Episode 20: Get Your "Masters" in LinkedIn Referrals

Jack Hubbard  00:01

I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same. Banking is a people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Rants With Modern Bankers. 

Happy sales Thursday, everybody. It's Jack Hubbard. Hi, Brynne!

Brynne Tillman  01:26

Hi, Jack, how are you? 

Jack Hubbard  00:01

You know, life is really good. Life is really good. And before we start, today, I wanted to announce something that I think is really exciting and I know you'll jump in too. As of this show, August 10, of 2023. I'm very excited to officially announce the launching of Jack Rants with Modern Bankers. So this will be a second podcast. And we've got some absolutely fabulous speakers, James Robert Lay was my first guest. We've got best selling authors, bankers, consultants, and Brynne. I'm really, really excited about this. And it's a podcast. So it's going to be on Apple, podcast, and Spotify and Google Play, and I Heart Radio, and Brynne, our team has done a marvelous job of getting this thing together.

Brynne Tillman  01:26

I am really, really excited. And it's going to be a lot of fun and a lot of value. So go to your favorite podcast, platform and subscribe. And if you really like it, give us a review. It would mean a lot.

Jack Hubbard  01:41

Yeah, it really would. It's a nice add on to what we're doing here every Thursday. And speaking of today, we've got a great program. and the title of the program is Get Your Masters in LinkedIn Referrals. Now, that's an interesting title. Why are we doing that? Because my hat today is from the 2003 Masters. And one of the interesting things about the masters and colleges and business is that the most powerful force in sales is referrals. You know, here's a statistic. If you have a referral. If you're a banker and have a referral, you're 82% likely to get an initial appointment. 

Now, unfortunately, bankers make a couple of mistakes here. First of all, when they pick up the phone, they don't say Brynne Tillman, your CPA suggested I give you a call, they bury the headline. The second thing is, the buyer, the referral source doesn't know a couple of things. They don't know what kind of business you're looking for. They don't know how to provide you with the referrals. So even when bankers try to do a good job, it's a challenge for them. But there's good news. 

In August of 2013, I met this woman and I and it changed my life in terms of referrals. And that's you Brynne. You taught me how to do this. And frankly, I don't see anybody else in the world doing this like you do. So let's talk and start about this whole process that you develop around referrals.

Brynne Tillman  03:27

Yeah, thanks, Jack. You know, here's the thing when I was in sales, I love business development. What I didn't love was the cold calling. As soon as I had the conversation, It was great. It was fun. We were helping people, making an impact. But getting that first appointment was not the fun part of what I was doing, at least not for me. And I recall sitting across from one client in I think it was 1992 staring at his overflowing Rolodex thinking if I could get my hands on that for 20 minutes, I could identify who he knew that I wanted to meet. Ask for introductions, and I wouldn't have to cold call anymore. 

Well, fast forward two decades, I found LinkedIn. And by the way, I called it LinkedIn for a couple of weeks. Like I was like, Oh, I get it! LinkedIn. Anyway, but I found and I need law, the magic for salespeople. We have the ability to search and filter our connection’s connections or connections, rolodexes to identify who they know that we want to meet and leverage that relationship to gain access to those stakeholders at a much higher level of credibility than any kind of cold outreach could ever do. 

So I really fell in love with LinkedIn because of this feature. And it's really powerful and I think bankers are not taking advantage of the data they have right at their fingertips. So I'll throw it back to you, Jack, when you see the power of being able to search and filter your CPAs connections, your clients connections, your centers of influence, and even other vendors that work with banks. And you could go in, right, so, so keep in mind what we're looking for. We're obviously client referrals. And we're obviously, you know, we're looking for centers of influence, which is like the CPA, the tax attorney, even the estate attorney, the realtor, right, all of those people are centers of influence. But we also, which I think is so powerful, because we can really take a look at every company, who is our social proximity, and how do we get there? So Jack, when you said, Oh, my gosh, this is a game changer, what went through your head?

Jack Hubbard  06:10

Well, the first thing to know is that getting first degree connections, and I never knew this until I read some kind of an article, and it might have been by you, who talks about the power of the second degree connection. And in order for you to have social proximity, you have to be connected to people. So one of the things that I was taught is, let's go out and connect with the right number of people. It doesn't have to be 1000s of people, but it has to be the right number of people. Because what I have heard is based on the number of connections that I have, I have second degree connections to 21 million people. 

Now I don't, I'm never going to talk to 21 million people, and I don't care. But the point is, within that 21 million people, there are opportunities. And I think things bankers are challenged by is they don't want to connect with their competition, they don't want to connect with people inside the bank. Those are two real opportunities. 

The other thing I think they're challenged by is when they do connect with someone, they only want to connect at the very surface level. In other words, I work with the CFO of the company. But within that company, if the CFO is with you, and they're a client of your organization, you've got to start to get deep and wide with that. So the power of the referral, in my mind, really rests in the power of the first degree connection.

Brynne Tillman  07:44

So I love that. And you know, really, what we need to do is go dig out the cards with the rubber bands in the corner of our desk, and start going through these and who are the people I know in the real world that I haven't connected with, pull your client list and your prospect list out of your CRM and start connecting with them. So many things will happen. I know we're talking about referrals now. But you know, we get to see when they change jobs, if they have new emails, if they get promoted. So much happens when you are a first degree connection. But for today, what we mostly talk about is we now get access to their digital Rolodex, we get to see who they know, and we can filter them. 

So maybe I look and I say, Hey, Jack has 12,000 connections. But I can filter them down by industry by title, by geographic location and and beyond. And by the way, in the free LinkedIn, we can do this, you do not have to pay to be able to do that. Now if you're using Sales Navigator, there are significantly more filters. And  you can really define it even tighter. But you could get a really good list. So I look and I go, okay, Jack's 12,000 connections there are 80 that meet my criteria. And now I'm going to manually go through those 80 and identify who of those folks are really who I want to have a conversation with. And I could even add more filters if I want to get granular. And so what do I do? 

Jack Hubbard  09:25

I want to talk about one thing you said. Yes, indeed, we are talking about referrals today but if somebody does go to a new position, and I find that out, one of the things that new position person can do if they left their previous company in good stead is I can say okay, you've left your company as a CFO, but there's a new CFO going to come on to your previous company. Can you give me a name or two of people that I could talk to in your previous company? Maybe I can help them find the CFO, or if they do a fractional CFO, or even if it's just they've hired a new CFO, and I want to connect with them. So there's always this opportunity, if you think big picture to do this, but you mentioned, okay, let's say I get it down to 80, or 15, or whatever the number is, one of the things I want to do now is to figure out how to have a conversation with that person that is referred to me, how would you go about doing that?

Brynne Tillman  10:29

So, you know, the first thing I'm going to back up just for a second, the first thing is, the most important piece is that you're maintaining a good relationship with the person that you are asking the referrals from. That relationship is worth 100 referrals, right? Like you, you do not in any way want to burn that asking for too many introductions, is a lot of work, especially if they're a client. So we just have to make sure we're bouncing it. And we'll talk about the alternative, which is permission to name drop in some cases but the most important thing is that we keep our relationship intact with the person that we're asking for the introduction. So keep that in mind. 

Number two, do not say, Hey, Jack, you're connected to vivo? Can I get some introductions, right? Because they'll be overwhelmed. And that actually will affect number one, which is it will not keep your relationship intact. Right? Number three, even if there's two or three people, don't ask for an introduction, and don't do it all over a message or an email. So what I want to say is, Hey, Jack, you're connected to a few people that I'm going to be reaching out to in the next couple of weeks. But before I do, can I run these names by you and get your thoughts? So 80 is too many, but 12 may not be because we're gonna go boom, boom, boom, straight through the list, right? Oh, she's awesome. I worked with her 10 years ago, you're gonna love her. I don't remember this guy. I don't remember this guy. Oh, this guy. He's amazing. You should go follow his content, right? So we get this and 12 becomes 4, 20 becomes six. I don't know, right? Like, play with it with the numbers and get your sweet spot, but you go fast. 

Now based on my relationship with Jack, and I'm gonna say based on my appreciation of how busy he is in his time, my go to conversation is not hey, can you introduce me to these people? My go to infer Thank you so much for reviewing these names. When I reach out to them, is it okay that I mentioned you've been my happy client? And that you said hello. Absolutely. They are grateful that they know they don't have homework. You didn't put it on them. So now I reach out. And I'll say, Adam, Jack and I were chatting the other day. And I would say Jack Hubbard, and I were chatting the other day, your name came up in our conversation, he said hello. I've been working with Jack for the last two years to do XY and Z. And he thought it made sense for us to connect. Please visit my profile. And if you think it makes sense. You know, please accept my invitation. Something simple like that. 

Now they accept and I'm going to assume the call because Jack said. So Adam, thanks so much for the connection requests per Jack’s recommendation. I'm looking forward to having a conversation. Please let me know your preferred way to schedule if it happens to be via calendar link. Here's mine. I will tell you what happens. Number one, well first of all, there's about a 50% chance that they become a conversation. Sometimes they get really busy now and try me back next quarter. You know, I'm under the gun for this. But you know, if you want to chat early next year, that's fine. All good. All good. We are now connected. I can send them content and nurture them 50% say because of Jack I'm taking this call. And that's it right I'm taking this call and I have a story to tell I'm going to tell in a moment. 

So because of Jack I'm taking this call and we get on this call, do not bait and switch. Do not go into pitch mode. You know, learn about them. Find out what their initiatives are. See if you can make introductions. One of the things we had one banker do a couple of years ago was their only goal when they got on the call with these people was to find out who their other trusted advisors were and get another layer of education so that when they came back around that they got like the thumbs up from their CPA. Oh Yes, he's great if you're going to change and, you know, if you're gonna change bankers and banks, I would definitely work with them. So, there's a lot that happens, but we need to slow down the outreach process to speed up the outcome of new business that comes from it. 

So I'm gonna tell my quick story and then I'm gonna throw back to you on my little rant. You know, now Brynne’s ranting. So, I think probably 12 or 13 years ago, I was trying really, really, really hard to get into TD Bank. And I knew my guy was Rob Curling, hands down. He was the guy. So, you know, I prospected him at the time, I cold called, all kinds of things to get his attention. And I was ghosted because there were hundreds of people like me trying to sell them. And then I was at a client's facility and I noticed that Rob Petcove was connected to Rob Curly. So I said Rob Petcove? How do you know Rob Curley? And Rob Petove have said, Oh, both are boys with juvenile diabetes, we've been in the same group since they were little. He's like the best guy. I just love him. So I said would you make an introduction? At the time, I asked for the introduction, not the permission to name drop, but he did it while I was sitting there. It was like a coaching session. I said, Look, we'll show you how it works within 20 minutes, maybe even five minutes, Rob Curley responded, Monday 10am. Here's the address. 

I mean, if I had a trip to Europe, I would cancel it. I got it a meeting with Rob Curley. And I get there. And he says, Okay, go. Like, why am I here? It’s because Rob Petcove asked me to do something, I'm doing it. So I said, if I could show your commercial bankers how they could get in the door the same way I did. He looks at his calendar. And he goes, Okay, our next meeting is date. Are you available? Oh, by the way, how much and it was the fastest close I ever had in my career. And, you know, fast forward, they've been our, you know, on and off our client for over a dozen years now. And I love Rob Curly. So, I know that was a long way around. But that's what happens. Right? Like, that's what referrals do. I was there because he had a relationship with the person that said, You got to talk to Brent.

Jack Hubbard  17:33

And want to go back to the permission to name drop but one of the things that I always teach is, you know, think big picture, too often what happens is, Okay, I gotta get a referral. Let's think of the big picture. So let's go back. Do you upload your connections? And how often are you reviewing all of those connections? Because if you connected with someone in August of 2013, that's a long time ago. And if you aren't nurturing those connections, as we've talked about before, I'm not gonna pick up the phone and say, Hey, Brynne I haven't connected with and haven't done anything with you in 10 years. Do you mind if I use your name? Well, of course not. Who the heck are you? I don't remember you at all. So nurturing, downloading,

Brynne Tillman  18:24

downloading.

Jack Hubbard  18:25

The last thing I want to talk about, and I wanted to be very clear about this, because one of the things you said was really powerful, is okay, yeah, Brynne, go ahead. I mean, I know, Adam, really well, blah, blah, blah. So you reach out, and you try to connect with Adam. And so what you're trying to do is in that verbiage of trying to connect versus just hitting the connect button, you're saying, Hey, I was talking to Jack Hubbard the other day, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So Adam connects with you. And here's one of the things you taught me and you did it really well. You do it really well. As Adam connects says, oh, yeah, I know Jack pretty well, we've done business together for a while. And now you're typing and you say, you know, I'm wondering, I'm curious if we continue this however you want to do this. And here's the kicker? And by the way, yeah, video and we'll talk about that. But by the way, Adam, I thought you might be interested. I heard there was a webinar coming up. I know you're in the solar industry. I saw this webinar. This might be of interest. Oh, hey, Adam, by the way, here's a white paper Oh, Adam, I met somebody over at the Chamber of Commerce who is solely looking for some solar. So in that message after you connect with someone, adding value immediately is going to go in to help. If you hold up your phone. You can do this and video messaging Brynne and you did this great.

Brynne Tillman  19:55

Thank you. I love this look. It's so easy to just once they connect, Hey, Adam And thanks so much for connecting. I know, we're both big fans of Jack, because he set it up there. You know, a couple quick things. First, I'd love to get to know you and your business and learn a little bit more. I noticed a few things on your profile. Second, you know, I recently came across this article or this webinar or whatever, if you're interested, let me know, I'm happy to send you a link. You know, maybe there's a number three, but it's just a conversation. Do not say I want to talk to you about our banking services, do not say, are you happy with your current bank? If this is not about you, this is about building rapport. 

Think about… compare this to the, the message on the other side of LinkedIn should be very similar to the other side of the table, right? So right in person, the other side of the desk, you this is the same person. And just because you're not eyeball to eyeball, doesn't mean that they're not going to respond the same way they would if they were. So build rapport, bring value, giggle a little bit, whatever you do, right? The business will come when the time is right. But this is really about establishing seeds. And, you know, and being there as a resource and explaining things and helping them understand things and talk, you know, just say, hey, you know, we had a client similar to yours that was really having an inventory issue and wasn't able, their cash flow didn't match up. Are you seeing that like eventually, and then help them understand that you know how they can overcome that and be a resource, and then just ask them, Hey, if you're ever looking to explore doing that, too, I'm here for you. So that's the way we bring it into but slow it down. As soon as you proposed on the first date. You'd never get married.

Jack Hubbard  22:16

Yeah, you'd be in jail. or someplace worse. Here's the other thing that I think we make a mistake of and I don't know your opinion or how you think you might do this. But what I've seen a lot of bankers do is they'll get a referral from their CPA brim. They'll go out and they'll get an appointment. But Brynne never hears back about what happened on the appointment. So I like to call it closing the referral loop. I get the referral from Brynne, I go out and I talk to Brynne, I get a referral from Brynne, I go out and talk to Adam. Then I came back and because I'm a banker, I need to be careful, because even though Brynne is Adam’s CPA, I don't know if he's telling her everything. So what I'm gonna say generically is Brynne. Hey, this is Jack Hubbard, I just wanted to reach back out to you. And you could do this in a video message. I wanted to reach back out to you. And thank you, I had a really great conversation with Adam. He's very happy with your services. Thanks again. Now, by the way, what that does, and you can talk about the mechanics of how you might do that on LinkedIn again. But what that does is it causes Brynne, the CPA to say, you know, I don't get that from a lot of bankers. I didn't get that feedback much. By the way, I have another referral that I'd like to share with you. We have never talked about this before. I'm curious about your reaction to it, and how you might other than a video message, maybe how you might reach back out to CPA.

Brynne Tillman  23:58

I mean, there's so many things you can do. You talked about webinars, you could talk about live events, you could you know, if you have an open house at a branch, you know, or maybe Chamber of Commerce in the local area, spend 10 bucks and buy him a ticket. Right or right. Like there are so many things that you could do, like you know, really enjoyed our communication. I'd love to meet you in person. I don't know if you're available next Wednesday night. But the Chamber of Commerce is having an awards dinner. I'd love to buy a ticket and get to know you a little bit more. I mean, that's amazing. 

So we want to do real world things too. It doesn't just stay on LinkedIn. And just because we talk about LinkedIn doesn't mean that's the only way to nurture them. And it could be just a cup of coffee. I will tell you one of my favorite things that I had done to me is when I was in a physical office prior to the pandemic, I had a vendor reach out and say hey, I'm going to be in the area, can I bring you over some iced coffee? They knew I liked iced coffee. So iced coffee from Starbucks. Like, I don't remember how they even knew at one point, we had talked about it, and they took notes. 

So they knew. And I was like, Sure, now am I seeing them because they want to see them because they want iced coffee or a little bit of both. But they, you know that that was huge, right, we can still do that. LinkedIn, we're not saying that the real relationship doesn't matter. Brian Fanzo, has a wonderful saying that says social media does not take the place of a handshake. But it turns a handshake into a hug. By the time you meet them, you already have rapport, and you're excited. So this CPA, who you've been talking to for a month on social and email, you now get to meet them in person, they're excited to meet you, as you should be to meet them. So that's my second rant of the day.

Jack Hubbard  26:02

It's great. And one of the things that I'm so pleased about with this program is, and we can talk about next week if you want to, but one of the things that I'm so pleased about with this program is that I get comments from Baker's about how practical it is, which I really liked. So let's review. We upload our downloads, and we make sure that we're nurturing those connections. If we want to see through a filter, or a variety of filters, if we want to see some number of their clients, 12 We reach out and say, Hey, I'm, you know, curious if you could use your name, blah, blah, blah, and that's permission, the name drop. And then we reach out for a connection and follow up. And we keep people in the loop. 

Now, I probably missed a couple of things, and you'll fill in the blank. But one other thing. I'm an avid reader, as everybody knows. And there's a great book by Keith Razi. His company for Razzie Greenlight. And the book has been updated several times. And the book is called Never Eat Alone. And it's all about referrals. And it's all about getting referrals. And I know, Joanne black, who's another colleague, you know, really well does a lot of referrals. Brynne. 

Brynne Tillman  27:28

Yeah, so that's great. And, you know, Jack, the referrals matter. But I'm gonna go back to when you started. This program we started with, you're asking, will the banker go to the client or to the CPA or to say, Who do you know, who do you know, that could use my banking solutions? And that's not their world, they don't know who they know that needs you? You know, they don't know. So that's where LinkedIn is so valuable, because we can help jog their memory with who they know. And by the way, some of my best referrals didn't come from the list. Because as we were talking through the list, the client was like, oh, you know why? I know, so and so they would be great, too. So it just expands their mind a little bit. And beyond that list, you may actually get other referrals, too.

Jack Hubbard  28:30

Yeah. And I think the key to everything here is to keep nurturing. You know, we've talked about this before, I'm fanatical at follow up. And I try, you can't talk to everybody but I try as best I possibly can. I was talking to a banker at the banking school. And he came up to me and he said, you probably don't remember me. And I said, Oh, yeah, we did some training with you two or three years ago. He said, That's phenomenal. He said, You have a great memory. He said, and by the way, he said, You always send me something of value. How do you do that? One of my good friends, Nick Miller, has a company called Clarity advantage. One of the things he always says to me is you are everywhere. How can you possibly be everywhere? And the answer is LinkedIn, using all the resources of LinkedIn, sending articles that you might find on Vertical IQ, following just a ton of people not 1000s of people that I follow that provide great value. Those are the kinds of things you need to be doing that you don't need to do 24 hours a day or three hours a day. But if you're committed to doing this a few minutes every day, it's going to be powerful. And I'll say one more thing, and then I'll throw it back over to you to kind of wrap this up. According to statistics, about 78% of your new business for Next year comes from current clients. What you're really chasing is 22%. That 22% can come from a lot of sources. But the main source of that 22% is referrals.

Brynne Tillman  30:16

So let's do better, smarter, faster and more fun. Absolutely, by using LinkedIn. Thanks, Jack. As always, this is so much fun. I love doing these with you. And I want to thank RelPro and Vertical IQ for sponsoring them.

Jack Hubbard  30:34

Absolutely! And we'll see you next Thursday, Brynne because it's Thursday, it's Jack Rants With Brynne.

Outro 30:41

Thanks for joining us for Jack Rants with Brynne brought to you by our good friends at Vertical IQ and RelPro. We're live on LinkedIn every Thursday at noon Eastern time helping bankers turn connections into conversations. 

Don't miss an episode, visit themodernbanker.com/tmbpodcast. Leave us a review if you would. You can also listen to this program and the new Jack Rants with Modern Bankers on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Play and I Heart Radio. We're on YouTube as well. Subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@TheModernBanker. Finally, don't forget, make today and every day a great client day!