259: Stacey Brown Randall – Photography Business Growth by Referrals

259: Stacey Brown Randall – Photography Business Growth by Referrals

Andrew Hellmich: Today's guest, Stacey Brown Randall is not a photographer, but a business growth accelerator. Stacey developed the growth by referrals strategy after figuring out how to grow her own business, and now she works with other business owners to help them do the same. Her mission, is to help people make more money and find more time. And on her website, she says, and I love this, "If you're in a saturated marketplace, you are in the right place." She believes referrals are the least understood, least utilized, and the very best tactic in your sales and marketing toolbox. And she says "The ability to generate referrals is a skill you need to master." I'm rapt to say that she's with us right now. Stacey, welcome.

Stacey Brown Randall: Thank you so much. Andrew, I appreciate it.

Andrew Hellmich: First of all, I mean, how did you get into this growth by referrals. Obviously, you had a business first. Can you talk a little bit about that business and how you got to where you are now?

Stacey Brown Randall: Yes, it's my favorite story sometimes to tell. I always tell people when they ask, "How did you start learning this referral thing", and you know, my big thing is generating referrals without asking. I think that's what makes me different from most of the referral experts out there in the marketplaces. I think if you're asking for referrals, you're doing it wrong. But if you had told me, you know, even 5 years or 10 years ago, I guess you know, a couple decades ago, that I'd be sitting here having this conversation with you, I'd be like, "What are referrals?" So I think the reason why it's my favorite story to tell is the reason why I'm sitting here today is because I had a big fat business failure, and I learned so much from that, and took what I learned from that. And I've applied it to this business, and have just done some things differently because I cannot stomach another failure, if I can manage it. I don't want to go through that again. I don't want to see anybody else go through that again. And one of those big lessons that I learned was that in any business, it doesn't matter what business we're in, we have to be willing to touch business development every day. But to touch it every day, to be willing to do it every day, to get up and go find the next client, we have to have some tactics, or some strategies or some tools that we'll actually enjoy doing. That is what makes us be willing to do it. And for me, that was referrals. So that's really kind of what started me on the journey, was figuring out, "Okay, I want to generate referrals too, but everybody's telling me I have to ask, and that feels like a cousin to a cold call, and I don't want to do it, so let's figure out a different way." And so here I am, you know, a number of years later, and that's what I do. I actually teach people my process, you know, my formula, so to speak, my system. And you can generate referrals without asking, you just got to know what to do.

Andrew Hellmich: Can you touch on that failure that you had? Because this is really strange to me, because in all the interviews I do, not many people talk about a failure. Normally, people hide that.

Stacey Brown Randall: You know what? And I totally understand that. And to be honest, I did not talk about my business failure for the first two years that it happened. I mean, I had to take a job, I had to go back. I, so my first business was an HR consulting firm. When that business failed, I had to go back and take a job. I had to go back to work for corporate America, and I worked there about 18 months, and I was still six months into the business I have now. So I was able to leave, I was able to try again. I was able to try business number two. So when I left, I was still, you know, good half of a year in, before I finally uttered the words, "Yeah, my first business failed." And I remember being in a room of people, and it was a presentation that I was given on referrals. And I just said, I just blurted it out, instead of, like, giving that whole like, "Oh, the business, you know, it was in a special place when this great job came along. So I took the job, like, you know, the spend"..

Andrew Hellmich: Yes.

Stacey Brown Randall: To make it sound like I had made this great, awesome decision. Now the reality was, we needed money. Like, that's the reality. We needed money. And we are a two income family, and we need both of us earning and so I needed to get a job. My business wasn't doing well, and I remember uttering the words, and I remember, like, in the presentation, I said it like 16 more times, like I was just like getting used to it. And then I now I just talk about it freely. Because what I realized by talking about it and by being willing to talk about it and listen, you can ask me anything about it, I'm happy to share. There were a lot of things I did right. There were also a lot of things I did wrong. And some things I knew I was doing them wrong and still did them, and some things I had to learn from a lesson in hindsight. But you know, the big things that I kind of figured out is, is that there's lots of advice out there about how you want to run a business. You just got to figure out what you're going to listen to and then do the work, like actually do it and make it happen. And then you have to be able to pivot when things aren't going well. And so those are just, you know, just a few areas where I just did not succeed and did not excel in my business. I made it almost five years in the HR consulting firm, and it started to suffer. And it was a slow, painful death, because I did not want to say I was a failure. And what I learned was most people are like, "Oh, you're not a failure. You had a failure." I'm like, "Okay, fine, I'll give you that." But don't take my failure word away from me, because I like it. I like the fact that I'm a member of the business failure club. I, unfortunately, it is great company with me, but I think that membership in that club is so key to everything that is happening to me now and to all the success I'm happening now. And I wouldn't change it. It was painful, you know, it's financially painful, it's mentally, emotionally draining. But the biggest issue you deal with, with a failure is your ego gets kicked down and bruised. And you have to be willing to pick yourself up. And there's so much you learn about yourself in that process, and so I wouldn't take my failure away. I love it. I mean, I don't want anyone else to go through it, but it certainly doesn't define who I am, but I certainly use it as a mechanism to propel myself forward.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure, just before we get off that topic then, can you look back and do you see, you know, have you said one of the biggest things was, you know, failure to do the work. Was that the biggest thing that sort of prevented you from succeeding in that business? Or was there something else?

Stacey Brown Randall: So there were three things that I really learned from that business failure that when I look back, I wonder, yeah, I mean, I think hindsight is a beautiful thing, but you don't know. I wonder if I had done those three things differently, if my business would have looked different. I mean, I'm glad it did it did it now, because I love what I'm doing. But the first one was definitely, I know this for a fact, because I did it this time around, and my business is kicking business number one's butt. So, the first thing was touching business development every day. Like, go out there and do the work, like, find the clients, have a system in place, fill your pipeline. Don't get so mired in the work that you look up and like, "Oh, wait, I don't have another photography client for the next two months", right? Like you can't get so into the work that you look up and realize there's nothing in a pipeline. There's not a new client coming. So, you know, that's one of those things that I definitely learned. But the other two was, I didn't protect my mindset. And there's a very specific story about a well-meaning friend who said something to me about raising my two children. It's three now, but raising at that time my two kids, one was like an infant, and saying, "Oh, Stacey, you kind of have, like, a side hustle." It was a business, like this was a business. This had big name clients, and I had publications, articles published in publications, and, you know, great interviews and stuff. But she said to me, in the moment of chaos in my life with you know, two kids under the age of two, "Oh, you're just building a lifestyle business." And I didn't protect my mindset. Like, "No, I'm kind of building an empire." And I just forgot, I guess, that I was building an empire. And was like, "Oh, right, so I can go do laundry at two in the afternoon if I want", because I've got these kids and I've got this family and, and I just didn't protect my mindset. And the other thing that I learned was, is that you cannot scale your business when you are drowning. If you're already starting to fail, it's a bad time to think about scaling. You have to have that conversation early on, which is fundamentally a piece of this business that my second business, the one I'm in now, looks so much different, and I think is why it's being so successful.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. So you touched on mindset there, and you said that yours shifted. I mean, do you have to have that 'build an empire' mindset to succeed? Or can you build a lifestyle business and succeed at that too?

Stacey Brown Randall: So it's interesting. I very much think that you can build a lifestyle business and succeed. I love my business the way I have it built. I have it clearly built by design. I don't work on Fridays. I end a couple of days a week at four so I can get my kids off the bus. You know, I love the way my business is designed. And some would say that's a lifestyle business. I think the use of that terminology, when my friend said it to me, was that it was just a business that was a compliment to my life. And it was okay that my life was number one in terms of you can take your eye off the ball with your business. And I think that's okay for moments, but I bought it hook, line and sinker. And when you decide to do that, you take your eye off the ball of growing your business. And so at that moment, there really wasn't, you know, when I think about how I got out of that, I sunk too far into not doing what I needed to do for too long, to get out of that and save myself. So yes, I think the use of that terminology, I don't want anyone to think, "Oh, I have to build an empire." No, no, no, you don't, but you do have to be committed to whatever it is you are building. And you have to create boundaries in your life, to focus on the business and focus on your family, and you can't focus on one and not the other for too long, or you're going to have a problem. Mine just happened to be, I'll do laundry at two o'clock in the afternoon and not go call that prospect, and that will eventually sink a business.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. Let's talk a little bit about referrals, because I've done a lot of these interviews with photographers, and successful photographers at that, and one of the common questions I ask them is, you know, "How do you get the clients that you get? "And one of the most common answers or replies is "Referrals", particularly for those photographers that have been in business for a long time. And then I ask, how do you get those referrals? And they say, "Oh, they just come. They just happen."

Stacey Brown Randall: And they're like, magic.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. So no one's actually really told me, apart from asking for referral, how to get referrals, and you say you have a system that can help us with this.

Stacey Brown Randall: I do. And I always tell people, when I hear that answer, a lot too, they're like, "Oh, yeah. Like, referrals, they're awesome. I get some. They just show up", right? Like, these little magical theories, magical storks drop off referrals at night, right? And I always tell folks, I'm like, "Actually, there is a pattern and a reason to why you received that referral." And if you unpacked any of your conversations, or, you know, outreach or anything with the person who referred that new client to you, so what I refer to as the referral source, if you figured out, you could probably unpack the pattern as to why that happened. And my system is built around when you unpack the pattern and you figure out, "Oh, actually, there's some key things that I can do on an ongoing basis to stay top of mind with my referral sources, to be memorable and meaningful." Not, you know, just like, "Hey, what's up" But like, actually, try not to keep in touch, but try to stay top of mind. And to do that in a way, with using the right type of what I call referral planting seed language. So plant those referral seeds, but never ask when you kind of put that mixture together, then you start to actually realize that you're actually making the pattern happen. So if you're receiving referrals like that, like they just feel like they just show up magically, that, to me, is like fertile ground for perfect, awesome, that means you're referable. That means you're worthy of it. So that's the exact place I love to start. Not everybody I start with starts there, but that is the exact place I really like to start, because, you know, I know, in that case, you can be referred. Now I just need to show you what to do, and what are the steps in the process you follow, so that you can have more referrals come to you.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, I want to get into the detail in just a second, but when you're talking about referrals, so as a photographer, and for the listener, they would have two sources of referrals. Most of the time, it's going to be previous clients, and it's also going to be other vendors that are referring.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yes.

Andrew Hellmich: Particularly in the wedding market and some, I guess, portrait photographers too, if they have these third party relationships with business owners. Is the strategy different for each of those different markets, or that each of those different people?

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah, so it's a great question. So when I refer to the two sources of where you can actually generate referrals from, they are clients, whether they're current or past, right? Or they are what I refer to as centers of influence, which are your vendors, which are people in the industry who know what you do, but they don't do what you do, but they come across people who need your services. So exactly as you said, they're photography vendors, right? And then also their clients, and that is for most businesses. I mean, I think a lot of industries think they're like, special and unique and kind of like, nope, you're like, you know what a photography business is just like a bunch of attorneys that I would work with, just like a bunch of realtors that I work with, business coaches..

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, come on, we are special. No, no, we're special.

Stacey Brown Randall: I know, like I always, I'm like, "Oh, bearer with bad news. You're not special. I mean, you are special in your industry." May not necessarily be as special as you think it is. So, you know, and that's always what I tell folks, is that there are those two sources where you're going to generate going to generate clients. You may generate a referral from somebody that you don't even know. I mean, that's happened to me, but if you unpack the kind of the thread of how they learned about you, usually it comes through someone who is a referral source of yours. So you're right, you're absolutely right. They're going to come from clients past and current, and they're also going to come from vendors, or what I call centers of influence, or COIs.

Andrew Hellmich: Do we take a different approach for each of those people?

Stacey Brown Randall: Yes, thank you. I was like, there was I was missing a part of your question. So kind of, and I think that's what people kind of are like, well, do I need to actually do different things? You don't need to do different things, but you typically have to use different language. And the way that I explain this is, is most of what we do to generate referrals can be the same for clients and for centers of influence, for those vendors. But there's going to be maybe some different language, because with a client, you'll talk about the fact that you loved having them as a client, as kind of a lead in maybe to anything you'll write or say or put in a message that would go along with some type of outreach. With the center of influence, unless they've been a client, it would be weird, be like, "Love having you as a client" and they'd be like, "I've never been a client of yours", right? So the language is different, but what you do, the outreach that's staying top of mind, that being memorable and meaningful, that kind of stuff, is always usually the same. But the language you use is different, just because they have a different experience with you. And then the only other time where I see that that's a little bit different too, is centers of influence actually want more of your time. Like a client gets to see you, even if it's just like one wedding, you know, they're gonna do the engagement picture, and they're gonna do the bridal portrait, right? And then they're going to actually do the wedding. The client still has interaction with you before, during and after that whole process, right ? A center of influence or a vendor, they don't always have interaction with you. And if you're looking to support each other and help each other, right? And think about them and see how you can help them. Then usually a center of influence will want that outreach to be a little bit more face to face. With a client, you can get away with it not being as much face to face. And I kind of tell folks that that center of influence that wants the face to face, it's the grabbing coffee, if they're local, you know. I have lots of people that go through my program that none of their referral sources are local. But if they're local, and you have a vendor that sends you business, you should be taking them to lunch or drinks or coffee. That's one of the things that you'll do, that you'll probably not have to do with your clients. So that's the only main those two areas are really the only differences.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, I want to get it again deep into the strategy in a second. But, one of the biggest things you said right up the intro was, you know, my difference is "I don't ask for referrals." You don't like to you relate it to a cold call, whereas I've been taught that it's okay to ask for a referral. And you know, if I've just finished photographing a couple's wedding, they're picking up their album. I've been told that I should say to them, "Listen, I'm a small business. As a small family business, we rely on referrals. We would love it if you enjoyed your experience with me, to tell your friends about us." Do you see a problem with that?

Stacey Brown Randall: So here's what I always say, Andrew, I'm not interested in breaking anything in your business that is working.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, I don't know if it's really working.

Stacey Brown Randall: Okay, now let's get to the point I really wanted to get to, right? And my follow up statement to that was going to be, "But do you even know if it's working?" And so if you're not sure, then I always tell folks, "Well, then why don't you try another tactic", right? "Why don't you try something different?" I believe that if you want to ask, then ask. I think that you shortchange the longevity of referrals you can receive from someone when you're asking. I mean, what are you going to say to them on the fifth or sixth time that you ask for a referral, right? So I think you're short changing the opportunity. And I think the number one thing an ask does is that it makes it about you, and as an amazing photographer, Andrew, as you are, nothing about a referral is about you. And people get that twisted in their minds and they forget, like, who is the cast of characters, right? Who are these players when it comes to our referral process? And the players are three people. There's you as a service provider, yes, of course. Then there is the prospective new client who you know has a need, has a photography need. And then there's the referral source who knows both of you and knows that prospective client needs a great photographer, and knows you're the guy to solve the problem. But the reality of it is, is you are not the hero of that cast of characters. You are the beneficiary of a new client. The hero in that situation is not even the prospective new client. It's the referral source, and they are giving a referral to you. Whereas they love helping you, they love that you're a small business, and they love that they get to help you stay in business, right? But at the end of the day, they're actually trying to truly help the person who has a problem which needs an amazing photographer. You just happen to be able to solve the problem, bonus benefit for you. So when I ask for a referral, I make it about me, but the whole dynamic and psychology behind why a referral happens has nothing to do with me, except for the fact I'm the one who's going to solve the problem, right? But I am the minor player, right? I am the supporting role in the whole process. The hero of the story is that referral source, and the damsel in distress, or dame in distress, whatever right, is the person who needs some photography work done. And so I've got to let the hero be the hero, and I remove his place or her place. And the process, when I start asking all the time for referrals. But I'll say, "Even though we're not going to ask, we are still going to do some work, and we are still going to understand and how to use and apply some specific type of language." We're just not going to use asking language as what we're going to do. Because we're going to build in gratitude and thankfulness and staying top of mind with our referral sources so that they have this natural reaction to being able to actually send us referrals because we take such good care of them when they do it, and during the times when they're not doing it, so that we can build that habit in them to send more to us.

Andrew Hellmich: So it sounds to me like we have to spoil that person, that hero in this scene, so that we stay top of mind. I mean, does it just come down to delivering good service, or is there more to it than that? I mean, are we showering them with gifts? What are we doing to stay top of mind and have them refer us if we're not asking for a referral? How do we be that photographer?

Stacey Brown Randall: So it's a component that takes two parts. And to your point, it is, I call it TLC. We're just showing our referral sources some TLC, some tender, loving care. What I do not want your listeners to hear, right? What I do not want them to hear is 'I've got to go spend a bunch of money', because that is not how you have to build a referral generating plan. I have plenty of people who build referral generating plans with no money, so we build them on shoestring budget, if we have to. If you have money, of course we can include some gifts, but you don't have to. What you do have to do is you have to do is you have to figure out what does the referral source need from you. So I build all plans, and the students who go through my online program are the ones who work one on one with me in a VIP session. We build all plans based on these three platinum principles. And I think that kind of helps people start thinking about, "What does this look like?" And then, of course, I'll give some examples from existing plans so people can really kind of see it in their minds eye as to what this looks like. But the reality of here is, is that we first need to know who are our referral sources, or if we're not receiving referrals, who do we want to be referring us? Who should be referring us? Once we have that group of people, then we can figure out, if we were to take care of them, as you said, you know, shower them with love, right? Treat them like royal. If we were to take care of them for over a year, right? What would that look like? What would that outreach look like? And that is in my process, where I kind of refer to as the secret sauce. It's the what we do, and then it's the language we use when we do it. And that's those referral planting seeds. But at the end of the day, what you're truly just thinking about is, "Is okay, the three platinum principles of I need to provide outreach, top of mind outreach", what I refer to in the program as touch points. Touch points throughout a year, not every month. First of all, no one's budget can afford it, and we're all busy. But I need to do the things that are memorable and meaningful that get me some runway, so I can do less than 12, right? But I'm going to build it out for 12 months, because I need to understand what this looks like, and what does the budget look like, right? And making sure I'm not dropping a bunch of things in, right in my busiest wedding season, right? Like, you gotta think about your business cycles too. But we build it out over 12 months, and then we figure out, "Okay, with these three platinum principles, how do we design what are those touch points? What does that outreach to our referral sources going to look like?" The first platinum principle is the most important one, and that is, it's got to be all about them. So anything I do, I take into account what do my referral sources want from me. I mean, let's be honest, what do they need from me, right? And so the reality is, is, well, most people don't need a bunch of stuff from you. They just..

Andrew Hellmich: That's what I'm thinking.

Stacey Brown Randall: Right? Like, they just don't need a lot of stuff. But you know what they want? They want to be thanked. They want to be acknowledged. They want to be helped with their business, right? With their career, because not everybody's going to refer you is going to be another business owner, right? They want to be connected to people, but ultimately, they want to be thanked and acknowledged by what they are doing or what they have done for you. So I have entire referral generating plans that are built around for someone who has no money, built around writing thank you notes. Now, what you say is very key, and how you do it is very key, but it can be as simple as that. And you know what's amazing about a thank you note? Because no one does them anymore. They are like gold to the person receiving them. Because, you know what a thank you note says that an email or a phone call can't say to me, "Wow, you took time. You took your valuable time, and you spent it on me, writing me a thank you note and acknowledging and thanking me for the support of your business or the referrals that you've received", right? And so when we think about, okay, we gotta make it all about them. What do they need? Well, unless you're gonna give them, like, free photography services, which is fine. I mean, I guess that is something you could something you could do, right? At the end of the day, just thank them, just acknowledge what they mean to you, and be willing to do that throughout a year. Not one, not one hit wonder, right? Right, doing this, one and done.

Andrew Hellmich: I love this idea. I do love the idea of a thank you note. But I don't know what I'm thanking my clients for. I mean, in my head, I'm thinking they should be thanking me. I did an amazing job with their wedding.

Stacey Brown Randall: It look amazing. Do they know they don't look like that in real life? Totally kidding. We've been using the same photographer since we got engaged. I mean, like engagement, wedding, belly shots when I was pregnant, first christenings, first birthdays, Christmas card every year we use the same photographer, and I'm pretty sure he says, "I'm totally make you look fake, Stacey."

Andrew Hellmich: Well, he must be doing something right for you to be going back that often. What an amazing relationship.

Stacey Brown Randall: It is. And so here's what I would tell you, is that "He does amazing work, and he built a relationship, and that is what I call a killer client experience", right? So he built an amazing relationship with us, took care of us in times when we needed it, met some pretty silly demands when I would have them, right? And I need silly demands, like, "Can you get rid of all those wrinkles on my face?" And he'd be like, "it's not very real." Like, "I don't need it to be real", right? So everyone's gonna go look at my pictures and be like, "Wait, is that one of the ones yet airbrushed?" Yeah. I mean, sometimes people "Yes, okay, I'm okay with that." But, you know, he took really good care of us, built a relationship. He's not like part of the family, but he is part of our story, right? He is part of and he's our friends like we like him. We know his wife, we know his kids like we don't like have him over for dinner, and they don't have us over for dinner, but you know, like he did a great job for us, and then he stays memorable and meaningful to me in ways. So I've now referred business to him, and he thanks me for that. And of course, if I'm going to refer business to you, I will absolutely be a repeat client. If he just did weddings, I'd never use them again, right? But he does more than weddings, his lifestyle and weddings. And he does commercial too, which, you know, I've used them for my business headshots. So you know the reality of it is that, he did a couple of great things. But to your point, your question was so key, because you said, "Well, what am I going to say?" Because if they haven't referred you yet, there is different language we will use to start priming that pump to get them thinking about referring us. So we're not going to thank them for referrals because they haven't yet, but we are going to thank them for their support. We are going to tell them how much we love having them as a client. And then you're going to plant a little, tiny seed, right? And it's just going to be like, "We love the opportunity to work with clients like you", right? It's not an ask, it's a we love you as a client, and we love it when we have clients like you, right? It's a statement of fact. It's not an ask, but it is a planting of a seed, and there's lots of them that we kind of need to do as we're kind of bringing somebody along to become a referral source. It's much easier once they've referred you, because the language they've received is almost always thank you for the referrals. Thank you for taking care of my business. Thank you for trusting me with people that you know and care about, right? I mean, there's lots of different languages than to use, but you're right. We still have to do some things to really get people thinking about, "Okay, oh, that's right. I know someone you should use", right? You have to be referable, which means do a great and amazing work and build a great relationship, right? But at the same token of that, you gotta go a little bit past keeping in touch with your email newsletter you send out that I'm not reading. Even though I loved you as my photographer, and you gotta stay top of mind, which means you gotta do a little bit of outreach. That will be what I call a pattern interrupt. It will get my attention, because nobody else is doing it. That's why I focus on saturated markets. Like you mentioned in the introduction, I focus on saturated markets because it is actually pretty easy to rise above all the other noise in your industry. Because most people won't take the time to do these things. And once a majority of your business is coming through referrals, and you don't have to do anything else, like running ads or cold calling or going to a lot of networking, or the 15th year in a row have the same booth at the same wedding show. Like do those things if they work, but if they're not working, I get to help people save time by eliminating those things and just focusing on referrals. So there are different things we do to someone who's not referring us versus somebody who is. But at the end of the day, it's still to your point just taking care of them.

 
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Andrew Hellmich: You just made it feel dirty.

Stacey Brown Randall: I know, you didn't mean for it to be.

Andrew Hellmich: I did it.

Stacey Brown Randall: Just had the wrong execution.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. Tell us, how do we learn more from you Stacey?

Stacey Brown Randall: Absolutely. So there is a free Facebook group that people can join. It's called Referrals Without Asking, and I am in there. I do a weekly live show on every Thursday on my Facebook page. And then I share it in the group, and then I'm in there asking, answering questions and providing other resources. It's a great group of community of people that want to generate referrals without asking. It's called Referrals Without Asking. Of course, if you're in the program, there's another paid student only Facebook page or Facebook group, but that is the one that is free. And what I would love to do is actually kind of put together a couple of goodies for your listeners. So they can go to one page and they can just learn about a couple of things, which means they can download the Seven Deadly Sins of Generating Referrals, which are what I refer to as the big no nos, the what not to do. And those are we've talked about two of them asking and paying. But there are five others that people need to know. So they can download that document, the Seven Deadly Sins of Generating Referrals. They will find a link there to the referrals without asking Facebook group, and they will be able to take a quiz, and they can test their skills at their abilities and their skills at actually generating referrals. And you're going to land on one of three levels. You're going to be a referral ninja beginner, a referral ninja in training and a referral ninja master. And if you were at the master level, welcome to my level. It is an awesome to be, but then there are resources that are provided to you after you take the quiz to help you figure out, well, how do I move along? And even masters can always get better, right? So there's some resources to help you figure out how to move along, but all three of those resources are available on a very specific link for your listeners. I'm sure you'll link to this in the show notes too. But it is growthbyreferrals.com/ PhotoBizX.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. I will link to that in the show notes as well. So everything will be there on that one page. Anywhere else they need to go, the downloads all there.

Stacey Brown Randall: It'll be all there on that page, absolutely.

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome. Stacey, I know you got to run. Can I ask you one last question?

Stacey Brown Randall: Absolutely.

Andrew Hellmich: I get quite a few referrals from one reception venue, but I don't always know who the person at that venue is referring me. Can I still send a note to say thanks for that referral and make it more general and just mention the client they referred? Or do I need to find out exactly who made the referral.

Stacey Brown Randall: So I would actually advise you to do both. You know, when they happen, I would be definitely making sure you're sending a referral, but I think you need to be do a little detective work. Because the reality of it is, is there is a human on the other side of that referral. And my guess is based on how that reception venue operates, the structure of their staff, right? It's probably not the bookkeeper, that's actually coming across the bride, right, that's going to need you. So there's probably somebody there, even if they have a couple of people who manage the brides and the bookings of that venue, I would do some detective work. And then I would probably narrow it down to who you think are the ones that are actually sending you the referrals. And then you could send handwritten thank you notes just to them. Just be like, "Hey, I get a lot of referrals from you guys, and I just want to take a moment and thank you personally." And you know, if they're not the person who's referred you, it won't really matter, like, "Oh, that was nice." But if they are the person who's referred you, they'll probably comment on it. And then the next time you get a referral from that specific venue, and I don't know, maybe it's the bride or somebody that has said that I'm having my wedding at this reception venue, and they said to call you ask who they spoke to. Just like, "Awesome. I want to know who to thank. Who did you, who are you working with?" So you can always ask the person who lands, right? But then you need to do some detective work. We got to get the names, even if it's three or four. I want those three or four names on your list of referral sources, even if they're from one location, because it could be more than one person.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so what happens, though, if there is say, let's say there's three girls that are function coordinators at this venue, and I know that it's Stacey that's sending me the referrals. Do I send my referral gift, or thank you specifically to Stacey and ignore the other girls there? Or am I trying to get them all on side? Or will they automatically go on my side because they're going to see the gift that Stacey got?

Stacey Brown Randall: So I think you could go at this either way. I would make sure that I'm always thanking Stacey, because she is the one that is actually sending the referrals. And if she gets something and that interests the other ones, and it's like, "Hey, what's that about", right? Then, great, but you don't need to feel like you have to do equal things to all three, because you're going to hurt someone's feelings. Because this isn't about like sending something to everybody. This is about thanking the person who took the time to invest in your business. And they deserve to be thanked, and that doesn't have to be diluted with a couple of their other people, because they happen to work on a team. So if you find out that it's coming from all three of them, then you will do something for all three of them. But if you figure out it's really coming from, say, Stacey, then you need to thank Stacey. And if that means that other ones ask you questions about it, you can tell them why Stacey is being thanked and be like, "Hey, listen, you know, I thank Stacey because she sends business my way, and that's my life blood", right? I mean, you can certainly make that comment. If someone says, "Why is she getting cookie bouquets, and we are not?" Like, you can certainly explain that. But I just tell folks, don't feel any guilt, right? Don't feel any guilt to be thanking somebody, even if there's other people in the mix, because you're thinking for a specific action someone else has taken, and they need to be recognized and rewarded for that.

Andrew Hellmich: Got it. Got it. Stacey, this has been an absolute pleasure. I just want to say a massive thanks from me and the listener for sharing everything you have. And I'm looking forward to getting involved in your Facebook group and checking out your program as well. So again, thank you so much.

Stacey Brown Randall: Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thank you.