Bill Cates helps companies attract and acquire more ideal clients through more compelling value, referrals and introductions and in this episode he gives tips on how to do that.
He is known as The Referral Coach and has helped businesses of all sizes to create more engaged clients and then leverage that engagement into referrals and introductions and communicate more relevant and compelling value.
In this episode we also learn how Bill built and sold two publishing companies, wrote 3 books and another on the way and how he evolved his business and how he helps his clients exceed their expectations. As well as a coach and an author he has been a top speaker in many countries around the world for many years.
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(All transcriptions are done using www.trint.com through a system of artificial intelligence and so on EVERY episode there are quite a few mistakes as AI is far from perfect when it comes to transcribing the human voice. However, it is a very time-consuming process to go through each transcript and correct all the errors. For quite a while I had the transcribed docs sitting on my hard drive in the belief that one day I would eventually get around to correcting all the errors and could then upload each transcript to the show notes for each episode. The reality is that isn’t gonna happen for quite a while as I simply do not have sufficient time to be able to do that. So please accept my apologies for the number of errors but I hope that these transcripts are in some way useful to you.)
[00:00:00] Exceeding expectations. Episode 49.
[00:00:09] Welcome to the podcast where we aim to give you ideas of how you can give your customers an amazing experience in some way to get you better referrals testimonials recommendations rebooking or that sort of stuff. Please if you do like this podcast why not share this particular episode or any of the other past episodes with someone who you think may get some value out of this and it would be great if you could leave review for us on one of the platforms such as I tuned. Which is obviously the biggest podcast platform or any of the other podcast platforms. This week’s episode is Bill Cates who is known as the referral coach. Hope you enjoy the episode.
[00:00:52] Exceeding expectations.
[00:00:59] My guest this week is Bill Cates. How are you. I’m doing well Tony. Thank you. And you just told me you were in Maryland.
[00:01:07] Annapolis Maryland. That was one of the earlier capitals of the colonies the United States before they settled on Washington. That’s round surrounded by water.
[00:01:18] So for those of us in the UK whose geography is not so great. Whereabouts in the sciences.
[00:01:24] Well Washington D.C. As you know is on the East Coast right now about the middle And Annapolis is about 30 35 miles due east.
[00:01:34] Yeah I can place it now. And you’ve got a company called referral code. It’s a fascinating name. How did that come about. Well it’s interesting.
[00:01:43] For almost 25 years I’ve been focussing on helping business owners salespeople professionals grow their business to referrals. And lately we’ve been focussing more on personal introductions because it’s just so hard to cut through the noise and reach people these days. But I was I was a sales speaker. I was looking for an expertise a niche if you will to focus and I was listening to some audio tapes. You may remember audio tapes company back when this guy was talking about referrals and I thought you know that’s that’s a good topic and but I’d say it this way and I teach this and so I started teaching and writing for about a year. And I wanted a company name that reflected what I did. So I came up with referral coach international and there. We lived into the international part the business wasn’t international at the time. But now I’ve done it all over the world including the UK. And it’s it’s one of those things that was kind of born to do and as we talk you know I’m getting into some other content as well.
[00:02:52] And this is a million different Winyard in one different ways of coaching me mobile. How would you say your style of coaching is. How does it differ and maybe other peoples.
[00:03:03] Yes.
[00:03:04] So it’s funny I’ve never really you know I call myself a coach but then when as I got into coaching I know I learned that there is a whole world of coaches being executive coaches business coaches life coaches where the model is they teach you to just pull out what’s already in the client kind of like a therapist might do and it’s not very directive but I’m more like an athletic coach where I tell people what to do. But getting to know them first. Obviously it’s got to be appropriate and with lots of context but and that’s what people seem to like for me is they don’t want to just have it all pulled out from them. I mean that’s part of what I do. But I know they want to be told you know the best way to do something. What I’ve seen other people do that’s been successful. And so Mike my style is definitely more directive than a lot of other folks.
[00:04:03] And on those subjects of referrals which you know I was we were talking about just now. How did you find most people or especially so of new business owners find it difficult to generate referrals.
[00:04:14] To a degree yes. So obviously if you’re doing a great job serving your customers or your clients you should have some people talking about you to others. Right word of mouth referrals is a pretty important part of just about any business some businesses can thrive and grow more so than others on the unsolicited referrals. Obviously if you know anything in the hospitality industry depends on that and book sales et cetera as word of mouth. The mistake I’ve seen a lot of business owners make is just thinking that if they serve the heck out of their customers their customers will talk about them and beat a path to their door so to speak. And that’s not always the case. It’s not always enough or it’s not always the right people coming your way depending on your business. So to me it’s becoming referral bowl and that has to do with meeting and exceeding expectations all along the way. That then also being proactive appropriate proactive. How do you talk about suggesting the possibility of introductions or connections to other people. And that’s where people they get a little nervous there. They don’t want to look needy. They don’t want to look. Unsuccessful then on look pushy and so they they miss those opportunities to suggest possible connections their customer client may be talking about someone they know and they know they could probably serve that person but they’re reluctant to step into that conversation and so courage is a big subtheme to everything I teach. And encourages is important in so many areas of things and it encourages is is needed when there’s a little slight gap in confidence right. It’s like when you don’t when you feel confident about something then you move forward. And it’s not really courageous because you feel confident you know courage isn’t the absence of the absence of fear it’s the presence of fear and then we then we move anyway and opposite of Yves confidence is fear. Right. And so when there’s a little gap I have my first sales trainer a guy out of Baltimore Maryland Dave Sandler he call that that gap that place wimp junction that rides a little place where we know we need to ask something say something do something. We don’t quite feel comfortable right about it. And then we have a choice to either wimp out or to do it. And I think when it comes to business what you do I do what everybody does it really boils down to confidence right. If you don’t feel clear and confident you won’t act.
[00:06:53] So yeah it’s a big part of it.
[00:06:56] And do you typically work we’ve like so certain industries or is it pretty varied.
[00:07:02] I work mostly with professional services although I have worked outside of professional services and the principals are all the same. So for instance you’ve got to be referral. That’s that’s about meeting exceeding x. Finding out what expectations are right is hard to exceed expectations if you don’t know what they are. And so doing all that good stuff and that puts you in that place where you can then be appropriately proactive to look for introductions and then not settling just for word of mouth necessarily not even selling for a name and number you know somebody might say Hey call my friend George and or call my my colleague George mentioned my name. Well George doesn’t pick up his phone anymore and we’re not in his cell phone so we won’t pick that up. So you know we’ve got to get a connection going to get an e-mail handshake. I like to call it or break bread together which is always nice of an introduction. So you know it’s more than than just the getting the word of mouth.
[00:08:04] I mean you mentioned before that you’ve written three books and you you’re in the process and writing and I’ve wondered how when you decided to write your first book How how did that process come about.
[00:08:17] Yeah actually I’ve I’ve I’ve written for on referrals. I wrote another book which we won’t count counted for this conference fiction for now but so what happened is I was as I was picking this as a topic of expertise to focus on. I certainly knew a certain amount about it but I also knew that there was a lot of other good ideas. Now this was a while ago. This is before or just as the Internet was was gaining some some usage and popularity and everything was in Dawes. No windows yet. And the only place I could get access at the time to the Internet was the library but I decided what I was going to do is teach and write and write and teach for about a year because I mean I could have written a book in a few months but I made it a better book by teaching it learning from people you know in my audiences and reading other books and so it became a very well researched book not just from other books but from people I actually talked to and people in the field doing these things. I had I picked up a lot of great ideas from from those folks and so that first one took about a year and I know it was a better book because it brought tell you if anybody is listening thinking about writing a book it’s a great exercise. I had a colleague at the time tell me this even if you never publish it it’ll be worth it because you’re going to get your head around the body of knowledge that that will bring you into a level of expertise that most people don’t have. So it’s back to that confidence was a great confidence booster. And then I had a two two book deal with the publishing company. So I had to give them a second book and that was really just the culmination of a lot of my blogs a lot of my articles and it was pretty easy to write.
[00:10:10] And then the third one that was called Don’t keep me a secret. And that’s a phrase I didn’t invent that phrase but I picked it up from somebody in my audience he just when people say hey this is great you know you exceeded my expectations great please don’t keep us a secret. All right just planting that seed for that word of mouth and I say That’s brilliant. And then then I you know as doing this for years and years of course I realized that referrals isn’t the end game. That’s not the real benefit referral is it. It’s a process. It’s a way to get to meet someone and eventually if it’s a fit. Turn them into a client or a customer. So that’s what I wrote. Beyond referrals where I wanted to take this process of referrals but then making sure that people got introductions and then setting the appointment wherever that appointment setting looks like for you and your business and whether they come to you you go to them whether it’s on the phone and then and then some sales skills so I included some sales. But the ultimate goal is the actually the new client. So I’ve learned then you’ve probably seen this in your own business Tony is when you help people solve a problem. Sometimes you learn of a new problem that they have. The next step to that problem. So that’s that’s what’s happened in my business is I just keep finding ways to serve my clients related to the overall umbrella of relationship marketing and forming better relationships.
[00:11:36] I’m curious how many of the people you work with when they come to you have already read one of your books.
[00:11:44] Oh gosh. Quite a few these days. It’s kind of neat and sometimes I’ll I’ll speak at an event and someone will come up and.
[00:11:54] Say I just bought your book or. Or they say you know I bought your book years ago haven’t ready yet. That’s right. Probably most people haven’t. You know and I take them off the hook and some people have read it before they come. So it’s I’ve been doing this long enough. There’s there’s a fair number of me out there. And you know it’s it’s a great way to bring people into my world. It’s inexpensive. They learn my style my philosophy some of the things I teach and there’s already a little bit of appreciation there. So it’s a it’s a great calling card. It’s a great magnet. You know among the other things we need to do to bring people to our world.
[00:12:34] I mean before we were talking about you talk about being super referral Bye bye by leveraging mobile. Can you expand on that. You mentioned that before.
[00:12:44] Yeah. So so three words I have a system called the perpetual revenue system and it really I’ve already touched on it but we’ll flesh it out a little bit. So if you follow these three words represent three concepts then you really can create a pretty much endless perfection perpetual flow of good quality clients or customers to your business.
[00:13:06] And my process is mostly emphasize quality over quantity picking on where you are in your business you may want to emphasize a little bit differently but so the first part is this engagement. So what we learned is that through our research that there’s a low correlation between client our customer satisfaction and the giving of referrals. In this study only 20 percent of folks who said they were satisfied now that they were loyal but 20 percent who said they were satisfied gave referrals in the preceding 12 months. So we learned that there’s a there’s a higher level of customer client relationship that we call the engaged client or the engaged customer. And this is where someone is engaged with your value. They like the value that you bring. They like the questions you ask the things you teach your quality service responsive service. You know it varies obviously from business to business but it’s the value part of the equation and the other part is the human connection the human part of the equation where they like you and they trust you and all that’s important and most successful businesses work on those. But I bring them to life a little bit more and show people how to do that in all different aspects of the client journey because we’re trying to create advocates an advocate will not only recommend us but they’ll make sure it’s a good connection they’ll bug their friends have you call my friend you know Tony Ed or they’ll say Tony I call my friend Georgette that they really get engaged and that’s what we want. We want to advocates for our own business and that all comes out of the engagement that we create and then the next level is the leverage is once we have people that see our value and we’ve connected within a nice personal level not you know not best friends but I call on business friendships then we’ve earned the right to leverage and to say let’s talk about who else we can bring this important work to and a lot of different ways to word it but it’s essentially paying your value for it right that you’re your client your customers found value in working with you how do we find other people that would also find value. So you’re essentially asking your customers or clients to help you help others. So it’s mostly about bringing your value forward. Obviously you’ll get compensated for it but and they know that but it’s mostly about bringing the value to other people. And if they like you if they’re an advocate well they want to help you too. So it’s a nice powerful combo. And then as I mentioned getting the connection getting introduced not just settling for word of mouth or a name and a number and you know the best way for a lot of businesses is in person if you can make it work if it fits the business model but if not then an email introduction you know Tony meet Laura. Laura meet Tony is how I know you guys and you guys should talk and everybody is familiar with that kind of introduction and so just not not leaving the process until you get connected where it breaks down for a lot of people is that introduction you have someone who’s willing to talk about you to someone else but they don’t quite ever get there and so that’s can be frustrating. But if you do that and you get introduced and you create this sense of engagement with these new prospects that then become clients or customers and you just keep this process going then it really is a perpetual flow.
[00:16:26] And would you say there are maybe introverts or certain personality types that find it much more difficult to do to our final process.
[00:16:34] Oh yeah there’s no question it’s a range. It’s not just the the the the. This owner but it’s also you know the clients or customers. Right. So some people are more open being asked than others and you know if you have someone who has a very open personality and it was easy to get them into your world and the answer your questions and you know they’re open then those are the kinds of folks that will let you into the lives of others in their life much more easily. But on the other hand if you have someone that was like my mom my mother and father who by and by the way met in England where we’re two. My father was very much the analytical and you know you’d ask him a question you say why do you need to know that in a very guarded. And those people obviously are a little tougher to ask so same thing on the asking side. It’s again about being confident and engaging in this conversation. But I’ll tell you I mean I know some fairly introverted shyer type folks will still do it. It’s just about practice and getting confident and believing in your value. It’s a big part of it. If you doubt your value in any way you’re going to be hamstrung in terms of not being able to do this.
[00:17:57] So for people who are introverted or have a particular personality types to and they find it difficult to to refer is that is that what you suggest that they really concentrate on the value that I have.
[00:18:11] Yeah. And what I found is is asking and someone doesn’t want to go there.
[00:18:17] You know I don’t want to do this I’m very private or you know let me think about it this for whatever reason they just don’t feel comfortable. It’s usually not a reflection on us. They ask her something we’ve done a good job. It’s just their relationship with being private being reticent to recommend other resources etc. And so what I found is just just the asking the one time and suggesting the possibility of introductions if plants are really nice see that promotes the possibility for later and gosh I can’t tell you how many people who’ve I do this when I speak in front of groups I’ll do a show of hands how many of you have asked for referrals and gotten them on the spot and lot of hands go up and how many of you’ve asked didn’t get it on the spot but you asked later. I mean I’m sorry. Thinking by but later they had someone for you on their own terms. Lot of hands go up right next time they say hey I think I have someone for you. They just want to do it a neurone way on their own timing. The percentages go a little something like this and every business is gonna be different but essentially 20 percent if you’re doing a great job for folks will talk about you to others they’ll give you referrals and make connections. Another 20 percent you could run into a burning building and save their children they wouldn’t do this because they’re private they don’t want to do it for whatever reason and then there’s that 60 percent then that’s kind of the goldmine that most businesses are sitting on but if they’re not being proactive in certain ways if they’re not rewarding for referrals if they’re not having a conversation essentially it’s building and into a culture of meeting people through other people then then they’ll miss out on that.
[00:19:53] That roughly 60 percent see you talk about helping people to to ask for for more families and what about testimonials testimonials are just a cousin of referrals right.
[00:20:05] Because what y referrals work is because of BARO trust. We bar the trust and one relationship long enough to earn our own trust in the new relationship. And there’s a term they’re using these days of course in marketing as social proof and a testimonial and referral. They’re both forms of social proof. So it’s the you know the testimonial it’s kind of an endorsement or recommendation. And if that’s someone who has something in common with the with the person looking at the testimony on it they may not know each other but they have something in terms that they’re both shopping for your service or if they come from the same industry that you do then then it’s even better. All right. So I’m a big believer in collecting testimonials. I’ve always done it. Used to originally get testimonial letters and then of course testimonial statements. And I always put a photograph next to testimonials or almost always because I want them to be real. I want people to see that they’re real you know their first name their last name their business where they’re located photograph. And of course these days I’m doing a lot more with video because it’s gotten easier to do. But they’re huge. And another cousin is references right there’s some people that may not want to give you the names of specific people to connect you with but they’d be happy to serve as a reference if there’s someone who’s you’re talking to and say Hey can I give you a couple references that people have used our service and they’ll go yeah we’d love that. And I found that about 50 percent of the people I give references to actually contact the references but they like the fact that I’ve done it. That I’m willing to do it. I’ll never forget Tony I had somebody call me for some service he was providing and he was really a good talker. You know he had his game together when it came to that. And he was offering an interesting service so I said Okay I appreciate this sounds good. And I would like to talk to a couple references of people you’ve worked with. No we don’t like to bother our customers our clients with that. No no we can’t do that and say well I’m sorry I can’t move forward because you know anyone who does a great job for their clients or customers they have people they’d be happy to serve as a reference you know abused them you don’t give them too many people at one time but every now and then they’d be happy to vouch for you. And if you can’t if if you don’t have people that are are willing to do that. Number one you know your terminology you’re not exceeding your expectations. And and it’s gonna make people kind of leery of doing business with you if you can’t furnish those folks. I’ve sometimes when I’m looking for services you know I’ll look at other people other testimonials that are on someone’s Web site. I’ll contact those people you know I’ll look them up I’ll find them on LinkedIn I’ll find their business and I say I see you’re doing business with so-and-so know testimonials on their Web site. About what you’ve done with them and it’s interesting. Sometimes I get great stuff. And sometimes I get back. Well I haven’t really done that much with him or her. And so you know this is their friend who wrote the testimonial. So it’s all part of the mix. All right it’s all part of the body of evidence that we need to provide people so they’ll feel comfortable trusting their decision to work with us.
[00:23:40] Well I wonder if you knew from what you were scientists then. It made me think about say you get a video testimonial from someone and you put it on your Web site. I mean often we tend to forget things that we put on our Web site and in six years later you can hear testimonials there were there is some record person.
[00:23:58] It’s true. You do need to monitor that. You need to stay in touch with those people in some form. I have a VIP list of about 200 people that are clients. They’re folks like you that have the ability to say something good you know about me to someone else. They’re just people I’ve worked for etc. and I every month I go through the list and I just try to reach out to these and I don’t reach out to every one of them every month. But you know what do I have that I write an article that I could send to them that they might find help for they could send to their people internally that they find helpful and just say hello. So I’m trying to nurture those relationships over time and then eventually you know if you’re if you keep getting a lot of good testimonials and then you know you’ll keep looking at where your testimonials are and you will replace them. Know I’m looking at that I have on YouTube a lot of them and every time I get a new one I sort through and I decide who do I want to keep up. Who do I want to show on the page. There’s going to be deeper in the play list things like that. But you’re right you’re absolutely right. You do have to monitor and pay attention because you don’t want to come back to hurt you obviously.
[00:25:15] You telling me about that you previously built and sold a couple of publishing companies. Was that did that happen off to you. Did your first book go how did that come about.
[00:25:25] That was before I’d been in business for 40 years doing something. And. Now the first the first two companies had nothing to do with what I do. And I built those businesses and what do you want to go into. But I sold the second one and I was looking for something else and a buddy of mine said Well you should be a professional speaker you be good at it and I go wow you know I hadn’t written any of those books I had just helped other people publish them and market them. And so I joined the world of speakers you know I went to in the States we have the National Speakers Association.
[00:26:05] There’s a you have one in UK and Germany has one and France has one and all over the world and I just started hanging around people who speaking in front of groups was a big part of their living maybe not everything. And so I slowly figured it out from there and that’s when I decided to I got into sales a little bit. And so my first niche was printers and people relating to the printing industry because I bought a lot of printing in the preceding 12 years. And so I gave them a customer’s perspective. When they were thinking about their customer service and meeting and exceeding expectations and sales. So that was my first niche was in the printing industry and then I learned that they don’t make a lot of money in that industry. Very thin margins. And so I wanted to move upscale if you will. And that’s what I said I work with and professional services.
[00:26:58] What would you say that your clients are doing to exceed expectations.
[00:27:04] Yeah. Well like I mentioned earlier and this is really important. I don’t want to gloss over it is is is finding out what their expectations are. And there’s different ways to get in that conversation and obviously vary depending on your business. But. You know if I’m a financial advisor let’s say or a banker let’s use that one you know if I’m saying Tony I appreciate you considering you know banking with us you know. If you could build the perfect banker what would be those characteristics you know what would you want in the best banker or you know you’ve worked with other bankers what would have you like. What have you not liked. Help me know what you know what your expectations are coming to this relationship. Or I could say let’s working let’s say we’ve been working together for a year or two years three years whatever timeframe.
[00:27:58] You know how we you know we’ve been successful. So I want to know what your measure of our successes.
[00:28:05] And so that that’s pretty critical. Another part of that also is the more targeted you are in your marketing the more you drill down into a vertical market if you will of a certain industry or employees in a company or whatever that niche might look like for you. The more you’re going to have some knowingness about their expectations because you know the world so well so you can guess you can extrapolate from your experience with others to get a feeling for what their expectations are. But then it’s always good they are. So you know there’s a lot of ways to accede. But one of the things I’ve been teaching and I’ve got a few of my clients who have become masters at this and we’re always exchanging ideas of how we exceed in an expectation and a lot of it has to do with these with little things actually little WoW is a little unexpected wows of connections that we’ve made for people of paying attention to their world and sending a book maybe that relates to a hobby that they don’t even realize we caught that in a conversation. You know we find out they have a dog. They love dogs. They’ve got three dogs now. I’ve got a great book on dogs. I want to send to them right and just shows up. One of the things that I’ve been doing and teaching others to do and we exchange ideas is how we say thank you. How we say thank you either for the business the opportunity to do business with you or thank you for the referral. Big believer in that and I’ve learned that you can exceed expectations in that area create a very nice Wow impact for not a lot of money if you customize the thank you. So you know rather than sending the fruit basket or the cat in a box of candy or cookies or whatever from a Web site I learn about people I’ll go in your linked in profile. My assistant will call their assistant. I’ll pick something up so I’ll give you a couple of examples. Just recently and this gentleman referred me to another person for a speaking engagement. And so I went to his assistant who I knew and I said you know tell me about Michael what’s he into. Well he likes to do vegetable farming in his backyard. You know growing vegetables and fruit. And this guy is very wealthy. He’s doing very very well. But he likes gardening which is great. And so and he’s in Florida. So I got a book on gardening growing vegetables and fruit in Florida 14 box. Not a big deal. I figured it wasn’t enough. And she also said that he loves a good vodka.
[00:30:48] So I bought a bottle of my favourite five red which is Icelandic vodka. And I packed it up probably totally violated you know interstate traffic laws of liquor and send that to him. I said with a note a little birdie told me that you like gardening and you know when you get tyred or you’re it’s not going as well then you can go back in and taste one of my favourite Parkus so I think it’s being delivered tomorrow. I haven’t had a reaction but I always get reactions I always get thank you’s for my thank you’s.
[00:31:21] I had a guy who helped me with this book I’m writing and I took him to breakfast to do it and obviously paid for breakfast but I figured that wasn’t enough. And so I called someone to work for him and I said tell me what Craig is into. And he says well he really likes Abraham Lincoln he loves Abraham Lincoln something in book. He’s read every book on Abraham Lincoln. OK. I’m like getting the book. And so I went online and that and you know I’m going to Amazon and I found this nice little bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln standing by his desk and that was about thirty five dollars is very nice very classy. But Steve also told me that Craig likes fun socks. He just he belongs to a sock of the Month Club and I never saw any evidence of that but apparently likes fun socks as some people do and so when I was shopping for the bronze statue Amazon you know as it does will suggest other things. There were socks with Abraham Lincoln’s Lincoln silhouette on them so I bought those for King holiday.
[00:32:23] He was ecstatic to call me so I can believe you figured this out. And you know it’s great so that that’s an exceeding expectation right. And that’s a wow factor. And the work I’ve been doing on my new book I’ve been you know studying little brain science. There’s that it stimulates a part of the brain when when you do something unexpectedly pleasant. There’s a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens that that lights up and it’s like it’s wow endorphins get generated from that. So that’s that’s how you create advocates right. That’s how you create advocates for you and for your business by doing something that’s a little personal related to their work and you took a little extra time to figure it out and do it and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to do that.
[00:33:12] So of companies that or the people who maybe haven’t yet discovered the benefits of having that kind of mindset what do you what are they missing out on and what is it that you think gets them to have that shift in realizing the huge benefits they can get.
[00:33:29] Yeah I think you’re right in the sense that some people don’t come naturally because it’s very much a it’s an orientation towards giving first it’s an orientation towards relationship. Some people you know have that wired a little more and better than others. So you know I think it’s it’s just. Kind of knowing Number one I guess a principle at hand is you know the way of the world is in meeting people through other people. Right. There aren’t many businesses that the people that you want to bring into your business. Their preferred way of meeting you is learning about you from someone else. Right. And social proof that referral that recommendation whenever you call it. So that’s a principle guiding principle to building a business is one thing and the other thing is. Leading with value and other principle just lead with value first right. When I’m reaching out the prospect when I’m courting a prospect and trying to find another reason to keep the conversation going or reaching out to a client or customer I haven’t reached out to in a long time right. How do I lead with a little value. How do I bring a little something extra there. That’s another principle. And then the final one is the thank you is the getting into the habit of saying thank you and doing it and perhaps in a little more personal way. So one one ways to establish these habits especially if it’s you’re not you’re not. It’s not your habit of thinking and yet is to have checklists that use an assistant to help you with that. But if you think about it you have a checklist of different things you want to make sure you do with prospects and new clients and existing clients and strategic partners. If you have it written out then you can look at it from time to time and make sure you’re checking off those boxes with people. So a lot of it’s just keeping it in your in your awareness until it then becomes second nature to do that.
[00:35:29] Because I mean doing something like that. I mean for a lot of people. You know it’s been established since it’s not in their natural mindset to think about doing something like that. But if they can maybe make themselves do it a couple of times and then they see the amazing results that they get from that. And then it will develop into a mindset.
[00:35:47] Yeah. Absolutely. I mean you’ve got to see the value and if you don’t see the value in it then you add it and it doesn’t feel comfortable. Well you won’t do it but if you can at least sense that there’s value there then you’d be willing to try it a couple of times even if it doesn’t feel natural and then it starts to feed on itself. Right. So you’re absolutely right. But you know for these kinds of things that aren’t second nature to us whatever it may be in our life it’s always good to have somebody else in our life to help us with that. Right. The checklist is great. But if we have an assistant I have several assistance I have a key assistant that I’ll just tell her to remind me to do these things you know and and hold me accountable to the things I said I was going to do until it then becomes second nature. Well and it also shows the value of having a coach because the coach will if if that isn’t in your mind salary a good coach will help you to establish that and you absolutely and we create habits and other people by the questions we ask them asking asking their permission to hold them accountable to that. I always do that I ask permission to hold someone accountable to whatever it is it’s like if I was coaching you I’d say you know Tony is this. This is important this is something you really want to do. Yeah. You see the value in it. Yeah well can I hold you accountable. Can I. You know metaphorically hold your hand to this process until it becomes second nature and if I have permission from you then I’ll keep bringing it up. And I’ll say you know until you tell me otherwise you said this is important to you. And so you know that’s that’s that’s that’s what a coach will do a coach will focus someone’s energy awareness towards certain things and someone knows when they’re gonna be talking to their coach that certain things are going to come up so they better be prepared and they stay focussed on something they might be able to do on their own. But they’ve got a million other things going on so that coach helps them stay focussed in that one area that’s important to them or multiple areas. And so it’s the focus and the accountability as well as the knowledge so you can have coaches that don’t understand your world that can still help you stay focussed and they’ll hold you accountable. And there are a lot of coaches that will do that. I’m sure they’re quite good at it. I tend to coach people that I they they know I know their world. And so that adds another dimension to what I can offer that by staying focussed on a specific some specific industries and markets and types of folks. That I’m able to bring that that other dimension of of what works and what doesn’t work. The conversation.
[00:38:32] If people want to find out more about you where would be the best place you’re asking its referral coach.
[00:38:38] Dot com referral coach dot com and we do have a free report e guide our newest one for anybody listening to your program. Tony is multiply your best clients dot com multiply your best clients dot com. It’s not case sensitive and you get that report and learn little more about our world. So I’m happy to help any way I can.
[00:39:05] And I presume you are the books that you have they are all available on Amazon. Also Amazon’s the best best choice for those. And just before we finish I when we were talking about a quotation you came up with. You want to tell us.
[00:39:16] Yeah. So you know everyone’s so very trite expression that everybody’s heard is under promise and over deliver.
[00:39:25] I personally don’t like that. I think you should find out.
[00:39:29] What they expect what they want. Right. So in the formalize the quote I said don’t under promise and over deliver promised what you know you can deliver and then exceed the customer’s expectations.
[00:39:42] Find out what the expectations are. Do they fit. Is this a good match. In the first place and if it is deliver on that and then exceed but just the idea of under promising a great experience or underserved under promising what you can deliver lowers the expectations. I’d rather set a high expectation of myself and live up to it than even go further than that. That’s my take.
[00:40:11] Fantastic. Well Bill I really appreciate your time and thank you for the gems you shared with our listeners. Thank you. Tony it’s been a pleasure. Next week is episode 50 with Shauna Armitage who is an SEO coach and chief market strategist and a growth consultant who works closely with brand leaders on marketing strategy and guiding them on the execution and accountability and she has some very interesting stories to tell. That’s next week’s episode with Shauna Armitage. Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s episode as I did say at the start of the show please do share it with people who may get some benefit, some value from this. Do leave a review for us on iTunes will be fantastic and I hope you have a fantastic week. See you next week.
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