Matt Ward 00:01
Welcome to the next episode of the Mass Business Podcast. My name is Matt Ward and I am your host. This is season two, Episode 14. I’m so excited to bring you an awesome guest today. My guest is me. That’s right. It’s a solo episode, and we’re gonna be talking about referrals real quick and how you can get more referrals and business. We’re gonna make it super quick, super simple. And we’re gonna give you a four real strategies on how to get more referrals in your service-based business. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Intro 00:49
Welcome to the Mass Business Podcast where small business owners, also known as risk takers, share their stories about the growth of their business and themselves. Our interviews, and our content is focused on growing a small business, and understanding networking and referrals. I say it all the time. And I’ll say it again today. You never know where your next referral will come from.

Matt Ward 01:22
All right, well, welcome to the podcast, I’m so thankful you’re here, and you’re listening on your favorite podcast, platform, or even watching right here on YouTube. Now listen, this episode today is a special one, it is a solo episode. And I’m so thankful that you’re here to listen to it and to watch it. You know, in the practice of work I do in the public speaking that I do, and in the book I’ve written, I always talk about the context of how to get more word of mouth referrals. And typically what happens is when I bring up this idea, and I go deep into it, people start to really nod their heads, they really start to get that, that head bob going, and they start to understand the concepts that produce more referrals. And many times they start to think, Well, you know, this is basic business. It’s true that it’s simple to understand, but it’s not necessarily easy to execute. And so we’re going to talk a little bit today about how to execute and get more word of mouth referrals. Now, the premise behind this is that notoriously people believe that they get more word of mouth referrals because they know like, and trust each other, that people do business with who they know, like, and trust. And that’s been sort of the standard in business for many years. Bob Burg wrote about it, and many other people in the sales world have written about this. But I don’t necessarily believe that’s true. You see, the premise of the work I do is based on the fact that people don’t do business with who they know, like, and trust, they do business with who they know, like, trust, and care about. And that four letter word added to the end is actually very important. And because I think that we can like someone, but not care about their success, because we just don’t know them well enough to have that care exist. And the care doesn’t exist right off the bat like-ability might, trust to some degree might, certainly if I know you that will. But the caring part comes after consistency, right. And that’s one of the things I talk a lot about. So in my book, hopefully many of you read this, you can pick it up on Amazon, More Word Of Mouth Referrals: Lifelong Customers & Raving Fans. I wrote this book in 2018. And inside of here are 45, 46 different tips and tricks on how to build better relationships with other people. Now, in the very beginning of the book, I talked about this concept of the care package, which is four pillars, and today, I’m going to share with you what those four pillars are so that you can start implementing those things in your business practice right away in some form or fashion. Now, let me be clear, you don’t need to have all four pillars in every situation, in every conversation. But when you mix and mingle the four pillars together and layer them over each other, that can in fact, produce a better, more qualified, more consistent set of referrals for you.

Matt Ward 04:32
So pillar number one is over delivery. Now, I define over delivery as exceeding your clients expectations, which means that you need to determine what your clients are expecting. It’s not just with the product or the delivery, it might actually be with communication, it might be with execution, it might be a response time, It could be the quality. It could be Many, many different things. But at the end of the day, you need to determine what the client is expecting to get from you. So when you’re dealing with over delivery, over delivery happens at the beginning of the transaction, and it happens at the end of the transaction, and it happens all the way through the transaction. And so just make sure that you’re that you’re over delivering all the time. And I refer to it in my keynote, as making things one more better. Here’s a big distinction though, this is not under promise and over deliver. I hear this all the time in the talks that I do, in the breakout rooms I do, in the networking group discussions, I do a lot of speaking at at, like BNI and Amspirit networking groups to teach this principle. And almost all the time somebody will say, Oh, yeah, yeah, you know, under promise and over deliver. No, we never want to under promise something. Because all we’re doing there’s is a self serving activity, right? We’re just trying to position ourselves in a better light, because we’re setting ourselves up for success, rather than setting the client up for success. So eliminate that vernacular, the wording from your business. It’s not under promise and over deliver, it’s just over deliver. So that’s pillar number one.

Matt Ward 06:24
Pillar number two is listening. And I define this as speaking less and caring more, speak less and care more. Listening isn’t just about listening with your ears to the verbal sounds that you hear. Listening is listening with your eyes. For instance, if you’re watching this on YouTube, do you see the poster behind me? What does it say? Feel free to comment. If you’re listening on a podcast platform, obviously, you can’t listen with your eyes at the moment. But if you are walking or driving in your car, use your eyes. Look at something right now. What do you see? If you’re looking at a person, what do you see? Do you see attire in a way? Do you see their clothing, in a way? Do you see their affinity for their high school or college or NFL or football team or major league sports? Are they wearing sports clothing and attire? Is somebody carrying a bicycle or skateboard? These are things that you notice with your eyes. But you’ve gone through life noticing things and not realizing that those things are giving you clues to who this person is, what they’re all about. And so take notice of those and listen with your eyes and not just your ears because you can in fact care more about other people when you know much more about them. What are their hobbies? What do they like to do? What are they all about? So that’s pillar number two, which is listening.

Matt Ward 07:56
Now, pillar number three, is surprise. And I define that as an unexpected gift at an unexpected time. There are many industries that have limitations on gifting. But there are far more industries that don’t. What are you doing, to ensure that people are receiving gifts, whether or not they’re giving you referrals? Whether or not they’re there, they’re doing business with you as a client, because that’s the irrelevant point. Build relationships with people that matter to you that bring you joy. And when you do that, provide them a gift that matters to them, not to you. One basic, special gift you could give is a handwritten card. Handwritten cards make a massive impact. But when you do that, leave out your business card. Because by inserting your business card into the handwritten card, it immediately makes it about you. That’s a really bad idea. Just do a handwritten card, put a personal note in it. Handwrite the note and then mail it and watch what happens. People keep your cards. They keep them all the time. It’s a powerful way to build a connection with a truly long lasting relationship. And it’s something that I encourage you to continue to do on a regular basis. Right? So that’s pillar number three, which is surprise.

Matt Ward 09:26
Pillar number four, non self serving acts. Not self serving acts are those things that you do for other people that have no bearing or benefit to you. Do you share somebody’s Facebook company page posts? Do you share their things on LinkedIn? Do you show up and have lunch with somebody just because you’re their friend? Are you an ear to listen to them? Are you someone that pays attention to other people with no agenda? Something I learned from a very, very good book by Keith Ferrazzi called Never Eat Alone is this idea of giving without the expectation of getting anything in return. When you can start to embrace that in your life, it will change how you think. And it will change the way in which you do business. Now, it’s not odd at all to have a question in your head. But when’s My turn? That happens all the time. I talk to my clients about this all the time. The problem is acting on it. So I encourage you to not necessarily not think about that, but just don’t act on it. When you provide things to other people, when you do things for other people in a non self serving way, they recognize that the trust is gained. They start to care about the success of your business because they realize that you’re caring about the success of their business. These four pillars are massive ways to build influence and recognition and relationships with other people. And if you mix and match them over time, it can really produce a lot of great results.

Matt Ward 11:17
I’ll give you one example of an over delivery and even a surprise. My speaker friend Majeed Magherabon is out of Canada, and Majeed does a coaching program and people fly in, they stay at a hotel and then he picks him up and takes him to the training location. He says I’ll pick you up at 8am. And what most people would do in that scenario is just send like an Uber. But that’s not what Majeed does. Majeed sends a stretch limo. It’s completely different. It’s unique. It’s such a surprise, it puts a smile on his clients face. He has reported to me that not a single customer has refused to get into that limo. That’s an over delivery. Now you might be thinking, come on, man, that’s not realistic. Like I don’t have the budget to send a limo. In fact, I don’t even have a garage that will fit a limo. Like I get that. Okay. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about trying to rethink and reimagine what it is you can do with the relationships that you have with your clients, and even your business partners. How are you building those relationships in a way that’s going to stand out? I hope you’ve enjoyed this solo episode of the mass business podcast, we’re focused on growing a small business right here in Massachusetts through networking and referrals. There’s a lot of networking activity that goes on. Make sure you check out the Mass Business Connections Facebook group, you can just do a quick Google search or a Facebook search for Mass Business Connections. There’s over 2100 members in Massachusetts in that group, always talking about improving their business,. It’s a great way to to consider improving your business. Again it’s Mass Business Connections in there’s a Facebook group, just for that. If you want to learn more about how to get more referrals, you can join my Get More Word of Mouth Referrals Facebook group right on Facebook, again, you can search for that and get more word of mouth referrals. It’s a Facebook group, where we talk about all types of things referral based. I don’t do a lot of solo episodes here. We have a lot of guests, we want to dig in and show you how they’ve grown their business. And we’ll continue to do that. But from time to time, I’ll do solo episodes, just so we can get you focused on getting more networking and more referrals in your business. Until next time, don’t forget to live happy, smile a lot, and high five. everyone around you.

Outro 14:11
Thank you for listening to the Mass Business Podcast where we focus on growing a small business and understanding networking and referrals. Don’t forget to like on your favorite platform and share out this podcast. This show has been produced by Heather Grant, music by Cailte Kelley, all rights reserved. I’m your host, professional speaker, author, and word of mouth referral consultant, Matt Ward. Don’t forget to live happy, smile a lot, and high five everyone around you.