Derek Morgan—Stop Relying on Word-of-Mouth: How to Build a Referral System That Generates Predictable Revenue

Derek Morgan  0:00  
Value exchange doesn't need to be commissions, and it doesn't mean need to be you obligating to pass referrals when you can get a value exchange that's not relying on those two now you have a referral partner program that is infinitely scalable.

David Bush  0:18  
Welcome to the Business Builders playbook, the show that breaks down the systems and strategies behind Predictable Revenue Growth to win in business. In each episode, we're diving into the proven strategies that separate the winners who scale from the losers who fail. This show is sponsored by bdr.ai the AI powered business development platform that automates your outbound prospecting so you can focus in on closing deals instead of chasing leads. Let's get started. Well, welcome everybody. My name is David, and I'm the host of the show, and I get a chance to interview a good friend of mine. He has become a good, solid partner, somebody that is a referral partner. And that's what we're going to be talking about today, is referral marketing ideas becoming a referral marketing expert, and he has the expertise that you want to just gain a tiny amount today. If you could take back one or two ideas from what Derek's going to share with you today, you're going to have a better business builder playbook. And so Derek, thanks so much for joining me on the show today. I'm excited to dig in.

Derek Morgan  1:23  
Yeah, thanks, David. Really appreciate you creating the time and space to have this chat. Yeah.

David Bush  1:29  
Well, Derek, if you haven't noticed, he's got the southern accent. He's from a little bit farther south, or maybe West, I guess, than west or east, over there in Australia and he's on a different day. He's already into Tuesday there. I'm still on Monday, so he's already got a jumpstart on us. Maybe that's why he's doing so well. He's he's got a little jumpstart on all of us over here in the mainland of USA. But I'm excited to dig down deep, because these strategies that you're going to share, these are worldwide strategies. These are internationally proven best practices. And before we jump into the how tos and the questions that I gathered from the people that registered, I'd like to have everybody. If you have a question, throw it into the Q and A throw it into the chat. I'll answer those or I'll ask those questions to Derek in the order in which they're received. And Derek just to kind of get things kicked off. What has brought us to where we are today? Tell us a little bit of the background story of how you developed all of these amazing referral strategies.

Derek Morgan  2:30  
Yeah, it's school of hard knocks. To sort of coin a cliche I've had 3030, plus years, which is, you know, a bit of a reflection of my age in business development, sales and and marketing, and pretty much every organization or industry and I've worked across different industries, like financial services, startup scale up and enterprise technology, every industry and business that I've been in, I've actually had to fill my own sales pipeline. Didn't matter whether we did have a marketing team and a marketing budget. If we did, it didn't result in sales qualified leads, and obviously if we didn't, we had to go and generate our own sales. So it's always been building networks, and because I've changed industries and sectors, I've always sort of built and maintained those relationships. And it was sort of organic growth and a bit of training here and there, and piecing things together, what I come to realize is that I needed to build out a process when I started working with partner networks to actually train them to do what I was doing had grown to do organically. So, yeah, I had to set up some systems. You know, it's like, you learn more when you become a teacher. I had to actually sit down and think about, what was it that I was doing, how was I doing it, and how was I going to be able to coach my partner network to replicate the same results? So, yeah, that's, that's the very short version of a long story.

David Bush  4:00  
Yeah, and we're going to put some links into the show notes and into the live chat, but you've developed just an enormous library of resources. You've also developed a platform that allows people to do better referrals, and we'll talk about that towards the end, but let's just jump in and just talk about why do so many successful professionals still struggle to get consistent referrals, even when they are, you know, amazing at customer service, and they deliver a great service or support system to the clients that they serve.

Derek Morgan  4:34  
I think there's a lot of the industry business networking has matured over a period of time, and it's always been very much around relationship based, build the relationships and the referrals will come. But that's typically a it's a very unstructured relationship based, personality based process. And therefore it's not systemized and duplicatable or scalable. There's some of the problems that we looked that I was looking to overcome when I built referral marketing ideas and created the referral marketing formula. It's like, don't get me wrong, relationships are absolutely the pillar of all business. You know, you've got to have good relationships. But how you build relationships in networking? I've got a bit of a polar opposite view around building relationships, because relationships get grown around engagement and proximity. So how do you build engagement and proximity? You actually add massive value to your referral partners, to your clients, therefore they're engaging with you a lot more a lot more often, more deeply. And therefore relationships build faster. So I sort of work from the business value into relationships, as opposed to relationships hopefully leading to business value. It's a much faster way of doing things. So I think I might have strayed away from your question a little bit there. But basically, as we started working through, I've got three brands referral marketing ideas, which is on the screen, the referral marketing formula, which is a framework for helping businesses actually build out referral marketing as a deliberate strategy, as opposed to getting referrals through word of mouth, which is unstructured and not systemized for most businesses, right? That's the big difference between referral marketing versus relationship based ad hoc word of mouth. So when you and and, I mean, BDR does this brilliantly, right? You've got very systemized processes that you know that works, that are repeatable and scalable. Most businesses don't apply that same thinking into their referral processes, their business networking, but more importantly, building out referral partnerships because ad hoc word of mouth is typically a one to one referred lead referral partnerships is a one to many strategy for growing referrals consistently through collaboration. So sorry, that was a very long winded answer to your question.

David Bush  7:19  
Oh, that's good. Yeah, I'd love to challenge everybody that's watching this presentation right now is just to kind of self reflect and to think about who are your biggest referral partners, who are the people that are referring business to you. And if you were to look back over the last 12 months, how many referrals have those people sent you? And this was a big exercise for me, Derek, is that I went through this exercise and realized that the person that I thought was my best referral partner was actually my biggest time waster, because they were referring me a lot of unqualified people. And so just working by referral is not enough. You got to know who's referring you people and how they referring people to you, and are those people actually inside of your target market? Because if somebody just becomes a time waster, they may be perceived as a great referral partner, but they're actually a hindrance to your success. So anything you could share on that,

Derek Morgan  8:19  
yeah, and I'd probably like to take that a step further too, is a great observation that you make. It's also about putting yourself in the right rooms. So you know the point you made there's is really valid. Not all leads are good leads, not all leads are created equal, not all referral partners are created equal. So how do you make sure, you know, not all networking events and rooms are created equal. How do you make sure that you're speaking to your ideal customer profile more often? How do you make sure that you're you've got alignment with your ideal referral partners, so that you are getting quality leads when you are getting leads, and then, how do you enable those partners to be effective and refer leads more often. So focusing on having clarity around your ideal customer profile, like you just pointed out, super important. And then ideal referral partners are people who have an existing and established relationship with lots of your ideal customers. So then it comes down to slowing down. And I think this is where you made a comment to me a couple of weeks ago in a meeting. And I'll come back to my answer, but I think I'll just make a point here. You made a comment to me a couple of weeks ago about a level of frustration with how people are saying something and then not following through, getting that, getting that execution path right for lots of people now it's just not happening. And then probably 48 hours later, another referral partner made the same observation. So. People are so busy at the moment running and chasing things that they're actually not slowing down to focus, and sometimes less is more. So when it comes to building referral partnerships and referral networks, slowing down and being really strategic and deliberate in your thinking and your execution gets you bigger results faster, and actually reduces your workload. So you're being clear about who your ideal customer is, being clear about the people that own the relationship with that customer, and then what is your value proposition to that partner? When you can answer all those questions really clearly, particularly the value proposition. Now you can build partner relationships that scale, and you're doing it in a systemized, programmatic way, which means that it's duplicatable and scalable. Now all of you, you can train all of your sales people to go and do and execute on what's working no different.

David Bush  11:03  
Could you give an example of what a unique value proposition would be? That would be something that you'd have for a referral partner? Yes.

Derek Morgan  11:12  
So, I mean, everybody's business, industry is different, so maybe if I answer that in the context of a framework, so we use the laser framework, L, A, S, E, R, being leads, acceleration, sales, conversion, expansion, retention and re engagement. So when you when you look at your referral partners, and you're thinking about, how do you go and work with a referral partner? There needs to be a value exchange, right? Just going, Hey, I'm a good business. I'm a good person. You've got my ideal clients. You should refer them to me. That is not a sustainable and it's scalable referral partner relationship. When I go, Hey, David, what are the core drivers in your business? What are the things that are important to you? What are you trying to achieve? And then I apply the laser framework over that. How do I help you as a referral partner? How do I help you get more leads? How do I help you accelerate your nurturing process and conversion of your leads to sales. How do I help you convert more sales? How do I help you expand your product and service offering, and therefore your value to your clients, and therefore your revenue stream? How do I help you add value to your clients in a way that makes you more important to them? Therefore they stay with you longer and increase the lifetime value of your relationship with them. Or how do we as partners come up with a product, an offer, an event, a service where we can go back to past clients that you liked working with, liked working with you, but your value stack had run its course, and therefore they had no further need for your service. How do you as a partner arrangement, go back to those past clients and offer them a new product or service or reason for engaging with you? So when you look at your partner relationships with that lens or and you can create value that's meaningful to your partners. All of a sudden, your partners are in your pocket, taking your calls, doing what you need them to do, because it's you're perfectly aligned with their outcomes, and you go and win together. So it's a really a win, win, win relationship. First up the end client has to always win. That's just, that's table stakes. That's a must. Then your partner wins because of the relationship with you, and as a byproduct, you win because you get the outcome that you're looking for. But it's really about that alignment and mutual value exchange.

David Bush  14:00  
So if this show is resonating with you and you're ready to take action because you want to scale your business faster, smarter with more AI and technology and less labor, check out. Bdr.ai, we help entrepreneurs and executive sales leaders to automate the grind of prospecting so you can focus your time on closing deals and growing revenue where you should be spending your time with AI powered data, digital outreach, automation and done for you, prospecting systems. You'll connect with more qualified leads, book more appointments and build Predictable Revenue without adding more hours to your week or the week of your staff. Visit BDR today and discover how our AI prospect finder and digital BDR agents can help you to build your pipeline and your profits. Visit bdr.ai where business builders learn how to automate and scale their playbook. I found that when most people sit back and sell. Analyze, you know, their own referability score. I'm sure you have a much more detailed model of it, but just, you know, being able to give yourself a report card on how referable Are you like if you want to build a business by referral, you should know where your strengths and where your weaknesses are. And, you know, the first question I always like to ask people, and I don't know how you would do it, but where in your process do you make a client or a referral partner say, Wow, if you want to increase your referability score, you better be saying something, or you better be doing something that makes your client and the person that referred them to you go, Wow, that's a person that's going to get more and create more of a Referral Engine, or referral system that's going to become more dependable if you're not making people go, Wow, you're probably not going to be the person that's going to be the top of mind person every time they think about your type of service or product. So what would you say, Derek, I mean, what's the thing that you tell a professional when they're trying to develop a referral system versus just hoping for more referrals. What do they need to fix internally, in in their business or in their workflows to make sure that they're referable?

Derek Morgan  16:15  
So to make sure that you're referable, to start with, it's you've got to be a good business. You've got to deliver on your promise, and you've got to back up your service. That's table stakes. If you're not doing that, if you're fighting fires with your clients, and you're struggling with your operations and your systems and processes and your your business is chaotic, then I would encourage you to step back and go, yeah, if I've got, if I've got a sales problem, trying to build referral partnerships in that environment is not going to fix that problem. There's other things that you need to fix to make yourself a referable business to start with, because you only get one shot at Partners, and if you burn that partner relationship or that client because you're not running a good business, then forget a partner. Partnering is not right for you right now. Fix some other things in your business, but if you're good business, you got good systems and processes you're running well, and you've got a value proposition out to your partner, the the shifts and changes in messaging to market and engagement with your existing client base is really simple. A shift in mindset around how you approach engagement with your clients will lead you to partner introductions. So getting that right is is relatively simple, if you take the time to pause and think about it and just spend five minutes actually working on that process. So if you think about your best clients, your best clients already surround themselves with quality vendors, quality suppliers, quality advisors, quality service providers. They're your potential future ideal referral partners. If you've already got a good relationship with your client, it's then what is the simple conversation that you need to go and have with your client that naturally gets them introducing you to the referral partner. Now you've got this warm introduction from a referral partner or from a customer to one of their supplier vendors, and you've got a clear value proposition to that partner. It's a very, very smooth conversation with a very short sales cycle. So it's then, what are the couple of little things that you need to do in your next quarterly business review, or your next customer service follow up, or what do you need to just armor your account managers with that they can have a really simple conversation with a client that naturally leads to an introduction to your potential Ideal referral partner. And then you know that that vendor, supplier advisor already has a network of clients that look exactly like your client. So you know, just getting that very quick shift in mindset, quick shift in language and process, really speeds up this partnership development and referral partnership model creates more inbound leads from referrals.

David Bush  19:27  
Yeah, absolutely. Here's the next question. So what is the biggest mistake that you think that people make when they ask for referrals? I know that some people don't even ask for referrals because they don't want to make it awkward and they don't want to make them feel like that they need their referrals. But what's the biggest mistake people make when they ask for referrals, and how should they approach it?

Derek Morgan  19:48  
The biggest mistake people make is they are one asking for somebody to refer, excuse me, to refer a. Customer into a sales process. That's effectively how most people set up referrals, and then that person has to be up. The person you're asking for a referral has to be able to identify the need, qualify the need, and then be able to position you into that referral. That's really, that's a lot, right? So you really need to have your ask right, you need to have your positioning right, and you need to enable that person with the right messaging. That's why it's really hard for lots of customers to refer, and that's why very few customers do refer, because we don't make it easy for them, and typically they are reluctant to refer one of their family, friends, colleagues, into a sales process. This is why focusing on referral partnerships changes the dynamics of a conversation. When you position yourself to be referred and you don't, more often than not, you don't need to ask, but the ask is a lot easier because you're asking a customer to introduce you to one of their vendor suppliers, because you've got this value proposition, you're not trying to sell them anything. So straight away, that bridge is a lot easier. So biggest, biggest issue is that most people don't have clear value proposition messaging, and then they don't enable their customers to easily remember a clear statement that makes it easy for them to refer Do

David Bush  21:34  
you have an example of what that would look like?

Derek Morgan  21:39  
Yeah, David, you're a plumber. You just want to be introduced to anybody that has a plumbing problem. Great. Yeah, it's most, most business owners that go into business networking events. It's they identify their ask around their product, and then it's too complex, and everybody, every it's very hard to remember right? Most, most elevator pitches in business networking events are very unclear. They've there's a lot of words in them. They're typically product based. And the ask is for anyone that has and people can't remember it. They can't anchor it in their mind, and therefore it's too loose for them to be able to focus when they hear a need. We're making it too, too hard for them to connect dots and actually make that referral to you. So one of the best ways to get referrals is to give referrals. One of the best ways to get your clients to actually introduce you to referrals is actually ask them what a good referral is for them and what a good referral partner is for your clients. And then pause and they will give you some wordy answer, which may or may not be useful, but what you will find, typically is they will then ask you the same question you just need to be prepared with really clear ask, really clear messaging around value proposition and be looking for an introduction to referral partners rather than a specific client transaction.

David Bush  23:18  
Yeah, I love the clarity factor of being able to know what you do for who, and to make that to be easy and shareable, something that people can share in a rough tip their tongue. So is there anything that you have found that's more successful in creating more of like an annuity stream of incoming referrals that once you do this, it happens more consistently or more predictably.

Derek Morgan  23:51  
Yes, so just in having that, that mindset of becoming a fractional business, and a lot of this, I'm putting in the context of B to B, so probably should have clarified that a little bit earlier, B to C, the principles are exactly the same, but the strategy and tactics change. So in the context of business to business, it's about, I've got a pregnant pause here, because I want to run down a rabbit warren. I want to revert back to your question. So there's a very if you have a deliberate and systemized process that you're taking people through, then there's a very, very clear pathway, depending on what stage of the relationship, and also at what stage of the conversation, and whether you're talking to a referral partner or a customer. So with customers, one of the best ways to get referrals from customers is be giving them referrals. And beyond the outlook for referrals for your customers. So as a sales representative out there, business. Networking, don't just think about who you're looking for for your business, you're going to meet lots of people that are not your ideal prospect, not your potential ideal customer, but they are potentially great connections, either referral partners or customers for your client base. Are you thinking about that consistently and regularly, and are you referring into your client base? If the answer to that is yes, you're automatically going to get more referrals from your client base. When it comes to partners, your value proposition starts to create a systematic process for you to work with your partners. So do you have a system for running live events or online events as a collaboration process for your partners that helps both of you with lead generation or content creation? Right? So it's like, what? How are you enabling your partners to work closely with you in a way that's meaningful for their business, and therefore you have that deep collaboration. You're going to market together, you're generating leads together, and you've got a very clear system and process that you can execute on repeatedly and consistently. And that's where you get that's where you need Partner onboarding, partner activation, partner enablement processes, when you've got that clear system in place, that's when referrals become scalable and consistent.

David Bush  26:29  
When you talk about the idea of having a system or a framework that you know, what would you say is the best framework that you've seen when encouraging referrals naturally in everyday conversation. Is there a acronym or a model that you use that says, then this, then this, then this?

Derek Morgan  26:49  
Yeah, the referral marketing formula is the model that we use, and it just takes you through a process of being focused on what's the logical next step in building a referral marketing program so that it's consistent and scalable, and we've covered off on a number of those, but first up, it's identify who your ideal client is, because that then leads you to who your ideal referral partner is. Then when you've got a clear value message to your referral partners. It's easy to engage your referral partners when you've got a referral partner program, so that you can clearly articulate how you work with referral partners to deliver the value you've just spoken about. The next step is then getting your messaging and marketing right around your referral partners and your ideal customers, and then the onboard onboarding process. So having a clear process of when we partner together. David, this is how we work together. This is how I add the value. This is the next steps that we go through. There's an easy roadmap to follow, and, oh, by the way, I've created all these tools to make it easy for you as a referral partner. David, right? And then it's like, how do you then have an alignment conversation, a strategy conversation and an implementation conversation to get that new partner relationship into market, active and growing and scaling together? So, yeah, a nine step process that's just basically like a set of dominoes. You need to hit the first one and it knocks over and leads into the next.

David Bush  28:27  
Okay, and we'll put the link to that that formula and make sure everybody has access to it with the show notes, so that everybody's got a connection. I did put a link in there for all of our live participants. If they were looking for more information, you can access that link in the live chat. So let's talk a little bit about this. Is a challenge that I know a lot of people have. What happens when you become lopsided in your referral relationships? So you know, you're referring more people to one particular person than they're referring to you, or they're referring a lot more business to you than you are to them, and you're feeling that uneasiness of like, Hey, I'm not bringing enough value, or that person's not bringing enough value. So I need to go look beyond that person.

Derek Morgan  29:16  
Like that is a really, really powerful question. If, if you think about partnerships as having a different a different value exchange, right? So when we talk about building referral partnerships, we're agnostic. We don't have a view one way or another as to whether you share revenue, provide incentives with partners. Some industries, it's expected. Some industries it's not allowed. So we don't have a view on that. You've got to do what's right for you. But what we talk about is, actually, we always talk about value, exchange. Do. But don't make commissions or revenue share the core pillar of your value, because that's probably the weakest go to market process for a partner engagement, and it's also not the strongest foundation for a partner engagement. So when you're talking about referral partnerships, the other thing we say is, don't make your delivery of referrals to that partner a primary reason for them to partner with you. Again, the reason being that can be hard to scale your partner program, because if you can generate that many new clients for your referral partners, you probably don't need referral partners as a go to market strategy, right? Because you can generate all the leads that you like. So value, value exchange doesn't need to be commissions, and it doesn't mean need to be you obligating to pass referrals, right when you can get a value exchange that's not relying on those two now you have a report referral partner program that is infinitely scalable. Now you can take your referral partner program and your value proposition into partners as an outreach strategy that you don't. You don't need to necessarily rely on referrals yourself to grow your partner network. That's that's when your partner programs at an elite level. So very long winded way of saying, make sure your value is not tied to you giving leads to your referral partner and keeping you both, keeping quota on who's giving the most leads. Make sure the value exchange is not reliant on that.

David Bush  31:58  
Yeah, and one of the books that I read way back when, when I first got interested in the whole idea of building a relationship, or building referral partnerships as a significant, serious economic strategy, I read the book called networking with the affluent. And in that book, Thomas Stanley, who wrote The Millionaire Next Door, talks about, you know, there's other things that you can do with referral partnerships that can add extreme value to that referral partner, that are actually more valuable than a referral. So somebody that's a high level, high influence, high level, affluent person, they don't need a one for one referral from you. They've got a very solid business, new referrals, new business. I actually had a client, or actually I called on a friend of mine that was somebody that I wanted to develop referral partnership. And his statement was, I'm not taking on any new clients. I've got a practice that's so full right now with clients, I don't have time to think so. His thing, his problem wasn't more clients, it was more How do I end up generating more opportunity from the people that I already have? So having some sort of a referral strategy where you're ending up sharing in revenue was maybe a potential opportunity, or the idea of, how could you become a an advocate? So if somebody was, you know, in a position where you could champion their interest, whether they have an interest, that's a nonprofit, a charity, or something like if you can end up helping their mission or their nonprofit become more successful or make good connections, that may be just as valuable as offering referrals. So I, I like what you said about that it's, it's don't get into the mindset of a one for one, because that's not a good strategy overall. But any other feedback on how a professional right now can go out there and start identifying key referral partnerships that you found to be successful, like who are the go to people that you found to be like the most successful referral partners that should be prospects of most people. Is there anybody like a category that you've come up with?

Derek Morgan  34:15  
I think a good example of a good example would be, let's say, a business coach or fractional consultant, a financial planner and an accountant. For those three experts to come together and start to create, say, events as a lead generation strategy. Now they're the combining marketing resources from a completely different professional and complementary perspective with deep client relationships. Now they can use those events around let's say they focus on business exit planning and business exit. Valuation as a marketing narrative. The accountant brings financial services expertise into that conversation. The financial planner brings long term Financial Planning and Investment expertise into that conversation. The fractional CRO business coach brings sales, marketing and or operational expertise into that conversation, and they can all run online or in person events as a lead generation strategy, and they can run those as often as they like. The combination of those three coming together provides massive value in those events because of their different professional expertise. So that's one way that they can all add value to each other in a complimentary way, share resources and have this lead generation engine through events around business Exit Planning for the business owners as a focus. So, yeah, that's great. Yeah, we could unpack that at a granular level over the course of a week. Yeah, right, but, but at a really high level, it's like, who are the three or four strategic professionals that you can surround yourself with that collectively, you can take a different offer to market from a lead generation perspective, that would be the starting point.

David Bush  36:29  
Yeah, I love that. I've kind of used, and you and I have talked about this off camera, but just the idea I played football, and so there's 11 people that play American football on an individual team, there's 11 people on the field at a side. So if you're the quarterback, you know who are the 10 people, the 10 other team members that would help you to assemble a Super Bowl winning team? Who are the people that are already, of like mind, that are already in business working with, or being paid by the people that you're working with, and begin to identify, and you don't have to start with all 10. You could start off with two, and you can start to recruit people over time. And then once you get 10, then you can start developing depth, so that when you know somebody retires, or somebody ends up maybe taking things a little bit slower, or maybe they just lose some of their customer service edge. You're not in a position where you're subject to lowering your incoming opportunities. You've built that team in front of you. So let's talk a little bit more about when you think about the challenges that most people are dealing with when it comes down to building predictable systems that have a consistent stream of referrals, where do you go to fix first? I mean, let's just say that they have a referability score that's worthy of being referred so that's already been taken care of. They offer good service. They have a good unique value proposition, and they have people that they've identified as good partners. What is the thing that you just identify as, like, if they're not doing this or this is the common thing I see that people don't do,

Derek Morgan  38:14  
they don't systemize the process of collaboration with their referral partners, right? It's, you know, it's the the Michael E Gerber quote. It's you know, businesses run systems. Oh, sorry, systems run businesses, and people run systems. If you don't have a clear framework and model that you are working towards that you know that you are executing on consistently. That's where everything breaks down, right? And that's This is why so many people miss so many opportunities, because they don't have a system and process. Therefore things are not measurable, therefore they can't tweak where, work out where things are breaking down, therefore they can't fix it, right? So to use an example, I referred a partner into one of my clients. Two years later, I went to work for that client. I opened up their multi million dollar CRM, found the partner's name in there, saw that nothing had happened with that partner. I went and had two coffees with the guy. Within six months, we'd written $11.2 million in contracted business. So that meant, for the two years that that opportunity had been sitting in the CRM with nobody touching it, because people forgot about him. That cost them $44 million he people are bleeding referrals because they're not following up, and they don't know it, because they got the referral got lost in email, the referral got lost in LinkedIn messages. Referral got lost in SMS or WhatsApp or wherever, because they got it short. When I need to do something about that, I. Went and did something else, and then it's the leaders got swamped in other messages over the top of it, and then they can't remember, where did the lead come from? Who did it come from? Where? What platform did it come on? That's the biggest problem with referrals in the marketplace. People had not systemized the process of engagement, step

David Bush  40:21  
one of systemizing. What do you what would you recommend somebody if they don't have this? This is step one for them.

Derek Morgan  40:30  
You CRM is typically not a good place for you to manage partner relationships, because everyone's CRM is isolated and invisible to everybody else. So you need to create a system and a process for collaborating with your referral partners, and referral partners, meaning clients as well. When you do that, you teach them to become better referrers, and therefore they refer more business. The gratuitous plug is, once we created the referral marketing formula. We gave everybody the strategy and the tactics, but then they had to go and create the tools to make all of this work. Well, that was a downstream problem we needed to solve, so we went and solved it and built a platform called refer you to and that provides turnkey workflows around systemizing your partner relationships, and then and partner connection, communication and collaboration, and then work flowing the next steps off post referral. So we've done all that for our community, and we provide a complimentary version of that platform to turn key referral partner process and engagement.

David Bush  41:44  
So would you say that that's kind of like a social network for referral partners?

Derek Morgan  41:51  
It's a private network for referral partners. So we're not another LinkedIn, it's not another it's not another directory where somebody can come in and farm your data. It's not another LinkedIn. LinkedIn does a great job. Go there to connect, but you don't do business on LinkedIn. You build connections on LinkedIn, but the operational side of your engagement, from a commercial perspective, happens elsewhere. We're the elsewhere once you've made that connection, yeah. So you know, having a go between that's really clear and easy for all of your partners just to be on board and understand exactly how they work with you, that's what you need to create. That's that's when you get a flywheel marketing effect from your referral partner engagement.

David Bush  42:39  
But if you were to give me the focus for the next, you know, however many months are left in this particular year. But if you were to give me a road map, and you'd say, David, if you want to build a referral system that acts predictably, these are the steps that I would take. I mean, just lay out the plan for me. Derek, tell me what I need to do, when I need to do it, and how long or how much time I should invest into that, and kind of cast the vision for people that are watching this video.

Derek Morgan  43:13  
So build look alike Client Profile around your best clients, like pick three. Make sure they're not in the same industry. They're your ideal customer profile. Be really clear on that. So when you're going out looking for customers, yes, you can work with lots of different people, but they're the ones you're actually looking for and targeting for one of a better description, then go and ask those customers, even if you even if you know, or even if you think you know, actually go and ask your customers and say, moving forward for the rest of this funny, for the rest of this year, and beyond, me and my sales team are actually going to be actively looking to pass referrals back to our customers. What's an ideal customer for you? David, what's an ideal referral partner for you? Let them answer. 80 to 90% of the time, that customer will ask you exactly the same question. Now they're inviting you to find for them, to find referrals. When you're really clear on your ideal referral partner, don't ask for clients. Ask for a referral to a partner, because that's a one to many strategy, and it's much easier for your customers to think about a referral partner, because you already know who the referral partner is. You want to talk to, talk to, because they're already in that person's network. It's their accountants, it's their vendors, it's their suppliers, it's their advisors, it's whoever it is you know. And you will be able to make that ask state your value proposition, and you will be able to go, oh, I have a referral program when I send you referral. Or that's coming through this platform, refer you to gratuitous plug, and now you've created an ecosystem where you're starting to educate your clients on how to become better referrers, but follow through actually. When you're out looking for prospects for your own business, look for prospects for your clients. If you're sending, if you're a vendor sending your clients referrals, are they going to complain about pricing? Are they going to leave you for another vendor and risk losing the revenue that you're sending to them? This becomes incredibly powerful when you're in your professional services. High Ticket advice and product delivery becomes really powerful as a retention strategy. So managed service providers, MSPs, really miss this as a customer retention strategy. That's just one example lots of industries, and miss this as a customer retention strategy the business coaches, it's a lead generation strategy. So you've

David Bush  46:11  
given us some good foundation. So once we've done those things, is there anything beyond that that people need to know from this particular session, if you were to give them some specific takeaways after they've built those foundational structures, what would come after that to make sure that they had consistent referrals coming in? Do the work, do the work. That's what I was thinking. Just comes down to an opportunity disguises work, right?

Derek Morgan  46:39  
Yeah, yeah. Just, just do the work and be consistent. And don't look for perfection. Look for version look for version one, done, and just go and execute. Have some conversations. Your language will improve, your execution will improve. Your systems and processes will improve. You'll get results, and therefore you'll remain consistent. The biggest smack the beehive here for you mate. The biggest issue with people is they're looking for too many quick fixes. AI is brilliant. It can optimize great process beautifully, and IT Optimize. It optimizes poor process beautifully. So it can be a massive enabler, or it can be a massive rapid ascension of poor process. Then, you know, but it's AI is only as good as the deep thinking that you apply to it, and then the effort that you do to follow the system and the process and follow up. So it's like humans still need to do stuff, and that's where, that's where stuff breaks down, because humans are incredibly inconsistent. So how do you trap yourself into consistency, and how do you slow down to do the deep thinking, to get the process right, to go faster. People are not slowing down to go faster.

David Bush  48:06  
Yeah, I went through a comparison where it just talked about, you know, if a plane takes off and it makes a one degree change in trajectory, you know, over time, they're significantly off track. And if you just kind of leverage AI and you, you know, set it and forget it, and you don't have the interaction to make sure that it's on track doing what you want it to do. I mean, our software included, you know, if you're not spending some time with it, or they're not as a human being that's not overseeing the robot or the AI, you know, you can get off track. So you got to be there to guide it and support it, and to follow up and follow through and inspect what you expect. And the whole idea about, you know, inspecting your current referral partners, if you have identified people as referral partners, go back and inspect what you expect, what did you expect to get from them, and what did you expect to put into them. Because you may have, you know that what I found, and maybe this is what you found as well, Derek, but people are expecting way too much for too little. Yes, they can put in, you know, a dime worth of investment, and they want, you know, $2 back. You know, it's like, Hey, you're gonna have to put in $2 to get a dime back. But once you start getting a flow of dimes, you may get a dime every single day, and a dime a day for 30 days starts to add up to be a lot more than that, $2 so it's going to be a process, that's for sure.

Derek Morgan  49:36  
Yeah, but you can get 10x return. You've just got to, you've just got to add 10x value, right, right? And that becomes easier to your point when it's when it's when it's systemized. And you know, the thing we love about collaborating with BDR is you've got those outbound value properties. Position that you deliver, and then you bring clients into your world. And then it's once you've got that client into your world, yes, you keep you keep wanting to keep filling that top of funnel. But once you've got that client in your world, how do you leverage that existing relationship? What's the next step there? Because it then becomes a two pronged approach, right? You're just getting so you're getting more value out of the relationships that you're building from that initial engagement. It's then, what's the next step, once you've got them as a relationship and as a client, what's the next value step? Yeah, well,

David Bush  50:38  
it's good partnership. And I'm looking forward to, you know have another has become more familiar with the work that you're doing, referral marketing. Ideas.com is the place that you go for idea sharing and then refer you to is the place that you go for the ongoing relationship management. And so anything that you want to say as we wrap things up and land the plane?

Derek Morgan  51:02  
No, I think we've I think we've covered a lot, and we've left, we've left people with a whole lot to consider. The thing is, it's not a complex next step that you've just pointed out, and it's about systems and processes and just starting on the journey of asking different questions and having different conversations with your existing clients and your existing networking activity. This is not a new thing. This is just optimizing and making the things you're doing right now more effective. That's all we're talking about. In summary,

David Bush  51:36  
yeah, well, if you want some more referral marketing ideas, go to referral marketing ideas.com check out all the things that Derek Morgan is doing some he's doing some amazing work, and is doing raving fan type of stuff for the clients that he serves. And then check out. Refer you to as a network, and you'll find me on there as well. I'm a member already too. So excited for the process to continue to grow and expand, and and let's go change the world. Shall we one referral at a time? Yeah.

Derek Morgan  52:04  
And I'd love to give your community complimentary version access to refer you to to get them started. So I'm sure we can put that in the in the show notes.

David Bush  52:14  
David, absolutely. We'll make sure that everybody gets a link. And thanks to everybody joining us live. And then thanks for everybody who's watched the recording. If you've liked this video, please share it with somebody you think would benefit from watching it. We do appreciate referrals@bdr.ai and if you need more support, please reach out to us. Bdr.ai, forward slash support. We're always here for you. Thanks. Derek, it's always been a pleasure, man. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the Business Builders playbook. If this episode gave you some plays that you can start running in your business today, hit subscribe and share with another revenue leader who's tired of the pipeline grind. Building Predictable Revenue isn't something you figure out alone. Whether you're looking to automate your prospecting with bdr.ai, or you just want to talk through the growth challenges you're facing, reach out. We help business leaders just like you, to build systems that actually scale. And if you're ready to stop being your company's Highest Paid Prospector, let's have a conversation. Reach out to us@bdr.ai until next time, let's keep building you.