Word of mouth is marketing is a powerful tool that can reach many potential consumers. So, what strategy are you using to get referrals into your business? Today on the Atlanta Small Business Show, we’re pleased to welcome back Matt Easton, sales trainer, consultant, and Founder of Easton University, who discusses how you can get thousands of warm referrals into your business with a simple 2-step process. Matt can also be seen on TikTok sharing his daily tips to becoming a top sales consultant.
Transcription:
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Matt, thanks so much for joining us once again on the show.
Matt Easton:
Jim, it’s an honor and a privilege to be back. Thank you so much for having me. My goal here in this couple minutes, I think this may be one of the most powerful segments you guys have ever had.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Fantastic. Well we are ready and so is our audience. So why are referrals so important? Let’s start there.
Matt Easton:
Yeah. So if we think about that, Jim, in terms of being a business owner or a sales professional or a sales manager, what’s the best type of lead we could have? Of course we can buy those leads and have people call us, but there’s always a little bit of skepticism associated with advertising. Advertising is great, don’t get me wrong, but there’s nothing better than, Jim, you telling me, “Matt, you’ve got to go see this movie or eat at this restaurant or buy this vehicle.” Whatever it is, if you and I are friends or family, or even I’m just hearing it from you as a third party individual, there’s so much more credibility to that lead.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right. There’s no question about it. Not only do you make more sales, but you also make more money on referrals than you do somebody that doesn’t know you, that just walks in the door and says, “Hey, I’m here to buy a, whatever, a car, a house.” Whatever the case might be. But if somebody has sent you in, then that person has got that trust factor there and they’re not so focused on grinding you down on price. Right?
Matt Easton:
Absolutely. And I think the reason why the price grind doesn’t happen, Jim, is the level of credibility. Even if I don’t know the person giving me the referral. But let’s say somebody tells me, looks me right in the eye and says, “You need to talk to Jim.” That level of credibility is established so much higher that it’s going to be Jim’s business to lose at that point.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yeah. That’s right. I agree. So tell us about your two-step process that you recommend in getting more referrals. And this is the part-
Matt Easton:
Yeah, and actually-
Jim Fitzpatrick:
—people are going to want to listen to.
Matt Easton:
Yeah. And I’d like to, if possible, add a third step to it. Because the step I want to add in the front is the what, because I think that’s something… And this is one of the things that really I think we’re the only people at Easton University talking about is the what in terms of referrals.
Matt Easton:
So we talk about referrals, we talk about testimonials. I want to be very clear about the what that I’m talking about. And the what that I’m talking about is I would like, I believe the most powerful form of a referral is you looking at me in the eyes, face to face, and saying, “You need to do business with X, Y, Z.”
Matt Easton:
And it’s interesting when we bring up the what. I’ve got one right here, this is what I’m talking about. When I say referrals, I want our audience’s customer base to be giving them video based testimonials saying, “Hey, here’s what I want.” And literally, I don’t know if you guys can see on my phone, it’s where I’m at right now in Denver, Colorado, it’s 12:42. Okay. I just got one of these at 12:33. You can see it there on my camera. Let me open it up and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. This is what I want every viewer to have coming into their business.
Chad:
—and I am a student of Mr. Matt Easton and enrolled into Easton University. I wanted to personally make a quick video just to let you all know that I am super thankful and grateful for Mr. Matt Easton and the content that he puts out.
Matt Easton:
Okay. So I won’t go into Chad’s video testimonial, but this is exactly the type of thing that I want. Chad is the number one sales rep at a little company you guys may have heard of called Zillow. Okay. Chad will probably, if not this year next year, probably make seven figures. This is how big of a deal Chad is. Okay?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Easton:
This is literally the number one person at Zillow looking you in the face and saying, “Hey, I was on Easton University training, I’ve closed more deals, it’s made my life easier.” Now can you imagine whatever your business is, a car dealership, a realtor, a florist. This is what you want. You want these videos. Where can you put these videos? Everywhere. You can put them on your LinkedIn, you can put them on your social, you can put them on your website.
Matt Easton:
Nobody is putting these videos out there right now. So that’s the what, okay. Now let me give you the two step… Now how did I just get one of these 16 minutes ago? How have I gotten thousands of these over the years? Let me give you the two step process. Okay?
Matt Easton:
Step number one. We now know the what, I want video testimonials of people saying, “Do business with Jim, do business with Larry’s Flowers, whatever it is.”
Matt Easton:
Here’s the first thing I need to know is I need to know the when. So the best way to figure out the when to ask for these is when you hear these words. Jim I want you to listen for these words. Listeners, I want you to listen for these words from your customers. It’s pretty simple. It’s two words. “Thank you.”
Matt Easton:
Anytime your customer says, “Thank you. Thank you for delivering my vehicle ahead of schedule. Thank you for helping me out with this invoice. Thank you so much for delivering those flowers to my daughter’s wedding, it came off great.” Whenever you hear the words thank you that’s your green light. That’s your green light to know, “Okay, I’m going to ask for one of these video testimonials.”
Matt Easton:
Now the third step, how do I ask for one of these? That’s the hard part, right?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Easton:
How do I ask for one of these? Okay. Would it be cool Jim, let me ask you a question first. When you want something like this, would it be cool, would it be helpful if you got that other person to agree to doing the thing you want them to do, even before they knew what the thing was? Do you think that would be helpful?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yeah, of course.
Matt Easton:
Okay. I’m going to demonstrate how to get them to agree to give you one of these even before they know what it is. For our audience. Okay, so I’m going to need a volunteer. You’re the only other person here with me. So-
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Let’s go.
Matt Easton:
I’m going to see if you’ll be the volunteer. Jim, could you do me a favor?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Absolutely.
Matt Easton:
That’s it. That’s how you get them to agree. So when they say thank you, right? Wow. Isn’t it that simple. When they say, “Thank you. Thank you for delivering my vehicle ahead of schedule. Thank you for these flowers for my daughter’s wedding.” “No problem, could you do me a favor?”
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right, sure.
Matt Easton:
And they all say the same thing. “Sure.” They just told you thank you. Nobody will say no after they’ve told you thank you. You’re going to listen for the words thank you, and then you’re going to say, “No problem, my pleasure. Could you do me a favor?” “Sure.”
Matt Easton:
And then you’re just going to say this. Listen. “Yeah Jim, we love having you as a customer. There’s a lot of people in your same situation. If you could do me this one thing,” and here’s the words that I use. They can play around with their words. “If you could simply point your phone at your face and just say what you liked best about working with us, I would really appreciate it. That’s something we’d love to have on our website. We’d love to have on our social. I’d love to show the other associates here at the company that. Okay?”
Matt Easton:
Here’s the key words. I’m just saying, “Just point your phone at your face.” That’s simple, we all do that. How many times a day do we do that?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right. A hundred.
Matt Easton:
Thousands?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yeah.
Matt Easton:
Hundreds. Right? They’re already used to pointing their phone at their face. “Just point your phone at your…” Now notice what I’m not doing. I’m not coaching you. I’m not saying, “Can you give me a testimonial?”
Matt Easton:
And then look at, we could play that Chad one. It’s one of thousands I’ve gotten. He goes on for two minutes, step by step about everything that he ever loved in our sales training. I could not have coached Chad to make a better testimonial. Because I simply said, “Hey Chad.” He reached out to me after our training on Wednesday and said, “I want to let you know, this training really helped me close a deal on Monday. Thank you so much.” I immediately heard those two words. “Awesome Chad, I’m so glad. Could you do me a favor?” “Sure Matt, what is it?” “Chad, can you point your phone at your face? There’s a lot of other people that are aspiring to be where you’re at at companies like Zillow and they would love to see your face. Could you point your phone at your face and just tell them what you liked best about Easton university?” “Sure, no problem.” And lo and behold, 16 minutes before you and I got together for this interview Chad testimonial came in. I haven’t even put it on our website yet.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
I love it.
Matt Easton:
The great thing about this, Jim. It’s easy to do.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yeah.
Matt Easton:
I’ll walk everybody through the process one more time. It’s simple.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Easton:
Listen for the words, “Thank you.” When you hear the words, “Thank you.” “My pleasure. Could you do me a favor?” They’re all always going to say yes. When they say yes, “Could you point your phone at your face, hit record, just say what you liked best about working with us. Say what you like best about working with me, whatever your situation is. Say what you like best about dealing with friendly Ford or whatever you want the testimonial. And then just text me that video I would…” And then you have to let them know, “I’d love to put this on our website. I’d love to put it on my LinkedIn.” You will be shocked at how many people will go out of their way and do that for you, because it’s a reasonable request, it shows that you value them, and they want to repay that whatever it was that made them say, “Thank you.”
Matt Easton:
And the old way Jim, the old way is to have a couple little blurbs on your website. “Tony Z says, ‘This is the best thing—.” It doesn’t work.
Matt Easton:
And this way, when I say thousands, Chad is going to, once we get it up, Chad is going to live on my website forever. And everybody that comes through is going to see his handsome face saying, “Here’s why I…” And then there’s thousands of other people with their faces saying, “Here’s why I…” And everybody has different reasons.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right. The key today, too, is that everybody wants to get into everybody’s audience. Chad, you know that you’ve got a situation there with him where he sells homes. So now he’s saying to himself, “Well how many people does Matt know that’s going to say, ‘Well, wait a minute. I happen to be looking for a realtor. This guy seems like a pretty nice guy and top in his field. So maybe that’s a good guy to call.” So the with and kind of the what’s in it for me, for your clients to do this out there is they want to introduce themselves to your audience and your sphere of influence out there, which can be pretty substantial.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
I think a couple of takeaways for me on that, and your recommendation was when you said, “Will you do me a favor?” And stop at that. Don’t continue and say, “Will you do me a favor and give me a testimonial?” Because— like the process that request and go, “Oh, I don’t do testimonials. Or I don’t want to put that on a camera.” Whatever.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
So I think one of the keys there was when you said, “Will you do me a favor,” and you stopped and listened for their answer on that. So when they commit to the thank you, it’s important to go, “Okay, great. Here’s what I need you to do.”
Matt Easton:
And I think our viewers could go back and run the tape back. I don’t know. But I would guess there was a one to two second pause before you said sure.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Easton:
That’s the hardest part, is not talking. But I got you to… Now will everybody that says they’re going to give you one of these follow through? No.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Right.
Matt Easton:
But if you ask everybody that— thank you, you could ask for one of these 50 times a week. Let’s say you get a 10% return on that ask. That means every week you’re getting five.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Easton:
Of the most powerful testimonials on planet Earth that your competition does not have.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Easton:
You’re more expensive. They’ve got 300 people in Atlanta that say you’re the caterer to use.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Easton:
You don’t have whatever delivery of the vehicle, they have to come to the dealership? No problem. You have 300 people saying it was worth the drive. Whatever the situation is, it can be overcome with these testimonials.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
The other part that I like is the fact that, and I think from the, from the customer’s part that you’re asking for the testimonial, it’s probably somewhat of a relief that you’re only asking for a testimonial. Because sales people will sometimes say, “Will you do me a favor? Great. Will you buy this service contract? Will you buy this after sale item to compliment the sale?”
Matt Easton:
Yeah, or will you give me-
Jim Fitzpatrick:
So the consumer in that case, your customer goes, “Oh, I’m so glad that he asked for something that doesn’t cost me anything to do. It’s only going to take me literally 15 seconds to give a 15 second testimonial on my phone.” So there’s a little bit of a relief there, right?
Matt Easton:
Yeah. And no, “Hey Jim, can you give me the names and numbers of your mother-in-law?” Nobody wants to do that.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
It’s the worst. It’s so old school it’s incredible.
Matt Easton:
So old school!
Jim Fitzpatrick:
And you’re right, nobody wants to do that.
Matt Easton:
And it’s not great, because if I get the name and number of your mother-in-law, that’s an awkward conversation for me. It’s an awkward conversation for you. And I only have one lead. Like I said, Chad will now live on eastonuniversity.com in perpetuity. That is much more valuable than Chad saying, “I know Jim, he might need sales training.”
Matt Easton:
The other thing that I think you hit on a little bit that I want to just expound on, everybody wants to be slightly famous too. You know?
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Sure.
Matt Easton:
And it’s like, everybody kind of wants to be on somebody’s website.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right.
Matt Easton:
It’s an easy one.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
If you connect them on, if you hashtag or you connect them online, now they take that testimonial and they put it on their Facebook post. Or they put it on their LinkedIn post.
Matt Easton:
Yeah!
Jim Fitzpatrick:
And now you’re in their circle in a very big way, because now they’re giving you the testimonial in their circle, which is… Now you’re cooking with gas, right?
Matt Easton:
Yeah. And I think, I don’t want to take too much time, but he even sent me an audio message.
Chad:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And this isn’t set in stone, I could always do other ones for you— want it.
Matt Easton:
Here’s what you were keying in on.
Chad:
So just want to give you a heads up. And then your team could definitely use that for any advertising, any email copy, the website.
Matt Easton:
Here’s your point.
Chad:
Whatever they want, however they want, they can use it. They could even put my LinkedIn profile there as well. Just so-
Jim Fitzpatrick:
There you go.
Chad:
—showcase.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
There you go.
Matt Easton:
That’s what he said. He said exactly what you said. “Please, put this on your website, use it-”
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Please put it out there.
Matt Easton:
—smart person. “Put my LinkedIn profile.” Because he knows he’s going to get some business out of this too.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s right. And in the case of people buying nice things, whether it be a large purchase for their home or whether it be a brand new car, it’s kind of their way of saying, “Hey, I just purchased a brand new car. Because I did this testimonial for Bob Smith down at Jackson Motors, or something. And oh, I had to do a testimonial. And by the way I stood by my brand new car. And now I’m telling all of my friends that.” In kind of a subtle way, because I did this testimonial. But at the same time, they’re learning that I just bought a brand new $60,000 whatever. Right?
Matt Easton:
Yeah. I bought my Bentley Mulsanne from Jason at Bentley of Seattle. I did it and I made one of these for Jason. And you’re right, you can send me the therapy bill later. I think I was bragging a little bit because I was so proud of that Bentley. But the first thing I did when I got it is stood by it and said, “You’ve got to talk to Jason and the team at Bentley Seattle.” By the way I’m in Denver, Colorado.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Got it.
Matt Easton:
“It was worth working with them.” And this is a true story by the way. Hi Jason. “It was worth getting the vehicle delivered. It was worth the wait because his team was so professional.”
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Yeah.
Matt Easton:
I’ll be honest, I wanted to help Jason, but between me and you, I did want to stand by my car and brag a little bit.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
See how that works? Who doesn’t want that?
Matt Easton:
Yeah.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
That’s fantastic. A phenomenal tip, this is what it’s all about. This is the kind of material and the kind of content that we want to bring to our audiences. And Matt, you always knock the cover off the ball.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
And for those of you that are not as familiar with him as we are, it’s an incredible story, incredible guy. One of the best sales trainers out there, that’s why we chose him for our show. And check him out on TikTok. I mean you will not be mad at yourself for getting his TikTok videos in your TikTok account every single day. So check it out.
Matt Easton:
Thank you so much. I can’t wait to come back again and I will always be bringing good value to everybody whenever you have me back. This is my favorite program in the world and I love spending time with you, Jim.
Jim Fitzpatrick:
Well, thank you so much. And until next time stay safe.
The Atlanta Small Business Network, from start-up to success, we are your go-to resource for small business news, expert advice, information, and event coverage.
While you’re here, don’t forget to subscribe to our email newsletter for all the latest business news know-how from Atlanta Small Business Network.
