How to Attract More Referrals From Clients Without Asking with Maribeth Kuzmeski, PhD

‍

‍

Hi there, everyone. Welcome to the Financial Advisors Want to Know Podcast. I'm Catherine Tindall. I'm a CPA with Dominion, where our firm's focus is working with advisors and helping them with their tax strategy and proactivity. Today's episode, we have Dr. Maribeth Kuzmeski.

‍

She is the president of Red Zone Marketing. It's a business growth consulting firm focused solely on the financial services industry. So she's going to have that niche knowledge for you. She's written nine books on marketing and also is an associate professor of marketing at Oklahoma State. And today's episode is going to be all about how to attract more referrals from clients without asking and from centers of influence by asking the right questions. So welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me. Well, thank you very much. It's great to be here.

‍

3 Big Misconceptions on Referrals:
‍

1- They just happen
2- Asking is too salesy
3- That it's not a marketing strategy
‍

They need to be earned - the #1 strategy for marketing growth is unsolicited referrals - it comes down to the great client relationships.

‍
The clients need to have a story to tell - what story are my clients telling?

‍
They won't be talking about their money with friends -

‍
How do you get them to tell a better story about you as an advisor, that's not just about the money?

‍
You already do deep service - it's pulling things out from the client by asking questions:

‍
"What's the most important thing you've received from working with our practice?"

‍
"What have you accomplished working with us?"

‍
‍

Maribeth:

‍
So this is an excellent topic and something I'm always really interested in because it applies to my practice as well. For people that are interested in starting to get more referrals from existing clients and especially like your A clients, what would you say is kind of the first step or the way that you want to frame them thinking through how they can begin getting these referrals through not having to be pushy or salesy with it? Yeah, I think that's the key because we're not going to do it if we think we're going to be salesy. Just we don't feel comfortable. We don't want to do it. But I think to start off with, there are three major misconceptions, I think, about referrals. And one is that they just happen. It's like this miracle from the sky that they just come to us. And we're not doing anything. They just come to us. Not true. That's a misconception.
‍

Connect with Maribeth here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maribethkuzmeski/‍

Also check out: https://www.redzonemarketing.com

‍