63: The Power of Referral Networks

Join me in this episode as I dive into the world of referral networks for accountants. Discover how my personal experiences and insights have shown that referrals are key to keeping a full sales pipeline. I'll share strategies for building strong relationships with referral sources like financial advisors and community groups, and how these connections can drive significant business growth. Plus, learn why it's essential to prioritize referred clients and maintain clear communication about the services you offer. Don't miss out on these valuable tips for boosting your accounting business!

Transcript

I get someone referred to me and,I schedule that call.It doesn't mean that everybody is still going to be the perfect right fit for you or for me, but for me to keep those relationships with my referral sources very strong, I feel very obligated to take that call, to make that meeting happen and determine is it a good fit or isn't it? And it's okay if it isn't,

I owe that to these people that trust me and are giving my name to someone else. So I will say that I will prioritize those referred clients before I prioritize the people who have say they've found me on Google or they were referred from a pro advisor site or any of those things. I go to my referral sources, I prioritize those people first.

Hi, and welcome to another episode of Accounting with Confidence. I'm your host, Beth Whitworth. And today I am bringing you a confidence booster episode that has really been prompted by kind of what's happening right now in my pipeline. So in the definition of my pipeline is all of those places where you have the opportunity to make a sale.

And typically, accountants aren't known for being sales people, but over the years, that is the role that I have had to embrace inside of my firm. And I wanted to jump in here because I have talked over the years about wanting to create this all encompassing marketing plan to help us grow the business, to help us get recognized out in the world.

And I have struggled with it in the fact that it's very time consuming. There's lots of moving parts. It's not my favorite thing, so I tend to procrastinate things that aren't my favorite. And I had this enlightenment in the last few weeks as we have decided on and chosen a software and application that is going to help us manage that sales pipeline and I just bit the bullet and implemented I it's kind of rough, but it was a place for me to capture all of those leads that are coming into the business. So why I wanted to talk about this is because it became very apparent that my leads are coming from my referral network and that is what I want to talk to you about today is developing your referral network.

Because what I have found is that as I'm trying to create this great marketing pipeline in this machine that is going to do all the things, you know, we get a lead and it sends out some sort of, you know, email mail structure where, you know, on day one they get this email and then they get, Look, that wasn't happening.

I know how to do it. I know what it takes. I have not had the time to develop that for the accounting firm. But what apparently I did have time for and didn't recognize was that I have developed a very strong referral network and it has made the difference between having a full pipeline and an empty one.

As of last weekend, before I started the weekend, I owed people, I owed 14 people proposals. Now some of that was multiple entities for one person, but still 14 different engagements that I had the opportunity of getting. So these are people who have been referred to me, whether it was from an existing client, which is great. That is the truest testament to what your client thinks about the service and the value you're bringing to them is when they refer someone to you.

So a lot of those were existing clients that were referrals. They were offering new people or they wanted to expand work with us, or it was coming from some of my other pipelines of, of people, my referral networks, one that I have worked very hard on over the years is finding financial advisors who I really click with and those financial advisors are people who have been able to, you know, learn what I do, I learn what they do and we develop a relationship that most people who well, I think all people need to have somebody prepare their tax returns.

But financial advisors really have that pulse on the client to know what where their financial needs are and what type of accountant they may need. So I have financial advisors shout out to them and I have multiple. So that's the trick with having referral sources is you need to have more than one in different areas because not everyone clicks with everyone.

Everybody knows there some personality traits, there is some communication methods, there's lots of things there. So having multiple has been really critical. So other sources that have been referral networks for me are other accountants, accountants who do things differently than I do. Maybe they serve a different type of client base. Maybe they  do bookkeeping work and don't do tax work. Maybe they don't handle a certain industry, they don't handle not for profits or they they don't do payroll or bookkeeping or there could be something. And so developing those relationships has been critical as well. And then a couple other sources of referrals that I have found that you might not have thought about are finding people in your hobby groups.

So everybody knows I've been racing my Mustang for years and years and in being a part of that community and actually sort of talking about what I do or what we do, and people will say, Oh, I need an accountant, do you handle this or this? And so I've gotten several types of clients from that hobby group. And so I encourage people to not be afraid when they're talking to people.

You know, if it's the service that you provide and you see that there are people in your group that that have a need, you know, see if you can sponsor an event or even connect with people in that group that maybe they're a financial advisor or maybe they have a financial advisor that they think would be a good fit.

So there's lots of ways you can connect there. And the last referral source that I am, if I guess I should say, you know, it could vary, is your Chamber of commerce. So in our area we have lots of chambers every municipality just about has a chamber of commerce. And the one I am in, I will give a shout out to the Kirkwood to pair Chamber of Commerce here in the Saint Louis area.

It is the most phenomenal chamber I have ever been a part of. And they have so many things you can do. So many opportunities to meet people. You can advertise, you can sponsor. I will tell you that I do not have the bandwidth to actually attend all the things. So I try to get to at least four or five of their monthly luncheons and they are almost always just structured so well that I meet someone at that event that I connect with, or it is structured where they want to follow up later.

And that is where I have met some of my referrals, direct referral source sources, and I've also met clients that way. So if you have a great Chamber of commerce that is well-run and well-organized, it can really be worth, you know, a few hours, you know, a month, not even a few hours, a month, couple hours a month to go to the lunch, maybe one month you go to the main lunch and maybe one time you go to one of their other activities.

They have hours, has happy hours. It has coffee, it has a women's group. It has so many things. So it is very important to me, one, to be a part of the community and that gives me a place to do that. But like I said, it varies by the organization, so it's okay. Like for us, we're in a big city environment, so there's multiple chambers.You could belong to more than one. I've been to different ones in the past, and this is has been the best experience I've had so far. So couple of things I just wanted to share with you in making your referral network really work for you to keep that pipeline full. And the first thing is to make sure that with your referral source that you are making your role very clear.

If you don't want to be just a like me, I don't want to just be a tax preparer. I want to be a resource. I want to be someone who is helping my clients achieve their goals. And that gives me the ability to share with those referral sources that, hey, I am not your average accountant. I don't want don't send me people who just want to drop off their taxes once a year and get their, you know, a copy of their estimates in their tax return and don't talk to them for another 12 months.

I don't want that. And so I try to find one. I communicate that very well to them as things have changed. Hold on. My notes have gone to sleep because I use a remarkable. So we're just going to start them back up here. Okay. And the other piece of that, getting to know, you know, what you want, you want a relationship, not a transaction, is to make sure that your the person you're connecting with knows what makes you different because they're going to have other referral sources that they want to refer people to based on the knowledge of their client or their situation.

So they want to be able to know. Okay. Beth wants a relational type situation. She wants a client who wants to be involved and maybe somebody else is just send me the tax returns, I'll get them out. I that's I don't really want to be involved in the rest of that planning or whatever. Okay. You know, make sure that you know that and they know what makes you different.

And then the other part for me is what I've learned over the years is to not shy away from what you charge. So for us, we have turned into a 100% subscription model. So it is very easy for me to give a a range, a ballpark, or even very specific if someone wants to work with us and they are just wanting in individual tax return done.

Yes, we do that. Yes, we still have a discovery call with those people and we determine what level of subscription they are going to need and we recommend that. But we share those pricing structures, you know, at least the minimums with our referral sources so that they know that they can share with their clients. You know, they're going to start at this dollar amount. and so that if it's not a good price fit for someone, they we know that ahead of time, you they won't refer that if they think the client is going to be price sensitive in some areas. So the other rule that I follow after I make my role clear with my referral sources is that if

I get someone referred to me and, you know, I schedule that call now, it's doesn't mean that everybody is still going to be the perfect right fit for you or for me, but it is for me to keep those relationships with my referral sources very strong.

I feel very obligated to take that call to make that meeting happen and determine is it a good fit or isn't it? And it's okay if it isn't, but I owe that to these people that trust me and are giving my name to someone else. So I, I will say that I will prioritize those referred clients before I prioritize the people who have say they've found me on Google or they were referred from a pro advisor site or any of those things.

I go to my referral sources, I prioritize those people first.but I do feel like I owe those sources, my referrals sources to at least have the conversation. You know, there was a reason they referred me and I need to investigate that. And if it's not a good fit, it's okay. But I want to keep this very short.

So I, I really am just going to wrap up with what my referral sources mean to me. And I will just say everything in January as I was building out this new application that's, you know, keeping track of our our pipeline. And I'll just and I'm not an affiliate of theirs or anything. I'm not getting paid for this, but I am I chose Pipedrive as what I'm using for my pipeline.

And as I was putting in this information, there's a place, you know, how do they get to you? And every time it was a referral, and before I even got to the end of January, I could put in kind of a ballpark of what I thought. This the value of this lead was as far as what types of of services I'm going to provide so I can kind of give it a good idea of what I think I am going to be issuing a proposal for.

And I had over $90,000 of potential revenue that was, I would say, 90% from my referrals. So, yes, my referral sources mean everything to me. So, you know, just I'm not going to share everybody's name, but, you know, I've got Kim and Julie and Andy and Chad and Steven. I've got so many clients that have trusted me by referring me to their friends or their family.

I have, you know, Tony and Donna that have their own firm. And we you know, that we send clients back and forth. I have Angie who sends me you know, she does a lot of bookkeeping and do it. She doesn't do tax. And so when it's a good fit, she sends me clients. And I mean, the list is it's not pages and pages long because I have I feel like I have really kind of cultivated these relationships.

And honestly, I owe them so much. I every I'm always have on my list that I need to do. You know, I need to do gifts, I need to do things. I need to send things out more than just a thank you and I haven't I haven't gotten it done yet, but it's coming. So if you're listening to this and you're one of my referral, sources know that something is is coming.

But I it is so meaningful to me to have people who trust me, who trust my team, who trust my firm. And that is a reflection of our vision, mission and purpose. We really want to serve our clients. We want to serve our community. And it's a huge extension of my reach. So even if I could put this marketing plan in place, I could only attract those people who happen to, you know, come to my my website and put in that they want to receive our newsletter.

Okay, Well, then they get in this pipeline and maybe they want to hear from me, but it's only reaches a small amount of people. And I know that. And they're and it's cold leads like that are they're valuable and sometimes they turn out to something amazing. But having those referrals sources to tell us, I really trust this woman. Please work with her and her team. It is just it is so powerful for me. And I realized that not having had this marketing system all built out and been working on it for her over three years is okay because our pipeline has always got things in it. You know, we've got leads in our pipeline and we we have this whole time.

So I think having that marketing system built out is just an over and above. But I will say that referral networking, finding your people who, you know, like and trust and who also value you and sharing what you're trying to accomplish with them will allow them to help you and vice versa. I mean, I refer people back to these people as often as I can.

You know, when I think I have a client that would be a good fit for one of these financial advisors. I figure out which ones I names I give out thinking what will be the best fit? And we and I send it over, you know, because I trust them too. Okay. So that is me on my soapbox about referral networking.

And I really just wanted to jump in here and give a big thank you to those people and also to share with you that it's a really important part of your business. If you don't feel like you have a strong referral network, maybe this year it's a goal to add one or two people. And I will say it, this isn't something that happened overnight.

This has been years of having relationships and staying connected with people and it is definitely paying off. And I wish that for everyone. I think referral networking and, you know, being able to connect with people, whether it's someone who can refer you business, you can refer them business or you can do business with someone, it's it's priceless. It is better than any Google ad, It's better than any email pipeline I might create.It's worth it. So okay, everybody think about setting a goal for this year and, you know, adding to your referral network. I'm adding to my goals to profusely thank my referral network partners. I don't have any type of formal plan. I just I, I know I can trust these people and I want to thank them in some meaningful way. So that's all I have for today. I hope there's something in this episode that you can say, Yep, I need to work harder on that or Nope, I've got this. I have a great referral network and if you do, I'd love to hear about it. So feel free to give me a text where you're listening to this or leave me. A DM In any of the places where this might be posted and just let me know. Let me know how you're doing and if you want any help, I'm willing to do that. All right, everybody, that's it for today. I'll talk to you next week. Bye bye for now.