Building a Referral Network

All right, welcome back to another episode of CRE – The Unspoken Truth. I’m Charlie Coppola with my father, Craig. Today we are talking about referrals. So, how do you build a referral network? And so I want to start. How have you thought about getting referrals in your business, in your career?

I thought early on in my career that if I worked really hard for a decade, I could work the rest of my career just taking referrals. And it didn’t work out that way. It didn’t work out that way because clients move on, they lose influence, they retire. So you’re constantly… So two things to think about as we start this. You’re always having to put some top of the funnel in. The funnel looks like the funnel for a reason. You have to always be putting some more in to get deals out the bottom end. And so you always have to be working on new relationships, new referrals.

I represented a law firm here, big national law firm, top 100 law firm, for 30 years, and I didn’t get the last assignment, because now they had hired a corporate real estate director, and he picked C&W as their national broker, and I didn’t get a shot at it. And so you’re always having to do that. So I’ve always thought about this in a couple ways. Where do I get my business? So I started, number one, and that’s why we built Deal View. We built Deal View so that we could track where we get our business.

And if you’re a broker who’s on our system, or a broker that’s not using Deal View, you should get it for just this one thing, you know, for the cost of Deal View: to understand where you’re getting your business. Every single transaction, where did it come from? And to know where you’re getting business from in the past, where you’re getting it from today, and where you’re getting it from, because our Deal View is live, right? So you can look at it for past deals, which is all historical, and a lot of brokers have that. You know, we’ve had a number of brokers who have come in and said, “Hey, at the end of the year, I see where we got the business from.” Well, you’re looking at historical. Well, Deal View allows you to know, “Here’s the next 50 deals I’m going to close. Where did I get those from?”

So we track, we want to track, did I get it from a client? And the good news for me after 40 years is I think 70% of our business is past clients. And so we’re keeping most of our clients. We’re getting that. It’s not enough. So we still have to get another 30% each year. And so how do we get that? We get that from our past clients giving us referrals. So that’s one way. We get it from influencers. So we have a list of influencers, which would be a CPA, accountants, other people that can refer you business, people that are in the community. We get it from outside our marketplace, with SIOR, CCIM networks, CRA networks.

We get it from friends and family. Let’s say you coached, you know, I coached, I ran Arcadia Little League. I was president of the board, and when you’re that you can, and I Little League coached. I was getting deals from Little League. So if you could track all these and understand, “Hey, I’m getting most of my business from influencers,” then you can have your list of influencers and say, “I want to grow this list every year.” I literally sat down with our young guys last week and I said, “Hey, you should have a list of people that you can go to and call.” And then that list should be growing at whatever, some percentage. Let’s say you have 10 people on there now. That list should be growing at least five people a year, two to five. And then you go, I’m going to build those super people.

Yeah. Yeah. So you…

There’s a lot to unpack. There’s a lot to unpack in that last five minutes.

Yeah. You track past clients, influencers, other brokers in other markets, friends and family. There’s a lot of different ways to get referrals. So do you think about those all the same, or differently?

Yes. So that’s the point of this. The point of this is, a lot of guys go, “Hey, you got 10 referrals last year. Great. I got 10 referrals.” Well, how are you going to repeat that? Well, if you don’t know where those referrals came from, you can’t repeat it. But if you say, “I got five referrals from SIOR,” then you should be going to every SIOR meeting so that you can get another five referrals from SIOR. If you get five referrals from your, you belong to the CPA association of Arizona, then you should be going to all the CPA meetings, you should be building that network. If you’re getting referrals from nonprofit boards that you’re on, then you should be having lunch with the people that are on the board. You know, you think this is pretty ABC, but it’s hard to execute.

Yeah.

I’m on a big board and I’ve been calling board members, and it’s like, I got a 20% close ratio. Just have lunch with other board members. Now, it’s a big board, but I would think that if I was on that board and somebody called me, I’d go, “Let’s go to lunch. Great.”

But it’s not that easy. There’s some value that has to be done there. And I’ve had to kind of think about the board and how do I execute, and I’ve done a better job in the last couple years. The first couple years, I thought I’d just call them, and I look back at my list and I go, I didn’t even get callbacks from other board members. So that’s not good.

Yeah. So you mentioned this a little bit with the influencer list, you sat down with your young guys. The best place for a young broker to start building out this, you know, referral network. Would it be, “Hey, sit down, write that list of influencers,” and these are people who refer you deals, you have strong relationships with, right? And then grow it a couple.

Well, young broker, a young broker may have one or two people. You know, when I moved to the marketplace, it was interesting. You know, I grew up in a small town in southern Arizona. My dad was a high school baseball coach. My mom was a high school English teacher. He had no relationships that would help me, until I found one. There was a guy that knew my dad at the University of Arizona, and his name was Paul Musente, and Paul worked his way up to president of a local bank here. And I got connected with him, and we realized he knew my dad, and I got business from Paul for the next 30 years. It was the one relationship that I had.

Now, you grew up here. You went to Brophy High School, so you have the connections, way deeper relationships. But I started with, and that was maybe four or five years into my career. So brokers that are young, without relationships, that have moved to the marketplace, should start building their influencers via their existing client list, people that you’ve done business with.

Gotcha. That’s good. So when you do get a referral, then what? How do you say thank you? How do you keep them updated with the deal or whatever? How do you reward them for giving you a referral, and say thank you, “Another one, you know, in a couple years, keep us in mind,” kind of thing?

Handwritten note, the minute. We used to wait till the referral got paid, and, you know, we pay them a referral. But if somebody gives us a referral, whether it happens or not, we give them a handwritten note. We get one note right there, and we give them a little Starbucks gift card, just to say thanks. So we want to thank them right away, because it could be some flaky deal, but we’re into getting referrals. So we do everything we can do. If we’re trying to close 150 deals a year, it’s way easier to close 150 if you get 30 referrals a year, because they’re coming in and people are giving them to you. It’s way harder if you’re going to have to go generate 150 new deals a year. So we’re spending time on that. So we do that.

I don’t think we do a great job of keeping them posted, but that’s a great thought, that throughout the process of the deal, “Hey, just want to let you know that we sent out RFPs. Just want to let you know, thanks for this.” There are brokers that do that, and they’re really good at it. And so they do that. I know that most of the national brokerage, the guys that are here getting outside broker referrals in, they do a really good job of that, because they’re hoping more of their CBRE brethren will send them deals.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that on our end too. I love when I refer someone or introduce someone, they always shoot me a text or something. Just a little sentence or two goes a long way, just like, “Hey, we met. Here’s what we talked about. Here’s what we’re, you know, I’m going to introduce him to this person after,” or whatever it is, right? It helps.

Yes. Yeah.

You know, you talk about the referability habits. And that’s right, follow through, right? I think that’s one of them. So…

Yeah. Well, do what you say you’re going to do, and finish what you start. Say please and thank you. Show up on time. Those are four great referability habits. And as a referability inbound is, you know, they refer you a deal, they want you to go back to them and go, “Man, that was great, he did a great job.” And then they’ll get another deal.

So there are two books that I’ve read, you probably read more on this topic than I have, that I read and recommend. One is Raving Fans, Ken Blanchard, and there’s two authors. And that one’s written in the 80s or 90s.

Still good today.

It’s a great book. It’s an easy read. It’s a great story, but it really, you know, demonstrates what a raving fan is and why it’s so powerful to get those for your business. Highly recommend that. The other one is Yellow Tux, Jesse Cole. The Savannah Bananas is a big, you’ll probably see it on the news or ESPN. They’re growing like crazy. Kind of the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. But he…

If you ask Jesse, because I was with them and I talked to him: “We are not the Harlem Globetrotters. They had set plays they did every night. We try some 10 to 14 things new every night. This is a real game. We’re not playing the general. We’re playing, you know, this is not…”

Who’s going to win tonight. So he kind of takes exception.

Yeah. Yeah. So I wouldn’t say that to him. But, you know, I got to see him speak long before they were famous, and read his book, and it was really, really fascinating. So I follow him on LinkedIn and follow all of his thought leadership stuff on raving fans, standing out, you know, going the extra mile, which, you know, I think all this stuff really is under the same umbrella, you know.

Yeah. I think, and we’ve learned this at, I mean, we kind of knew that we had something when we hit a hundred raving fans on our products. And I think if, as a broker, there’s this influencer kind of list, and your influencer, give us this raving fan list. If you can start with five raving fans that say great things about you. You know, like if I send out references now, people say, “Send me a couple references.” I’ll give them 25 references. And it’s like, I have hundreds of people now that will say really good things about me. And so that’s just building it up.

And so then you can get really specialized. Here’s somebody in this niche that could say good things, whether it’s a tech… Here’s a tech founder that started his company. We were the first one. We found him a little executive suite. Then we moved him into 1,000 feet. Then we moved him into 5,000. Then we did a 50. Those kind of specialty kind of niches, where you get raving fans that, you were with them when they weren’t big and now they are. Or you took care of them.

I’ll give you an example right now. We have a client that we moved in space, and it was a nonprofit, and all of a sudden they couldn’t raise the money. One of their big donors went away, so now they have to sublease their space. And we found a subtenant within two weeks, and it’s going to give them like 80% return, and we told them maybe you get 40%. And so that person should be a raving fan, right? “Boy, did they take care of me. Not only did they move me in here, but they also took care of me when we left out.”

And so creating raving fans and having a raving fan list. I talked about influencers. Maybe a better list is raving fans. How many raving fans? And maybe if you don’t have any, start with your mom.

Yeah.

You know, your mom would be your biggest raving fan. And it’s like, okay, let’s start somewhere and go, how do I get another one?

Yeah.

You know, now you got two. You got your mom, then you got Amanda, right? So now I got two. How do I get a third? You know.

Right. Right. So your influencer list, your raving fan list, your list of references, people who will sing your praises. Last question. I was…

And lists, people hear this and they don’t write the list.

Write it down. Yeah.

Write it down. Have a list. Know who your people are. You could call, like, you’re having a shitty day. Call one of your raving fans and go, “Hey, I’m just checking in.” Yeah. And they’ll give you, like, “God, it’s so great to hear from you.” I put a call in today. Like, it won’t mean much to people, but, you know, I’m making some calls and I’m kind of getting hammered today. So I put a call into Rob Leonard, and you know, Rob Leonard’s just, he’s a client, he’s a friend, and he’s such a good guy. It’s like, getting off a phone call with Rob Leonard, I was ready to go again, because he’s always, he’s funny, he’s good, he likes us, he’s a raving fan. And it was like, that was great. You know, loved it.

That’s a good tip.

I’ll give you another tip. I want to give you another tip. Whenever I got my ass kicked, whenever I was getting my ass kicked, I might have said this before, I would literally do two things. I would go get my car washed, and I’d go get my shoes shined. And I’ve got to tell you, whenever my shoes got shined and my car got washed, I felt way better. Like, I know for you, you go for a run, but in my business it was like, “Okay, I’m not going to stop, but I can go get a 10-minute shoe shine.” I’d go down to Lindstöm’s car wash. They’d shine my shoes and wash my car at the same time. I’d walk out of there and I’d be like, “Okay, the day is way better now.”

That’s good. I do like the idea of calling a raving fan of yours, or someone who’s just going to put you in a good mood, you know. And everyone hopefully has people like that in their life, and it’s like, that’s who you want.

If you don’t have them, start developing them. And how do you develop them? We’ve spent time on this. We should put a link in there to these. Like, how do you start developing these? It’s like, you want to give first, right? You want to have somebody that you’ve given a lot to, and you go, “Hey, how else can I help you?” It’s great to have those.

When I was preparing for this, I was putting together some questions and kind of a direction I wanted to take this conversation. I spoke briefly with a guy on our side, Brock Baker. People watching this may know Brock. And I asked him, anything you would want to know? And he had a good question. He said, “When should you ask for a referral?” And I’d be curious to hear that from you. Is there a time where, like, that’s too early? Or, you know, what would you say to that question?

Well, as a broker, we ask for referrals all the time. The minute you get the business, “Thanks.” You know, you have to have a magic conversation. You have to kind of ask them in a different way when you first got the business. So we send out surveys when you’re done. When you’re done and you’ve done a good job for them, you know, you can ask them for a reference. You want to get a reference, and then ask them, “Do you have anything?”

So I would say referrals should be specifically asked. If you just tell me, “Hey, Craig, do you know anybody off the top of your head that’s got a 10,000-foot office requirement?” Like, “No, I don’t know anybody.” “Well, keep me in mind.” Well, I won’t keep you in mind, because my life’s hitting me.

Yeah.

But it might be a better thing to say, like, “Hey, I looked on LinkedIn and I noticed that you know Brock Baker. Would you be willing to make an introduction to Brock Baker? Because he’s, you know, one of the best, one of the top guys at CRE OneSource, and I want to get to know him.” “Sure, I’ll introduce you.” Some people say, “Why don’t I set up a breakfast between the three of us?” And you’re like, “Great. That would be great.” Or just instead of saying, “Hey, you need to meet Craig. Brock, you need to meet Craig. He just took care of us. And I know you don’t have a requirement right now, but trust me, it’ll be worth your time.”

Those are the kind of things that really make a difference. So I would say all the time, but they come not like, “Okay, do you know anybody?” It’s more like, “Hey, I noticed that your biggest customer was ABC Company. Who do you work with over there? Or is that somebody that you could introduce me to?” Or, “Your biggest vendor is ABC Company. Can I get an introduction to them?”

Yep. I love the specific, be specific about your ask.

Yes. “Do you have, what other companies are looking for 10,000 square feet of office space?” Ah, it’s a horrible question.

Horrible question. Yep.

Yeah. And, “What other CEOs do you know?” It’s like, we’ve got LinkedIn. You know the CEOs. And like you say, “Are you really close with Brock Baker?” And he could go, “No, I’m linked with him, but I don’t know him.” I was like, “Okay.”

Right.

So then you have another name. “Well, do you know ABC?” Jerry Carlson, who sold us, me, insurance for years. I’d walk in, he’d go, “Hey, Craig, how you doing?” He’d hand me his list, his who-do-you-know list, and he goes, “Here’s the top 20 prospects.” And he’d have names on it, 10 names. “Who do you know?” And he’d have 10 boxes, and there’d be the number one guy. I’d have five names next to it, and I’d know all five of the people that knew this guy. And he’d tell me, when I have 10 names from people that say yes, then I call him and go, “Hey, I do business with Craig Coppola and Charlie Coppola and Brock Baker and blah blah and blah blah. I’d love to have a meeting with you.” He’s like, “I have 10 names. If that guy’s not going to call me back, he knows that he’s not calling you back for 10 people.”

Yeah, it’s powerful.

That’s pretty good. Yeah.

It was pretty good. That was long term. Jerry was really good at it. And he’d just hand you the list: “Hey, just write your name next to anybody that you know on here.”

Yeah.

That’s pretty good. I never had the guts to do that.

I know. That’s bold. I like it.

It’s bold. But these insurance guys, learn from anybody outside, insurance. They ask for referrals better than anybody.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Building a referral network. It’s a recurring theme on this podcast: relationships. You know, give first. Build your list one at a time, of influencers, raving fans. Start small, but one can make a difference.

I think, and I think it’s Bill Gates, we overestimate what we can do in a day and we underestimate what we can do in a year. And creating lists allows you to kind of put it on there and go, “Look, I haven’t added anybody to my raving fan list or my influencer list in a month or two. I’m not doing my job. I’ve got to do a better job of that. So I’d better start calling some of my clients and getting a better relationship with them.”

Yeah. Yep. I love it. The Unspoken Truth again. Thank you.

Always.