Referrals done right, p.1
Referrals Done Right, page 1
Scott Grates’ words of wisdom ring true. Relationships matter and doing good is doing right by others. Referrals Done Right is a practical book with simple strategies that any small business owner can use to achieve long-term sustainability and growth. Scott shares what he and I agree matters most—That at the end of the day it really is all about the circle of grace.
DAVID CASULLO
Author, Entrepreneur, Up builder
In this book, Scott shares his history, struggles, determination and successes, and parses them out in a way that meets the reader where they are, and can be implemented in a variety of fields and experiences. Scott eschews traditional selling models in favor of a relationship-based approach to his business and gives the reader a step-by-step path to their own successes.
ANN RUSHLO
REALTOR® Association Executive/Leadership Consultant
Referrals Done Right is honest, straightforward and ingeniously witty. Exactly how Scott approaches life and what has made him a successful and respected small business owner and human. His strategies aren’t just insightful in theory, they are practical and proven in the real world.
CARRIE MCMURRAY
Vice President Paige Marketing Communications Group
If you want your business to be successful, then Referrals Done Right is a must-read. I believe Referrals Done Right can be a valuable resource to help guide businesses to achieve profitability and success.
RAYMOND J. DURSO, JR.
President & CEO of The Genesis Group
Referrals Done Right is a must-read for anyone looking to expand their network and grow their business in a meaningful way. Scott presents an outline with practical, easy-to-implement strategies that transform the art of referrals into tangible results for small business owners.
CHRISTOPHER C. GIAMBRONE, CFP®, AIF®
Cofounder of CG Capital, Financial Life Management
Referrals done right is one of the first books you should read when opening a business. And if you’re already in business, drop everything and read it ASAP. These actionable concepts put you in the driver’s seat cruising towards higher productivity while controlling your marketing budget and lifting those around you. A true win, win, win!
KIRA SCHNELL-HARRISON
Insurance Agency Owner and Sales Trainer
This is a book I wish I had read 13 years ago when I started my business. The best and healthiest business is a referral from a happy client; that’s something I had to learn the hard way. Excellent book for anyone looking to learn more about the power of serving their community, multiplying introductions and increasing retention.
HAYK TADEVOSYAN
entrepreneur, speaker, author of “The Power of Mindset.”
Scott Grates didn’t just write a book about referrals. He created an empowering resource for small business owners and their teams to take action with. Referrals can make or break your business, and Referrals Done Right takes away all of your excuses. You have the choice to become massively successful, or not.
ALEX SHATTUCK
CEO Auto Pilot Recruiting, Best Selling Author of Small Business BIG Recruiting, owner of multiple nationally-recognized insurance agencies.
Here is a great book—In these pages Scott shares valuable gems on how to win in business. The lessons learned from his own battles with the Goliath’s in the Industry provide lessons learned for all of us. People love to do business with those they “like and trust” and Scott does an excellent job helping you know how to make that happen.
RANDY THOMPSON
author of “Paychecks Never Lie” and “Bigger Paychecks, Better Paychecks”
The Infinite Referral Advantage is an absolute must for every small business owner. Scott hits the nail on the head with his straightforward down to earth approach as he offers practical and actionable steps to ensuring you are on the right path to a lifetime of referrals and success. I couldn’t put this book down once I started it and I kept thinking my only regret was to not find this book 10 years earlier in my career.
BRENT HERSHEY
Insurance Agency Owner
Referrals Done Right: The Secret to Creating Infinite
Opportunities to Grow Your Small Business
Copyright © 2024 Scott Grates
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to storybuilderspress@gmail.com
Published by StoryBuilders Press
Hardcover: 978-1-954521-39-1
Paperback: 978-1-954521-42-1
eBook: 978-1-954521-40-7
Audio: 978-1-954521-41-4
This book is for the bold, courageous, hard-working,
inspired optimist who had a 10,000
foot vision of better serving those around them
with a business of their own. I am glad you took
the leap, and excited to provide a parachute.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1: David and Goliath
Chapter 2: Don’t Just Get Lucky. Get Strategic.
Chapter 3: From One Underdog to Another
Chapter 4: The Heart of the Matter
Chapter 5: The Infinite Referral Advantage
Chapter 6: The Income Advantage: Small Business Owners
Chapter 7: The Impact Advantage: Schools
Chapter 8: The Involvement Advantage: Service Organizations
Chapter 9: The Introduction Advantage: Star Customers
Chapter 10: The Influence Advantage: Social Engagement
Chapter 11: Maintaining Your
Chapter 12: Grit and Faith
Acknowledgements
Endnotes
About the Author
CHAPTER 1
DAVID AND GOLIATH
One small stone. That’s all it took to defeat a giant. You’ve heard the expression—David and Goliath, and you probably know the biblical story.
Goliath was a giant. Depending on your understanding of ancient measurements, he was huge, somewhere between seven to ten feet tall. Not only that, he was loud. He stood taunting his opponents, daring them to fight him. Decked out in heavy armor, he was the veritable “Iron Man” of the Bronze Age. He sounded unbeatable. He looked unbeatable.
So day after day, the armies lined up in battle, Goliath taunted, and his opponents withered.
Until David showed up.
David was a young shepherd, but he wasn’t helpless. He’d fought his share of battles protecting his sheep. He had the scars and calluses to prove it. He also had a different perspective. Where the cowardly armies saw an unbeatable giant, David saw an opportunity.
He went to the stream and picked up five smooth stones.
He dried them off and weighed each one in his hand.
He pulled out his sling and seated one stone in the worn leather pouch.
He listened to the taunts of the giant.
He tossed out a few taunts of his own.
He looked at his objective. (I’m not sure how big the forehead of a giant was, but it probably made a nice target.)
Around and around went the sling. The tendons and muscles on his arms flexed.
The rope that held the leather pouch cut through the air with a slicing whine.
The giant rushed toward the boy. The boy rushed right back.
And then, just like he’d done many times before, he let go of one end of the rope and watched the rock launch toward Goliath. He probably was laughing at this small boy right up until the stone drilled him between the eyes.
Can you imagine the sound a ten-foot-tall giant makes when he hits the ground? I’m sure it wasn’t quiet. (If you want to read the rest of the story, you’ll see it’s pretty crazy. You don’t have to be religious to enjoy its audacity. Look up 1 Samuel 17 for what David did after Goliath fell.)
David won. Goliath lost.
Game over. Or did the game just begin?
ONE OF US IS GOING DOWN
You may be wondering why I opened with that story. The reason is simple: it’s a fantastic metaphor for what you may be feeling. Here’s what I assume to be true about you. You picked up this book because you own or work in a connection-based business. Like me, your business may be anchored to a geographic location. You may have relationships with other businesses in your area and have connections with industries that bump up against your own.
You may also feel a bit like David. I sure did when I got started.
I had few connections. Few tools. Only a handful of skills. But a lot of ambition and belief.
When I looked around though, I saw more than a few Goliaths. I’m in the insurance industry, so there were other agents who had been doing it longer than me. Other brands that were bigger than me. Other options that could compete with me. Goliaths loomed everywhere.
Like in the story above, they all seemed to have bigger, better resources, positions, track records, and reach.
And yet, I knew that I had what it took to make a difference.
Since you’re reading this book, I’m guessing you can relate.
Like David, you feel small, perhaps underprepared, understaffed, and if you’re honest, possibly a little inexperienced and underwhelming. You have a vision for what you want to accomplish in your business, and yet, if you get a moment to stop scrambling and look around, all you see are giants. Thes e giants can outspend you, outmaneuver you, outstaff you, outmarket you, and maybe even outwait you. That’s why you keep your head down and control what you can.
Every day you go into the office early, flip the lights on, roll up your sleeves, and get to work. Like David, you grab your “five smooth stones” and put them in your pouch. They don’t seem like much, but they are all you’ve got. Then you start making calls. Looking for business. Turning over rocks. Making the asks.
One of these things has to work, right?
Here’s the truth: If you are a David, you don’t have to compete head-to-head against Goliath.
For your business to succeed in an industry full of Goliaths, you need to get strategic.
If you read the rest of the David and Goliath story, you know there were other forces at work, and David didn’t just get lucky with a small stone and a sling.
He was being strategic, and it paid off. Big. The same is true for you. For your business to succeed in an industry full of Goliaths, you need to get strategic.
Fortunately, I can show you how.
BIG DREAMS, LITTLE TRACTION
“I will own and operate the most dominant insurance agency in my market.”
I wrote these thirteen ambitious words on a card in front of me at a four-hour presentation outlining the path required to become an insurance agency owner. They felt bold. They were bold. I didn’t know how I was going to make it happen, but in that moment, hopped-up on the entrepreneurial energy around me, I knew I was going to make it happen.
But let me back up a second.
I didn’t set out to change relationship marketing. That day I had no plans of writing this book. I had no clue I would start Insurance Agency Optimization, a coaching and consulting business serving thousands of insurance professionals. I only knew one thing: I needed a job, and I needed it quickly.
The ball had recently dropped to begin 2009—thank goodness. If there was ever a year I was glad to leave in the rearview mirror, it was 2008. The global financial meltdown had cost me my job in the banking industry, and I hadn’t exactly squirreled away a fortune to carry me and my young family through hard times.
Losing my job hit deeper than the bottom of the bank account though. It left me questioning the way forward. I was ready for a change, but a change to what? Sitting in another cubicle building someone else’s dream from eight to six, hoping traffic cooperated and I’d make it home before my kids went to bed?
Visions of independence and success started to fill my head. I began envisioning a life of freedom and success—free from the golden shackles of the corporate world, controlling my time, not answering to a boss, and reveling in my financial independence.
So I began researching options, and I found insurance. That was something I could do.
Those visions brought me to a white-walled, industrial-carpeted, windowless conference room where for four hours, I met with other wide-eyed optimists, listened to success stories, and learned the path required to become an insurance agency owner.
Inspired by hope, I grabbed the paper name tent before me and scribbled these words: I will own and operate the most dominant insurance agency in my market.
Maybe I was a bit crazy; maybe it was the contagious energy in the room. Certainly, I was naive. Despite my accolades as a top producer in banking, selling insurance was uncharted territory. I didn’t even know the first thing about insurance. Come to think of it—I was a novice at entrepreneurship too.
I hadn’t owned a business, hired employees, created a marketing plan, dealt with human resource issues, or managed profit-and-loss statements. All I had was a wife, two babies at home, and no income to support them. I never really considered myself to be a salesman. Sure, it’s what I always did, but never who I was. I just loved people. I also loved offering loads of personal value. Turns out, the insurance company I was there to learn about is also people-centric and provides tremendous products and services.
This had to be the way to the life I envisioned!
Rare are the moments when my wife and I sit in silence. However, for the initial twenty minutes of our car ride home after that meeting, that’s what we did. Each of our minds raced a mile a minute, in different directions, but neither of us spoke.
My wife, who taught school for over twenty years, is conservative by nature. To her, risk is a bad four-lettered word. Finally, she broke the silence.
“You are going to do this, aren’t you?”
“Hell yeah, I am!”
See, I’m a gambler, a dreamer, the type who looks risk in the eye and wonders why others are so scared.
I was already off dreaming of dominating a market that was controlled by knowledgeable, experienced, well-known, and well-funded behemoths, and I didn’t even have my insurance license yet.
I told you I was naive.
While I didn’t know where to start, I knew I had to start. The gun had been fired, and it was time to run.
Soon my days were filled with business planning—securing an office location and completing its build-out; buying furniture, signage, and phone systems; recruiting and hiring; licensing tasks and advertising. Each time I crossed three items off my to-do list, four more appeared.
Over the next six months, I sought relationships with people ten steps ahead of me on this journey. I pleaded with every insurance agency owner within a two-hour radius to help me. I begged for guidance, tips, tricks, systems, processes, and insights into anything they could offer that would help jump-start my launch.
Every day I packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bottles of tap water into my two-door Honda Civic, which had no power seats, windows, cruise control, or even a CD player, and I prayed I’d have enough gas to make my visits and get back home.
Thanks to my generous colleagues in the region, my marketing plan was ready by the time my opening day arrived—or so I thought.
I heard two consistent messages in all my meetings: “Know your marketing numbers” and “Don’t reinvent the wheel” (the “wheel” being the traditional marketing methods). The part about knowing the numbers was crucial and still is today. However, as an out-of-the-box thinker trying to follow along with those messages, it didn’t take me long to learn that the “wheel” desperately needed some realignment.
Taking on a contrarian view is better than just getting an answer and running with it. Question everything. Don’t ask questions looking for an answer, but ask questions to obtain new wisdom. When you are willing to look for different answers, it can feel risky, but the rewards can be much greater and more fulfilling.
You know it too. It’s probably why you bought this book. These traditional marketing methods and strategies are not only draining your bank account but draining your energy, enthusiasm, and dreams too.
Soon after I launched my business, clients didn’t start streaming in my doors like I’d imagined they would. I immediately saw and felt the big, painful gap between what I knew about marketing and what I clearly needed to know.
Each week, when the weekly rankings were posted, I wanted to see my name at the top. And to be honest, if I’m not first, I might as well be last. I wanted and, honestly, expected that I’d be ranked first, then there’d be everyone else. But what I didn’t know was at what cost and lengths I’d go to try to get there.
At the time I had no customers, lacked a personal brand, and had zero referral partners. (I told you, I was naive.) I could have taken a tortoise-like approach to slowly and steadily win this race I thought I was in, but I didn’t have time for that.
I had something to prove.
So like the impulsive rabbit, over the course of the year, I slowly emptied my checking account, exhausted our savings, and leveraged credit from every institution that deemed me worthy to flood the market with ads, direct mail, and all the traditional marketing tools I could get my hands on.
By nearly the end of my first year in business, my wife and I were sitting in the basement of our home, facing foreclosure. After another long, stressful day, we had finally gotten our baby boys to sleep and could focus on the giant in front of us.
A year of constantly juggling paying certain bills one month and others the following month—mostly from lines of credit—had nearly shattered us. Visions of a potential financial breakthrough kept me going, but the reality of being broke was suffocating us, our marriage, and our family. The more debt I juggled, the more a potential financial breakthrough seemed like a mirage in the desert.
