Unlock the Secret to More Referrals: How Gifting Can Grow Your Business with Steve Buzogany
Jan 20, 2023
Referrals are a valuable source of new customers and can significantly impact the success of your business. However, many people struggle to generate a steady stream of referrals.
In this episode of Cash In On Camera, the CEO & Founder of The Appreciation Advocate Steve Buzogany shares how gifting can be a powerful tool to grow your business.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll hear…
▶️ [1:39] Isn't that always the way though, where you solve your own problem and then you just basically stumble into this new business? I mean, it's just brilliant and I wanna be sure to make the distinction though, of what kind of gifting we're talking about before we're really getting into unlocking the secrets of how they can get more referrals with it. This is not the kind of gift where, I'm just trying to find an example of something around me here, like promotional items. And I think we all see those and we've all been to conferences where we get, You know, there are a thousand of these to give out. Those are promotional products, and that's different than what you're talking about. Explain to us what kind of gifting we're really talking about here.
▶️ [3:39] Yeah. For me it's actually because I'm more introverted than I am extroverted, so the problem with me was actually still is, I hate to make cold calls. Hate it. I can't go up to somebody and I can't go up to somebody and just start, like my best friend can call someone and be like, "Hey, it's Luke, how are you doing?" And they'll just like, "Oh, Luke, how you doing? It's so great to talk to you." And like when I call someone like, “Hey, just,” I can't just call just to call them like, he's so good at it, I'm not. People are like, "What do you want, Steve?" I'm like, "Nothing. Just wanted to say hi." And people are like, “Okay, you weirdo”, the coach told me I had to do this. Yeah, right. Exactly. That's exactly it. So I was terrible at that. So basically what I did is I started giving gifts because what it would do, it's like, it's not just an icebreaker, it's like an ice melter.
▶️ [5:39] It's a great point in that this is a great strategy for people who maybe feel that way. They feel shy or introverted, but it's also really powerful because it's a touchpoint and it's another reason to start a relationship and to start a conversation as opposed to it being like you said that cold calling can sometimes feel like I'm trying to sell something and there's something in it for me. It's not really gross. Yes, yes. And so this idea of a touchpoint is really important. One of the things that I say is always be talking to people. and I'll always be talking to people. Nothing bad can come from having conversations and talking to more people. Whether you're the host of a podcast, whether you're the guest of a podcast, whether you're getting on a private call, one-to-one, and just finding out what each is working on as you've described, or if it's a sales call or a discovery call, whatever type, always be talking to people. So I think that this aligns really well with this idea of giving a reason for that conversation to start or to continue.
▶️ [7:02] I think that it all depends. So like if you're trying to reach an influencer of some kind on Instagram or something like that, and you wanna prove to that person that you follow them, well, obviously you need to know a lot about the person. So that way the gift can be a lot about secret intimate things that they've said in their videos, and you can be like, maybe they one time said, that they love cooking and they just had their most recent pan. They had to throw it out because of something. You can send them a pan. Like, "Hey, I just remember when you said this back in January you lost your pan, or whatever you like." That's obviously like basic AF so like, but that's what it is you're showing them that you pay attention to them, that you notice the need and notice that those little things, when you notice those little things, that's big time.
▶️ [9:41] Sure. So what I would say is the rule of thumb is when you're dealing with past clients you want to set your budget to be about five to 10% of what they are worth to your company. So if you have a client that brings in a hundred grand a year, you should be giving that person five to 10 grand in gifts of some kind. You should have some kind of plan for that because if someone's giving you a hundred grand and you send them a $25 gift card to Amazon that is going to land very negatively. Even though it's a nice gesture it's gonna land really badly. So, when it comes to like prospecting and things, what I would tell you is what could the relationship be worth to you? And then use the same thing what's five to 10% of it, and then budget that for the year. So if you're pursuing someone that might be $20,000 and well, whatever, five to 10% of that basically a thousand to $2,000 over the next year. And it doesn't have to be crazy. You can do a lot with a thousand to 2000, you can give someone something for a hundred bucks every month for the next 20 months. I mean, that's consistent. It's high quality and I guarantee you that before 20 months is up, they're gonna call you.
▶️ [11:59] You mentioned the systemizing of this, and I think this is where if someone has, let's say a whole database of people that they're nurturing, maybe their existing clients and they wanna get that retention up, or they wanna sell more things to those people. Or it's a set of people that they're prospecting to, et cetera. Or just leads, maybe warm leads that they wanna turn into hot leads, there is a database likely of people. And so let's talk about the systematization of this, right? Because keeping track of all of those relationships, and the calls you're having with them is part of it. Yes. How does the gifting play into that? Is that something that you do with your company to help with the systemizing of all that?
▶️ [16:54] The truth doesn't come out in their response to whether it's a good gift or a bad gift. It's gonna be the, yeah, the same platitudes. So basically, yep. I like what you said there about it being a symbol. That's an interesting way of thinking about it. So are you able to give us an example? I mean, there are, obviously, there are countless ideas and really only limited to your imagination of what a gift could be. But can you give us an example of maybe something, a real-life example in your company of like, somebody gifted this to somebody, and this was an example of a really good gift? In that situation.
▶️ [19:42] I think that the really important thing to hear is to never forget that people make decisions emotionally and they justify logically and that there's no real true replacement for human-to-human interaction. So despite the fact that yes, we're looking at each other here through a screen and YouTube or zoom but if I was standing there in front of you shaking your hand, it's a completely different feeling. So don't ever underestimate the power of the human connection. And that's why I think gifting is so big because everything so today is so digital. It's just that everything is so on a screen. So when something off a screen shows up at the doorstep and it shows that like an emotional investment in someone. So for example, for what you do, Here's the best piece. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given was to make deposits in their emotional bank account, and then they will allow you to make withdrawals from their financial bank account.
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