Mike Garrison: Welcome to Can I Borrow Your Car? Podcast. Not. This is the follow up to the Can I Borrow Your Car book called, Why Should I Refer You? And when you really think about it, that's the question that kills most predictable referral systems because you have to get that answer right with your referral source. And that answer has also got to work. When your referral source talks to your potential prospect.

Mike Garrison: And so that's what this podcast is about. Is about. It's about straight talk. I've been doing this for longer than I care a bit almost years, publishing a couple of books on referrals and doing some referral stuff all over the country.

Mike Garrison: I have guests on the program, and today's guest is very dangerous for me because John not only knows where the skeletons are buried. In some cases he gave me a shovel.

John Lusher: This is true.

Mike Garrison: So John and I have been involved in multiple, different referral situations together in multiple different roles. And currently he is the king of the expanding retainer for me. Meaning he gets a bigger retainer for me all the time, and it's totally worth it. John's a stone cold expert in marketing, a fabulous human being

and a proud, proud West Virginian. 

John Lusher: Absolutely.

Mike Garrison: I was. Gonna say, raspberry.

Mike Garrison: I don't know if President's the right word.

John Lusher: I was. Gonna say, it seemed like there was something that you wanted to add to that. But I wasn't sure where you were going.

Mike Garrison: Well, my my inherent Northern Virginia prejudice was coming.

John Lusher: Nice.

Mike Garrison: I was gonna go straight. Grease, man. I said no.

John Lusher: Yeah, this is probably a good idea.

Mike Garrison: Kids might be honest, John, introduce them a little bit. Tell everybody what you do, and try not to give away too many secrets about me.

John Lusher: I'll do my best. I appreciate it, Mike. Thank you. As Mike mentioned John Lusher, I own The Social Buzz lab, a digital strategic marketing agency located here in Roanoke. I have owned it for a little bit over five years now, but I have been in the arena for almost 16 years. At this point in time. Before that I was in direct business to business sales, something else that Mike and I have in common. We shlepped around the State of Virginia, trying to sell copiers. And let me tell you, once you sell copiers, you can sell anything

John Lusher: So decided. I would much.

Mike Garrison: There is one person.

Mike Garrison: Yep.

John Lusher: Exactly decided I would much rather be in marketing and working in marketing than just in direct sales, and I've been doing that for quite a while. I enjoy it. It's a lot of fun. Nowadays, of course, as the saying goes, it's mostly digital, mostly online, mostly online communities. But it's still a lot of fun just to see what a business can do and how they can approach marketing. So to me, it's still a lot of fun, so I I intend to keep doing it for quite a while.

Mike Garrison: Cool man. So

Mike Garrison: you know, as from one copier guy to another, nothing beats a referral right.

John Lusher: Exactly, absolutely.

Mike Garrison: When you cold call for a living you learn to appreciate the value of a referral.

John Lusher: %.

Mike Garrison: When you look at your career, and and you and I are both old enough, and have known each other long enough that we don't need to ascribe too many

Mike Garrison: qualifying factors like years. When you look at your career.

Mike Garrison: what's been your referral experience, the good, the bad, the ugly.

John Lusher: Well.

John Lusher: Well, luckily

John Lusher: I'm thankful to say that there's been a lot more

John Lusher: good than bad and ugly. But there again, going back to the world of copier sales and even past that point I worked in kind of advanced within the industry, so to speak, and worked in computer networks telephone systems things of that nature from a sales perspective. And it's funny, because if I had to pinpoint where any of the or

John Lusher: maybe the majority of the bad and the ugly

John Lusher: occurred. It was during those times, not so much

John Lusher: now that I've been in marketing cause back when I was selling telephone systems, computer networks.

John Lusher: Was a member of a couple of networking groups.

John Lusher: shall we say?

John Lusher: And it was really a challenge.

John Lusher: because I could easily get up, describe what

John Lusher: our company

John Lusher: could do and did do for other companies, and you know, even in private, one on one chats, can you drill down further and really describe

John Lusher: to a T exactly everything that we did.

John Lusher: translating that into

John Lusher: people being able to properly pass, give, suggest, throw at me a referral

John Lusher: that meant something

John Lusher: was like pushing a boulder uphill.

John Lusher: and I think that the challenge wasn't in the industry that I was in

John Lusher: being so complicated, because

John Lusher: here's the bottom line. If you deal with business owners or businesses, all of them have a telephone system. All of them have computers

John Lusher: kind of simple

John Lusher: from that standpoint. So it wasn't a complicated industry.

John Lusher: However.

John Lusher: one thing that you know, and that I learned early on it's not the industry that you're in.

John Lusher: It's the people around you that you're talking to.

John Lusher: that you are hoping will be potential referral sources. Because I got to the point with

John Lusher: one group of people that I talked to.

John Lusher: because this company, in addition to computer networks, we did voice and data cabling

John Lusher: the wires that run into the walls that hook everything up.

John Lusher: I literally got to the point of saying, if you see

John Lusher: dirt being moved

John Lusher: on a commercial property, that's a great referral.

John Lusher: how general

John Lusher: can you get.

John Lusher: So I think that I think sometimes

John Lusher: the bad and the ugly referrals

John Lusher: are our own faults, because we don't

John Lusher: describe and really say, this is what we're looking for. We don't educate them properly.

John Lusher: but I also think sometimes

John Lusher: it's just who we're talking to.

John Lusher: There are just some people.

John Lusher: no matter how hard they try.

John Lusher: They're just not great at giving referrals.

John Lusher: They're great at passing a name along or thinking in their mind. This is going to be great.

John Lusher: not so much it turns out to be not a great referral.

Mike Garrison: Absolutely. Yeah, that that's it's real talk. And there's a lot we could unpack there. But we're not going to

Mike Garrison: the next. The next question, just kind of getting getting taken taken, that the reality that

Mike Garrison: there are always challenges with referral process always.

John Lusher: It's because.

Mike Garrison: Human beings are involved, right and

Mike Garrison: right. But fundamentally, you know.

Mike Garrison: if people want to have a slightly easier time

Mike Garrison: contextualizing it.

Mike Garrison: As in why you probably shouldn't be in a referral group, for example.

John Lusher: Yep.

Mike Garrison: Check out my book. Can I borrow your car.

Mike Garrison: John, when you st heard about this podcast title? And you did early on what? What came to mind when you thought of this podcast? Title being about? Why should I refer you.

John Lusher: Well.

Mike Garrison: Other than Mike's, a butthead.

John Lusher: No, the first, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear that is.

John Lusher: how can I educate someone

John Lusher: to best refer me?

John Lusher: Because when it comes down to it.

John Lusher: and this is the way that I always looked at it whenever I got what I thought was a bad referral, or just one that just didn't work out, whether it's bad or whatever the case may be. The way I always looked at it is okay. Look at. I have done differently

John Lusher: to educate that person.

John Lusher: because, typically it, it falls into one or or 

John Lusher: categories. In my opinion.

John Lusher: either that person didn't fully grasp

John Lusher: what was a good referral for me.

John Lusher: or they're just lazy, and they're just trying to.

John Lusher: you know. Here, here you go. Here's a referral God bless you, or, whatever the case may be, so it it falls into one or or things. I always looked at it as what could I have done better done differently. So when I heard the title, I'm like, Okay.

John Lusher: an opportunity to show how I would educate somebody. On referring me.

Mike Garrison: Yeah, it's it's really interesting, because

Mike Garrison: one of the great challenges with referral marketing is a lot of people that

Mike Garrison: benefit from it and need it desperately, have never had any kind of professional sales training.

Mike Garrison: so they tend. They tend to look at

Mike Garrison: a buyer's journey or a sales process

Mike Garrison: as being comprised primarily of the transaction right? And so.

Mike Garrison: That's of the big problems with.

Mike Garrison: you know. Why should I refer you? The reason I I invented that title, and the reason why it's going to be a book coming up in is because

Mike Garrison: it gets to all the factors. So like one of the factors that's involved is.

Mike Garrison: why should I refer you? And when

Mike Garrison: should I refer you? And and this is where this is why, you know number one for people listening. John is my marketing guy and that's because he speaks referrals and marketing and sales

Mike Garrison: But when you look at it, most people are trying to get referrals

Mike Garrison: for the least significant amount of time in a prospect's life. That brief moment.

Mike Garrison: if it ever occurs that brief moment.

John Lusher: In there.

Mike Garrison: That a business owner or a decision maker is in the market for what you do and doesn't know someone else already.

John Lusher: Exactly.

Mike Garrison: So that's that's honestly. That is why so many people get bad referrals number one. They're not worth referring

Mike Garrison: when the prospect's not buying.

Mike Garrison: They don't have the type of relationship or the type of value. Add beyond what they sell.

Mike Garrison: To make it worth me risking a meeting with one of my multimillion dollar clients

Mike Garrison: when they're not buying right.

John Lusher: Right? %.

Mike Garrison: Yeah, that's that's when you get down to it. So here's here's my question. You ready. Let's take.

John Lusher: I'm ready.

Mike Garrison: Take it even deeper.

John Lusher: Okay.

Mike Garrison: And you've got. Let's just say you've got plus years of experience with referrals. Let's just.

John Lusher: Yup!

Mike Garrison: Let's be really conservative and say.

John Lusher: is a nice round number.

Mike Garrison: I like it better than the other number. So.

Mike Garrison: John, from your perspective, and you have taught people referral stuff in the past. You have. You know you've been working with me for a long time.

John Lusher: True.

Mike Garrison: What makes someone worth referring to?

Mike Garrison: How did they answer that question? Why should I.

John Lusher: Well.

John Lusher: for. Well, for one thing.

John Lusher: I'm not going to refer

John Lusher: to someone unless I really get to know them.

John Lusher: and I don't mean that, you know we go on vacation together, or we play golf together half a dozen times before I refer them. But I need to know the person

John Lusher: kind of what they're made of. You know their character. I also need to know how they conduct business.

John Lusher: because otherwise. And this is the thing, and you and I both know this.

John Lusher: If I refer you to someone.

John Lusher: it's my reputation that's on the line.

John Lusher: not yours initially mine, because here's what happens. If it goes south.

John Lusher: The person that I refer you to! They're not going to complain to Mike.

John Lusher: but boy, will I hear about it, or the flip side of that coin which is the worst case scenario I never hear about.

John Lusher: But, boy, do they remember it? So before I refer someone there has to be that level of trust there has to be. I need to know how you conduct business, how you take care of your clients. You know the fact that you do take care of your clients, and you follow up, and you follow through, and you take care of issues, or whatever the case may be. If I don't know that I'm definitely not gonna refer you because it's like you're bringing someone into your family

John Lusher: that you really don't know.

John Lusher: And you know you and I both have been at this a while, and and we've learned from the best and worked with the best, you know, and one of our dear friends who's no longer with us. She and I referred business to each other over the years.

Mike Garrison: Literally.

John Lusher: That's.

Mike Garrison: Best, the best natural networker ever.

John Lusher: Yup, %. No hands down and.

Mike Garrison: Say your name. I almost started crying.

John Lusher: But once I got to know her, it was like, Oh, this is a no brainer. I mean, I could literally pick up the phone, call her and refer her to anyone because I never, ever had to worry about it. I didn't have to ask about it. I didn't have to second. Guess it. Once I passed it off to her and or made the introduction I was out.

John Lusher: didn't even have to cross.

Mike Garrison: The only thing with her.

Mike Garrison: You just never wanted to be a passenger in the car with her.

John Lusher: Yeah, that's a true statement. That's a true statement.

Mike Garrison: Everybody.

John Lusher: She. She could drive somewhere faster than anybody I've ever known in my life.

Mike Garrison: We're talking about a dear friend of ours, Kimberly.

Mike Garrison: who.

Mike Garrison: effing cancer, stole from us.

John Lusher: Absolutely.

Mike Garrison: Anyways.

Mike Garrison: there's a road that goes from Floyd, Virginia

Mike Garrison: to Rocky Mountain.

Mike Garrison: Actually, Boonesville, is it Boonsville?

John Lusher: Boons boon's mill, I think. Yep.

Mike Garrison: It's the. It's the moonshine trail.

Mike Garrison: I had the great misfortune

Mike Garrison: going with her from Floyd. I think it'd have been better for Boos mill up. But coming down from Floyd, which is feet to Boos Mill.

John Lusher: it was an experience.

Mike Garrison: I've been miles an hour on a motorcycle, and not been as scared as I was with Kimberly, and she was laughing at me the whole time, and saying things

Mike Garrison: that were very nice about my masculinity.

John Lusher: I'm sure I miss.

Mike Garrison: I miss her a lot.

John Lusher: Oh, absolutely sure!

Mike Garrison: When when you're when you're looking at this.

Mike Garrison: what makes someone worth referring to?

Mike Garrison: I think one of the one of the highlights. And this is, if you're listening to this podcast or Youtube or whatever

Mike Garrison: number one, it's only happening because John helps me. So know that. So just good get throw Johnson business. But number 

Mike Garrison: I want you to understand

Mike Garrison: that some of the temptations that might have happened in your brain would be like, well, that's not fair, like John's telling me. I gotta be like I'm part of the family, and he's given me all these these demands.

Mike Garrison: I would encourage you to ask yourself.

Mike Garrison: why doesn't he get to determine

Mike Garrison: what the standards for him referring are? Because I'm sure you have yours.

Mike Garrison: Secondly, John has moved past

Mike Garrison: the the

Mike Garrison: the

Mike Garrison: place in his career

Mike Garrison: where he's interested in a high volume of non valuable introductions. Right? And so.

John Lusher: Exactly.

Mike Garrison: You're listening to this in your member referral group.

Mike Garrison: you're probably under some type of pressure to produce a certain amount of referrals, which is why you leave the referral Group.

John Lusher: %.

Mike Garrison: And there's more reasons. I wrote an article about it. You can look it up on Linkedin.

Mike Garrison: but but realistically, at a certain point, as you become more successful, which is our goal. For this right referrals need to migrate, they need to scale along with...