in the history of your profession, say thank you because they thought of you. Always say thank you.

I can't stress this enough. I refer business all day long. I refer business out two or three times a week at minimum.

Even in lockdown, I've referred business out to people. And about half the time, somebody says thank you. It should be 100% of the time because you're not gonna refer somebody who doesn't thank you.

The second level of reinforcement is sending out a card. I love a handwritten note card that says thank you with something small. One of my favorite things to send to people is a scratch off lottery ticket.

Why? Because they could win. If they win $10, you made their day. And it was you who sent it to them.

If they win nothing, they got something to take home and have one of their kids scratch off and the kid will be excited. So send a card with a little something, with something special in it. Like I said, a scratch off lottery ticket.

You can get them for a buck. If you wanna really splurge, get them the $5 scratch off. It's amazing what that does.

People really like that. Don't go crazy when it comes to sending out gifts. There's one guy I know who when somebody sends him a case, whether it's a personal injury case or he works in another practice area that I'm not gonna mention because you'll be able to identify him, you might know him.

But somebody sends him a personal injury case, he has a custom clothier make them a suit. Okay? That's crazy. Don't do that.

Because people talk. And if I have somebody make you a suit, but I don't have somebody make Joe a suit, when Joe talks to you, he's gonna find out that that great suit you're wearing came from me and Joe didn't get a suit, right? That doesn't make any sense. All right? Don't go crazy.

We're talking about a token of appreciation. So what's a good token of appreciation when somebody sends you a really great referral? I'll tell you. Enroll them in one of these recurring clubs, like an of the month club.

There is an of the month club for everything. There's sock of the month clubs, there's wine of the month clubs, there's beer of the month clubs, there's cigar of the month clubs, there's tie, like necktie of the month clubs. There are Funko Pop of the month clubs.

If you don't know what a Funko Pop is, put it in Amazon and you'll see kids collect them. It's amazing. So if you want to provide referral reinforcement for an evangelist who refers you regularly, enroll them in an of the month club for something they like a lot.

Be careful with alcohol. Make sure you know that this person's a wine aficionado. I wouldn't send alcohol to anybody who didn't talk about alcohol all the time or who didn't talk about wine all the time.

But if you enroll somebody in an of the month club, two things happen. Number one, they really appreciate it because they know the value of those things. And you can get in an of the month club for as cheap as like $25 or $30 and you can go all the way up to hundreds of dollars if you want.

The other thing it does is it reminds them of you every single month. Every month they think of you. We do a lot of food.

I enroll people in a fudge club where they get food every month. I have enrolled people in, one of my favorites is Watch Gang which sends a watch every month to some of my clients and my evangelists and that's fantastic. People love that.

The key is to do something they're really going to like. So you gotta do a little research and you gotta figure it out. And here's the thing I want you to be careful of in this day and age.

We're locked down right now and we're not going into offices. So if you're sending your of the month gift to someone at the office, it's just going to pile up there or the receptionist is going to take it or the postal service is going to keep it. So make sure you get the address where they are 90% of the time.

Be really careful about where you're sending stuff during this time period in particular. So that's referral reinforcement. It's a critical element.

It's a critical step. All right, that'll get us to the conclusion of our time together today. The referral maximizer.

My name is Dave Lorenzo. Here's hoping you make a great living and live a great life. Stay healthy, stay well and stay strong.