Lead generation is vital to every business. And sometimes, referred leads come when you least expect them. Every successful business owner knows that referred leads can make a major impact on the success of your business. They are easier to work with because they’re people that are coming from people that already know, like, and trust you. Therefore, a lot of the work has already been done when the candidate or the lead comes your way.
Because I’ve spent more than 10 years working referred leads only, I have some really fun stories of how just if you’re doing what you do every day, talking about what you do to people, referred leads will come your way without really any effort.
Here are three of my favorite referred lead stories.
#1: “The Serendipitous Misdial”
This man I misdialed three times is a sports agent. He’s an attorney. And he was very happy to meet me because his particular clients are always looking for investments outside of their professional sport. It ended up being more than a coincidence that I misdialed that phone number. He’s gone on to send me not just his professional clients but also friends of his from his local community. I love that story because you just never know where you’re going to meet somebody who can be a great referred lead source for you.
#2: “The Vacation Networker”
I helped a lifetime restaurant guy challenge his experience and thinking and open a non-food-based franchise. After he said yes to his particular business, he left to go on a trip to Iceland. He spent five or six days in a group tour with the same people. Over the course of those five or six days, he became friends with this guy, and he was telling this guy about this new franchise he had just bought. And he was sharing with this guy how excited he was to have met Kim Daly and how I had helped him change his life and get out of food, which he hoped he never had to get back into.
This other man who did not have any desire to own a business says to himself, “I think when I get home, I need to meet this Kim Daly chick.” We connected on LinkedIn, and he, too, went on to become another franchise owner.
#3: “The Fortunate Eavesdropper”
I was a little behind in my schedule, and I was on the airplane working on my slideshow, on my PowerPoint. The guy sitting beside me was like, unbeknownst to me, was looking over my shoulder, reading my slides as I’m putting it together to go host my live franchising event. And eventually, he got the courage up to ask me what I did for a living. And so, I explained to him that I was a franchise consultant, and I was headed out to Dallas to go host some live events and try to drum up some people that wanted to potentially look at franchises. We started a conversation, and at the time, he was very happily employed.
Later that week, I got a LinkedIn request. We chatted, and he had severed from his company and was looking for a new opportunity. Today, that guy is now a multi-unit owner in the Boston market for one of America’s top franchise brands. The point of these stories is that I didn’t really go out of my way to do anything to attract these three amazing referred leads to me. Building a referred lead network is a mindset more than it is an activity. Back in the day, when I first started to think about how am I going to build a referred lead network, it was something that I had to do each day. I had to focus on it. I had to reach out to people that I already knew. I had to be consistent in my activities. But with consistency, I created momentum—momentum that has sustained me year over year over year.
As I started getting referred leads from people I had already placed into a franchise, my confidence about asking for referred leads grew. And the magical thing about when someone is referred to your service, and then they become a paying client because they were referred to you, they know the value of referring you to someone that they know. And so, you’ll see that there’s this perpetuation of the cycle. Referred leads can really change your life. They certainly changed mine.
If you want to have a business that you feel in control of, with people that you enjoy working with, I highly encourage you to figure out how to build your own referred lead network. If you’ve enjoyed this read and have any questions or comments, contact me directly using the form below!
