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Lesson 3 | Design Your Referral Seed

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Transcript: A referral seed is the go-to language that you and your team use to highlight what your audience needs to know to make a referral. In our 2022 advisor referral research, we found that the most referral firms have formally communicated to their team and centers of influence, also known as COIs, their target market, and the unique value they provide that target market at a higher percentage than their peers. Your team and professional partners may be your most important stakeholders when it comes to referrals. They also tell their clients and COIs how they prefer to be introduced to people they refer. The key here is to always be planting referral seeds. You want to position yourself to be at the right place at the right time. When a client or center of influence is asked to make a recommendation to a financial advisor like you, increase your chances of being top of mind when you have an always on referral planting seed habit.

The most referable firms don't just rely on the advisors to do this. Their entire team and professional partners or COIs are also well-versed in their referral seed language and process. A strong referral seed explains who you ideally serve, why you love to serve them, how you uniquely serve them when they may need your help, and how to make an introduction. It could sound like this. We love being introduced to business owners who are navigating the sale or exit of their business to help them feel good about the process outcomes and their future. Most people get to go through this process once we've done it more times than we can count with our clients. About a year before the sale or exit is when we are typically brought in often through a mutual introduction. If nothing else, we can provide the important financial questions to consider before selling or exiting a business. Most clients make an introduction to us via email as we've learned from our referral research. Defining your referral strategy, including the way you talk about introductions, is a clear best practice. Use the design your referral seed worksheet to develop your go-to referral seed language. Make sure your team is trained and comfortable with this language and process and develop a habit of planting referral seeds daily.