In this actionable episode, Devin Sizemore, Owner of Devin Sizemore Consulting, shares a system for building a predictable referral strategy. If you struggle with inconsistent client leads, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What many-to-many relationships do for sustainable growth
– Why referrals outperform other business development strategies
– How to change your ask to unlock network potential
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to this start, scale and succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As a founder and I have been super excited about this. This episode, full disclosure, actually prepared for it a week in advance because I thought it was coming sooner, so I’ve had a whole week of anticipation around it, and it’s a seemingly trivial issue that some of you may be like, Oh yeah, of course. But there’s so much depth here and practicality, you’re just going to love it. So what are we going to talk about? We’re going to talk about referrals, and not just kind of any referral strategy, but a really clever one that I’m sure you’re going to love. So for those of you listening, you’re in maybe stage two startup entrepreneur, even in stage three, and you haven’t built a strong recurring mechanism for bringing in new work, particularly for those of you who are in service based businesses or rely heavily on word of mouth advertising referrals, this is going to be an absolute game changer for you, because with us today is the one and only Devin Sizemore who pursues meaningful, personal and professional experiences with passion. He spent his career building and growing businesses that align with his values. Devin launched his first marketing agency right out of college, and went on to create innovative consulting practices and a cat cafe, all driven by his commitment to adding value and making a positive impact. He believes in the power of connection and dedicates himself to helping others succeed by building relationships. He now focuses on fostering a community with 1 million connections where they can create lasting, transformative change, and he’s here with us today. Devin, so excited to have you here in your book. You open up with one of my favorite intros, not so much, because it’s like, super, like, clever edge of your seat, but it is, like, nail on the head, the exact problem that, like, just about everyone listening is facing, and that is a dilemma that, again, we just all face. So what’s the dilemma and what can we do about it?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah, Scott, thanks so much for having me, man, I appreciate you, and glad you’re able to get into the book. So yeah, you’re referencing the referral dilemma, and it is something that all business owners face when I go to a room and I ask, Hey, you know who in here loves word of mouth? And everyone raises their hand, right? Well, do you want more of it? Yeah, of course, everybody does, right? This seems like something that’s a no brainer, but then when we dig into, well, what’s your system? What’s your process? Is it predictable? The answers start to become No. Maybe it’s all it’s all fluffy. And that’s really what we went out to solve seven years ago, was, how do we build a system that’s scalable, duplicatable and predictable around this thing about referrals and connections, and thus solve the referral dilemma, right? You want more? How do you get it? That’s exactly what the book talks about.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love it. I love it so true. I had a client once, and they actually they said this about their hiring process, but it applies to most folks referral strategies. And I asked them, like, what’s your strategy for hiring? And they said post, and hope we put up a job description, then hope that somebody responds. And in many ways, it’s like, you know, there’s this, like, almost this, if you build it, they will come mentality, you know, as if I do a great job, everyone will talk about me. And to some extent, there’s some truth to that, but you can accelerate it quite a lot with a good system. So before we get into kind of the nuts and bolts of the system, I want to take just a brief moment on why in particular you chose to focus on referrals. There’s lots of business development strategies out there. Why referrals?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah, another good question. When I had my marketing agency, I found myself, like many of your listeners, maybe in a crowded marketplace, highly competitive, very Doggy Dog, everyone just trying to compete, very scarcity mindset. And what I realized is that there had to be another way. And so I started getting on stages and doing presentations. So I went after the visibility plus credibility equals profitability strategy, and that worked. But I also want to figure out, how do we change the game with networking and network building so we can control the process in a way that’s comfortable and everybody wins. And what I started to realize is that my key to success was adding value to others. And when I did that, and I follow it up. And I did it forever. I started to get it in return, yeah, and my calendar was full, and it continued to be full, and I started to realize, wow, there’s actually a system here that’s predictable. And the reason why I love connections is it’s edified and endorsed introductions to you, so whether you’re exploring in. Prospects, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, affiliate marketing, looking for new employees. It doesn’t matter what you’re looking for. If you have a dynamite network where you’ve added value, anything and everything you want is inside that network when you need it. And that, to me, is what we’ve spent, you know, a decade building, and why I believe in connection and referrals over almost, if not any other strategy.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. Now we’ve a lot of folks listening have probably heard your network is your net worth and, and there’s a, there’s a huge advantage to people who are launching out on, you know, with an established network. But that’s not the case for all founders. Maybe it’s that the timing wasn’t driven by them. You know, it’s like they were just kind of thrust into it. Or maybe, like myself, you just did not recognize the need for a big network before launching, when I launched this second business and and so they might be sitting there thinking, yeah, referrals would be great. But, like, I don’t have a big network. How big does your network have to be to be able to create a strong referral strategy and leverage it?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah, you only need one meeting with one person to start the process. I usually end episodes here, but we’ll go here. So the power of one is something I like to let people hear. You don’t need a huge network. You don’t need a ton of people who know, like and trust you. You literally need to be able to book one meeting with one person. And it doesn’t even matter who the person is, because when you follow the connection meeting framework, and then you follow up and add value after you start to create the process, right when you make the three intros and you nurture and love on that person, you’re going to get one or two intros back. That’s going to start the momentum. Now, if you have 1020, 3040, people, we can start the process with great it’ll create more momentum. If you can go to a networking event, you can start it. So you can start with no network, a little network. Or those of you who are listening, who go, I have a highly established network, but it’s not doing much for me. This system works for you too.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s got to be great news to just about everyone listening. So well, let’s, let’s roll with that. Then let’s say we have one connection, and we’ve got to get it right, you know, just making a little fun at it. But we, we want to start rolling this out. What’s the first step in? And I’ll let you answer this one or two ways, either, what’s the first step in setting up the process so that we can do this right over time? Or what is the first step of the process, and how do we leverage the power of one?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah, so the first thing you have to do is change your ask. And we have to start here, because this is what unlocks the potential in your network and what the connections you’re going to get. And so what I mean by that is, when I ask people, Hey, Scott, who do you want to meet? Typically, the response is your ideal client profile. That’s where most people default to. That’s where marketing and sales lives. Great. Makes total sense. The issue is, if I tell you, Scott, this is who I want to know, and I give you my ideal client profile, you now have to go through your whole network, find those exact people, figure out if they’re ready for what I offer, make an introduction where they’re going to be sold. There’s so many hurdles there. There’s so much friction in what I did. Said. So if we change the ask, what we do, and this is what’s explained in the connection expansion exercise, we take your ideal client, we expand it to the vendors where they seek education, and then six other buckets, and it allows us to change our ass. So you could say, hey, Devin, who do you want to connect with? I say, look, mastermind hosts are brilliant. I love connecting with mastermind hosts because we can mutually add value to each other’s worlds. We can open doors for each other. We can collaborate. When I give you that ask, instantly, you can go to any mastermind host or community host or event host in your network and go, hell yeah, I’ll connect Devin. No big deal, because there’s no tension of being sold. There’s all opportunity for partnership. By changing our ask, it unlocks the follow up process when we meet the one person, because then when they say, Hey, who do you want to know, we can give them an Ask that’s easier for them to fulfill on. Plus, when we follow up to make connections, we’re going to use the same process to make sure that we’re making connections for other people. So that’s step one is you have to shift your ask and shift how you’re growing your network, right?
Scott Ritzheimer
Actually brings me one of the things that stood out to me in the book was this idea that a strong referral system is a many to many relationship builder and and I think that’s not how a lot of folks think about it, they think of referrals as one to many. Like, how can I get to meet more people? So what’s the difference between those two approaches? And why does it matter?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah, so one to one, if we start there right, is like a client referring you to someone, or you finding one prospect. It’s just you and a person, one to many tends to move into the referral partner relationship, as most people consider it, right? I find a referral partner who can refer me to a handful of clients, right? Great. We all like those where I do workshops and where people have their kind of light bulb moment is when then we go to many, to many. And so the idea this would be, let’s say, a business, CPA is a great referral partner. Partner for you. We then go back through the connection expansion exercise, and we look for, where do business CPAs gather? Where do they seek education? Where do they spend money? Who has influence over them? Who do they trust and who’s a connector that has a lot of business CPAs? If we or you could find yourself in a room where you are edified, you’re the authority, and you’re in front of a room full of referral partners. That’s a mini mini strategy, because now by being in that room, you’re creating a room full of advocates for you and your business that you can nurture, which then have access to dozens or hundreds or 1000s of clients, right? That’s the mini to mini strategy. So many people start stop with the referral part. We go a level deeper, because if we find one of those, it unlocks the future for most people’s business.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, I love that. So we’ve opened the door, we’ve had the conversation. What are, what are some of the things that we tend to get wrong when walking into let’s say we’ve got the right ask. But what are some of the things we still tend to get wrong when we go into the conversation itself?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah, it usually starts with the networking, the follow up and the meeting. There’s language that goes sideways in all those moments, and it goes sideways when you start selling. And so I like to call this commission breath, right when you show up with at a networking event, just trying to close people, or you follow up from a networking event and your email is very salesy or benefit feature focused, or you show up to a connection meeting where you’re supposed to just meeting and build relationships, and instead you start selling or positioning awkwardly. All of those things are going to sabotage your ability to build a long term, lasting relationship and uncover all the other potential that you don’t know about the person you’re meeting. And so I like to share the one follow up script, because I think it highlights this. So you know, when I follow up from a networking event, the script is, Hey, Scott, it was great seeing you at the Chamber event yesterday. I enjoyed briefly learning about you and your business. Love to schedule time to learn more about you and your business so I can make connections. Make connections for you. Here’s link to my calendar. I look forward to connecting with you. Nothing in my follow up messaging has to do with what I sell, who I am, or why I’m great. It has the other person, the value you’re bringing. That’s key. But so many people go wrong because they default to trying to sell something or position or having their ask too early in the process. Don’t do that, right? Focus on the other person and watch the magic happen.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So one of the things that happens, especially early in the process, especially if we just have our one connection, and we’ve got to get a lot out of it, there can be a pressure, right? It’s like, I got to get the next you know, deal to drop. And so we can feel this enormous amount of pressure to say, like, hey, this has to have a return on investment. I gotta get something out of this. I gotta land the next deal. How do you resist that temptation when you’re engaging in these connection conversations?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah, momentum and volume always win. And so when we look at sales right so often we approach it with this scarcity mindset, that every meeting, everything has to close a deal, because there’s not abundance. We have so many meetings and so much pipeline, and so do all my clients. I don’t care if it turns into it, because I know what will come of it is better referrals, more connections, more strategic partnerships, more opportunity. And again, if you go in only looking for the sale, what happens is, you go on with your blinders on, right? You start making assumptions. And the saying about assumptions is you make an ass out of you and me, right? So when I go into a meeting assuming I miss all the opportunity, I don’t know what your spouse does, what your family does, what your brother, sister, cousin, uncle does. I don’t know what your friends do, what your past businesses, what your future goals are. I know nothing about, and if I’m only focused on qualifying you to buy something, I miss all the other opportunity where you could say, hey, Devin, you know what? I’m not a client, but you know what my best friend does? Host an amazing mastermind. They’re looking for a speaker at their next retreat. I’d love to connect you great. I’m so glad I had an open conversation where, instead of just trying to chase you down this road where you were never going to spend money, you went, you know what? I can help you. Here’s how, right? And so, yes, I get it. You have to close deals. What you’ll find is, when you position better and you build meaningful relationships, people will raise their hand and ask to buy. You don’t even have to sell. But it is definitely a trust the process, moment and message, where you need to book the meetings, you need to add the value, you need to make the connections, and you need to let momentum kick in. When momentum kicks in, I promise doors will open. You can’t fathom,
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. There’s another element of this that I see in a lot of folks in this kind of entrepreneur mode, and there’s this temptation to, I think it’s because of a pursuit of like leverage and like the feeling of momentum, to try and do it like many to many, in terms of how we communicate across the board. And so we sit behind a computer and we type up emails and we do Facebook posts and we do all this other stuff. Stuff. But I would, I think at this point I would say that robs us of our biggest advantage, which is us in person, in the flesh, if you will, and puts us into that C you talked about earlier, of everyone saying everything, and it’s just noise. So in your book, it seems like we’re very aligned around this. Is the need for real conversations, right? So why is it not enough to do all this through emails, or better yet, what does this look like in the Zoom era?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah, so the system works really good virtually and in person. So that’s good to qualify for people I have a client real time. We did training on this today, where there’s 20 to 23 connections going to this client, and they looked at their calendar, went, Man, that’s a lot of 30 minute meetings to qualify them for my offerings or decide what’s next. Can we just push them all to a webinar? I said, sure we could, but you’re going to get a much smaller close rate, and you miss all of the additional opportunity that we just got done discussing right? Because in a 30 minute one to one meeting where I talk about, what are you doing and who are you targeting, how did you get here? Where are you going? What’s in the way, and how can I help you? That gives me information to really figure out. Can we collaborate? Can I open doors for you? Can you open doors for me? Do you need to buy my product? Distributor? I need your products, or there’s so much more that we can discover. And so the really big key to relationship building is you need to get into meetings. And that’s why everything around the system creates language that makes it easy for people to meet with you. Since we’ve been on, which is not long, I’ve already seen two notifications for meetings booked, and that’s sending a templated email follow up that says, I look forward to meeting with you, don’t have to do anything crazy for the process to work.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right, right, so one of the places that I’ve seen this fall flat is you. We kind of start off with a bang, reach out to as many people as I possibly can, and then we end up either, like distracted by some, some shiny object, or just bored with reaching out. And so if we’re going to make this sustainable and referral, it can’t be a one time thing. What has to happen to really be able to sustain this and the results from it over time?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah. So the system we use touches people forever, right? And so our nurture, process every six weeks for the rest of your life, you’re going to get an email right, and the email is going to say, Hey, Scott, I hope you’re doing well and having a great day. It’s been a while since we last connected. What’s new and exciting in your world? Any new challenges? What connections can I make for you? I look forward to hearing back from you if I don’t want to take a meeting. That’s what it would say. Sometimes I’ll add in a sentence that says, hey, it’s been a while. Let’s catch up. Here’s linked my calendar. We’re gonna nurture forever. And so everything we do, it works best if you use it exactly as prescribed and exactly how it’s presented. We use the exact templates that we share. We don’t adjust them. There’s no magic sauce. The magic comes from volume and time, and that’s where, if you compound it today, it will pan out, right? And so three weeks ago, we had 54 inbound connections come in. I don’t know about you guys, but if I had 54 people, I could meet with you. Will find opportunity in there, right? You’re going to find clients, you’re going to find partnerships, you’re going to find events. How many connections are you getting a week? Is the question? If you’re not happy with the answer, start the process and then nurture people forever. Because you don’t want to build a big database which people have huge CRM, lots and 1000s of people in it, that’s doing nothing for you, right? I want a database that’s producing ongoing connections, producing referrals, producing opportunities. Even if people in there are trying to sell me something, at least they’re communicating with me and we can have conversation, pull them back into a meeting and reset. So you got to play the long game. You have to task manage appropriately. And when you start playing the long game, that’s where you start to realize you can level up in big, big ways.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah. So true. Devon, there’s a question that I like to ask all my guests. I’m interested to see what you have to say, and it is this. What would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Devin Sizemore
Yeah, I’m gonna just go to a core principle. It’s two of them. So I’m gonna cheat. I put a slide up, and I’ve always had this slide. It’s a cup of coffee and a book. The cup of coffee is, meet everyone. The book is, don’t judge anyone. You have to be open to just meeting everybody. There’s value in every relationship, and I need you to buy into that, because my biggest deals, most best friendships, my inner circle, have all been developed from really unique and crazy places. Don’t judge anyone, meet everybody.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so true. So true, Devin, there’s some folks listening. They’d love help getting the referral strategy off the ground. They want a consistent flow. They’d love to hear more about the work that you do. Where can they find out more?
Devin Sizemore
For sure. So you can grab a copy of the Connection Expansion book on Amazon and all formats. There’s also an audio book if you’d like to listen to me talk about it for an hour and 54 Minutes. You can also go to connectionexpansion.com you can learn about our connection group, more about our system. There’s a ton of free education, more templates, and a whole lot of more information in there. Those are great places to start. Otherwise, just google me, and I’m sure you can find me.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, fantastic. Well, thanks for being here. It was a privilege and having you on the show. Loved this episode, loved the book, highly, highly recommend it. And for those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Devin Sizemore
Devin Sizemore pursues meaningful personal and professional experiences with passion. He has spent his career building and growing businesses that align with his values. Devin launched his first marketing agency right out of college and went on to create innovative consulting practices and a cat café, all driven by his commitment to “adding value” and making a positive impact. He believes in the power of connections and dedicates himself to helping others succeed by building relationships. He now focuses on fostering a community where one million connections create lasting, transformative change.
Want to learn more about Devin Sizemore’s work at Devin Sizemore Consulting? Check out his website at https://devinsizemore.com/ and get a copy of his book at https://www.amazon.com/Connection-Expansion-Massive-Success-Business/dp/196391158X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0