Andrea Nordling 0:22 How Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the profitable nutritionist podcast. I am Andrea Nordling nutritional therapy practitioner and someone who needs to learn things the hard way. I always say I have learned everything I’m about to tell you the hard way so that you don’t have to and on this topic, what we’re going to be really going over today, and what I’m going to be sharing about today in growing your business through referrals. I have, for sure, learned everything I’m about to tell you the hard way. In fact, I have grown three businesses over the last 20 years. It makes me feel very old to say that I’ve been doing anything for 20 years, but that’s the reality of it. Here we are. I’ve done this three times in three different businesses, pretty much grown through referrals. So I know a lot about referral marketing. I know a lot about how to generate referrals, and I’ve done it wrong a lot of times, but I’ve also done it right, and I can share with you exactly how you can do that as well. So that’s what we’re talking about today. All about referrals. I want you to make more money in your nutrition or health coaching practice, and through referrals, and through happy people that get great results with you, and friends of friends of people that know and trust you, is a great way to do that. So let’s just jump right in. Shall we? I like to make this really simple and think of two ways to get referrals. There’s just two ways. First of all, from people you know and for people you don’t know. It’s way too simple, isn’t it? Yes, and really, business is very simple. So let’s keep it simple. People you know and people you don’t know, either you’re getting referrals from your audience, your network, your people, or you are going to borrow someone else’s audience, someone else’s network, someone else’s people. That sometimes means that your clients are referring to you, that’s your audience, but not necessarily. So don’t think that client referrals are the only referrals that we’re going to be talking about. I’m talking about anybody sharing word of mouth, style, good old fashioned, real humans in real life, either online or in person, that are sharing your stuff. There’s only two ways that happens from people that you know, people you don’t know. Here’s some examples. Your sister refers you to her college roommate whose mom is newly diagnosed with prediabetes. For example, you don’t know your sister’s college roommate’s mom. You don’t know her, but she’s a friend of a friend of a friend. Type of referral that came from someone that you do know, right? Great, wonderful. Or you do a talk at your local chiropractor’s office on addressing chronic inflammation with gut healing, something of that nature. And you get three clients from that. Now you don’t know those clients, but they came from you giving value to someone else’s audience. You’re leveraging someone else’s audience or someone else’s network that you were referred to so that person used their influence and referred you to their audience. In this case, it would be the chiropractor that was referring you to their network for your expertise. Okay, if you do a talk at a business that you have an in with about addressing insomnia, for example, through I mean, I just made some ideas here, like, just take them and run with them if they work. If you’re doing a dressing insomnia with three simple food tweaks, hint, hint, hint, something like that. You see what I’m saying, all right, someone is giving you access to their audience, and that is a referral. Now you want to leverage both of these groups, the people that you know and that you are currently doing life with in all areas, and the captive audiences or networks of other people that you could be serving as well, people you know, people you don’t know. You want to be leveraging both of these groups, because both of them have a lot to offer you in terms of referrals. But to do that with either group, you have to be able to talk about what you do in a really simple, approachable, understandable way. Most people do not do this that well, in the beginning of their business, I was one of those people. This is what I’m saying. I’ve earned the right to talk about this because I’ve done it really badly before, and I see people that don’t do this well and make some quick tweaks, which is what we’re gonna talk about today, and then do it really well. It’s just a skill you have to learn. Okay, so I’m gonna say that over and over and over today, but just know this. Hear this. If you haven’t done this well before, it’s okay. You just haven’t learned the skill yet, selling, marketing, promoting your business, all of that, connecting with other people, for that matter, networking, all of it, everything I’m talking about here is not a personality trait that you are either born with or you’re not born with. It’s not like having brown eyes or green eyes you’re either in or you’re out. It’s not like that if you haven’t done this well before, it’s just because you haven’t learned the skill. So I’m going to teach you the skill, and if you do this, well, it’s probably because, like me, in past businesses or past careers or past parts of your life, you learned how to do it. So you come into your wellness business already having that skill, and maybe it’s just easier for you because you’ve learned the skill in the past, but at some point you learn the skill. Bottom line is, it’s a skill that is learned, which means it is. Teachable, and I’m gonna teach it to you right now. In fact, this is what we talk about in the profitable nutritionist program all the time. We’re talking about messaging, we’re talking about marketing and selling, and how to do that really well. Because the truth is, you don’t just work with clients. That’s probably what you thought you were gonna do when you got into your business. So you were gonna spend all of your time changing the lives of your clients, and there’s a significant amount of that in your business, but really the truth is, you spend a lot of time marketing, spend a lot of time explaining to people what you do, so we need to make sure that you’re doing that well, and that means it has to be simple and approachable and understandable for the world at large. I’m gonna give you an example here, which I this is one of many. And I’m not singling any one person out, because I would say the majority of health and wellness professionals marketing that I look at, and I’m looking at people’s websites, and I’m looking at how they are communicating what they do with a potential referral partner, like a chiropractor or like a specialist, like a physical therapist. It could be any number of things, but when I look at how they are explaining what they do, either to a consumer or to a referral partner, I see people make this not simple, not approachable and not understandable. So this is a real example. I saw someone explaining on the main page of their website that they do functional lab testing to uncover possible dysbiosis and pathogens that are contributing to chronic symptoms and autoimmune conditions. Now, did that just make you tired? When I said that? Just make you really have to focus quite hard, and probably, if you’re listening to this podcast, you know what most of those words mean, and they actually you like you have context around them, you know what I’m saying, and you still had to think like kind of hard about what I was saying. It’s word vomit. It’s over explaining. It’s trying to be fancy. Use fancy terms that make you sound qualified and make you sound like an expert, make you really sound like you know what you’re doing. But actually it’s confusing and it’s intimidating. So don’t do that. Please don’t ever say dysbiosis. Ever, ever, ever. Please don’t ever say that unless your ideal dreamiest client knows what that means. And I will just offer that they probably don’t, unless you work with a very, very, very specific population, or you are generating referrals from a very specific type of practitioner that uses that vernacular day in, day out, and that’s how they explain the problem. Don’t use that word functional lab testing. Nobody knows what functional lab testing is that that might be what it is. I know what it is. You know what it is. I have to think kind of hard about it, but most people, by and large, don’t know what that means. They don’t know what pathogens are, even the word autoimmune. Once you’re diagnosed with autoimmune, you might not know what that means. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but it’s not simple, okay? It’s not simple, okay? It’s not approachable, it’s not understandable for most people. So using words like that that are really kind of higher level, make you sound experty, make you sound really qualified, make you sound fancy. Probably not the best words to use in your marketing. Fancy is never really the route that you want to be going, okay? Because it’s confusing, and ultimately, it makes people feel intimidated about asking what the word means. It doesn’t invite more conversation using words like that. And by the way, these are just some examples, but maybe you have other words that are pertinent to you in your industry or in your process, or with your ideal client that you’re using that you could sub in here, like some of the higher level words, they don’t invite conversation. They don’t open the door for someone to lean in and say, Oh, tell me more about that. How does that work? Wait a second. Tell me more. You know that’s what you want. You want the leaning in. You want people you want to you want to, like, drop some little breadcrumbs here that people want to follow along the path and have more conversations with you, right? That’s what we want in our messaging. We want people to move forward. We want them to come along, come along on the journey. And if you’re using really confusing words or unapproachable words, it’s not going to happen. Because ultimately people are thinking, Well, gosh, I don’t know what that means, but apparently I’m supposed to know what that means. So this is awkward. I’m just going to nod, or I’m just going to keep scrolling and come back to this later, maybe even with the best of intention of like, I’m going to come back to this later, but they probably won’t. I’m they probably won’t okay. So that’s one example of using words that are not simple, they’re not approachable, they’re not understandable to most people. Now the opposite of that is someone that uses really, really basic words that a fifth grader would understand. You want a fifth grader to be able to understand what you’re saying. So you could say, I work with people that have all sorts of stomach problems, like heartburn, bloating. You can even throw in food sensitivities here, if that, if people know what that is and they aren’t getting better, that’s where I come in, because I use some super cool lab tests. Most doctors don’t even know that these tests exist, but it’s really cool. They tell us what’s going on, like, Are there parasites? Are there infections, that kind of thing so we can get them on the right path. Okay, that’s much more understandable. We’re using some words that people understand. Okay, they know what parasites are, infection. You know what that means. So it’s kind of thought provoking. It’s like, whoa. Parasites. Now this is like, once again, people are like, heartburn. Parasites. Wait. Hold on, what was that? It invites more conversation. You could even say something like, you know, for most of my clients, they were popping Toms for years and years, but that doesn’t kill worms. So we got to do something else. I’m being very extreme here, but extreme in this situation works, right? And you can see how that would invite more conversation. We used words like worms, Tums, heartburn. People know what that means. They don’t know what dysbiosis means. They might know what worms means, okay, that invites more conversation. So it’s it’s subtle, but it’s really extreme, and it is really profound. When you can see the example between these two uncovering possible dysbiosis with functional lab testing gives me a headache. Saying we want to kill worms and Tums is not going to do that. It gives me something to attach to. I really I don’t have to think that hard about it. I understand what that means. Most people know what those words means, and we got a few buzzwords that we dropped in there, like heartburn, like bloating, worms. Okay, it’s, it’s got a little bit crazy that I keep saying the word worms here, but I’m using this example for a reason, because it is going to land with you and you’re going to see how, oh yeah, a fifth grader knows what that means. It’s not so intimidating for them to ask questions now, because they aren’t secretly thinking, oh my gosh, I’m going to have to say, I don’t know what that is. This is embarrassing. Apparently, I’m supposed to know what that word is, but I don’t know. And oh, let’s just move on to the next topic. You know, that’s what someone’s thinking when they when you’re using all the fancy words, or the virtual example of that, is when they’re reading through your website and they don’t understand it. They’re just going to scroll. They’re going to do something else. They’re going to think, this is too hard. I’ll come back to it later. Right now, in reality, what you’re wanting to do with your messaging is invite people on the journey to ask more questions, to open up the door to further conversation, so that they can get some questions answered. Maybe you can help to connect some dots that they never knew were connected before, which is going to now cement in their mind that you are the go to person for x. Okay, so you have to have a way for people to ask more clarifying questions, for them to get interested in what you do, so that you have the opportunity to talk about other things. I can imagine, people are listening to this podcast right now and they’re thinking, but I don’t just talk about heartburn. I talk about all the things. I talk about hormones, I talk about gut healing, I talk about weight loss, I talk about perimenopause, I talk about all this. Of course you do. Of course you do. I get that, but you have to have a starting point for people to ask you more questions and for you to be able to tell them about the things that you do. All right? So you have to have the beginning of the conversation is like an inviting door for them to walk through, where they feel really comfy and cozy to come through and they’re not scared or intimidated. Okay? So the way that you do this is by having some buzzwords, some things that you talk about that you have learned because you’ve paid attention to conversations that you have with real humans in the real world, either in person or online. But this is easier to do in person, where you can notice from their body language when they’re interested and when they would rather just end the conversation as quickly as possible, and nothing has gone wrong in that second scenario, it’s just something for you to be curious about. Oh, okay, what did I just say there that they did not understand? Where did it get confusing? I’m going to do it differently next time. I’m going to be curious, and I’m going to say something else next time. Or when you have a really hot person that’s asking you lots of questions afterwards, you can go, Okay, what did I say there that got them so interested, because I bet they’re going to be talking about me to a lot of people in the future when they talk about our burn, this is what you we want to do here. We want your people that you are doing life with your warm network, your friends, your family, your colleagues, your kids, like sport teammates, parents, the people that you are around in the world. We want them to know what you do, and we want them to be able to confidently refer you to their world, because they know what you do, and they can’t do that if they don’t know what you do, or if they’re confused about it and they don’t know who to refer to you. Okay, so when you’re having conversations with people in the world. Just keep it really simple, and I love for you to think about the people that are already there. Okay, there is no shortage of clients for you. I don’t know who your niche is, if you have one, if you don’t, I don’t care how small the town is that you live in. None of that matters. There are plenty of clients for you, either in person or online. They are everywhere. The sad truth is, clients are everywhere. People have never been sicker. And the good news is people have never been more open to different solutions to those sicknesses. So best place in time that you could ever be in as the kind of practitioner that you are right now, there’s no shortage of clients. If they are not pouring in your doors, it’s only because your messaging is not dialed, it is not connecting. They’re confused about something. So all we need to do is be curious about what is that. Are there plenty of people that are seeing your marketing and they would be ideal clients, but they’re not taking the next step with you? If so, it’s because something is confusing. If. You’re not getting any traffic whatsoever. You don’t have any people talking about what you’re doing. It’s because the people in your life don’t know what you’re doing and they don’t know who to send your way. Both of those are messaging problems. So here’s a little pro tip. Focus on the people you’re doing life with first, and the people that are already there, not growing your audience through digital marketing strategies, which is so complicated and is such a rabbit hole in and of itself, but don’t do any of those online marketing tactics until your messaging is really dialed in, because you’ll just be wasting your time. You’ll be getting ways to send out your message to a bigger proportion of people, and it’s the wrong message until it’s dialed in. So we want to make sure that what you’re saying is compelling people to move to the next step with you before you get really into anything digital that’s going to take it to the next level. Because taking something to the next level that isn’t working isn’t going to help it work better. You know what I’m saying? So keep this simple. Focus on people that are already there, first and foremost. For example, when you go to a holiday or you’re at a wedding, it’s summertime when I’m recording this, so I’m thinking all about the weddings and the graduation parties, and all of the things that we do family wise in the summer. I live in Minnesota, so it’s cold here for a lot of the year, which means we cram all of the socializing into three months of the year. So I’m seeing a lot of family members, and I’m seeing a lot of friends, and I’m seeing a lot of people that I don’t necessarily spend as much time with all year. So that’s fresh in my mind. I’m thinking like you’re at a holiday, or you’re at a wedding or something, or you’re at a tournament, a kids sport tournament. You can tell them, I’m in that phase of life as well. Just talking to people about what you do, people will casually and politely ask you about your business. Tell them, tell them something interesting, right? Like, oh my gosh, it’s going well, I love what I do so much. My clients get incredible results. In fact, my very favorite clients to work with are people with chronic insomnia that can’t sleep. So if you know anyone that is struggling with that and they’re not getting any answers, you have to send them to me. So my favorites, or whatever like, I say, chronic insomnia, that’s an example I use a lot because it is such a great conversation starter. People know people with insomnia, either they have it, or they know people that have it, and they have no idea that there could be a nutritional component to that. They have no idea that blood sugar regulation and insomnia are linked together. And so it’s a great conversation starter for you to Well, first of all, it makes them take a mental inventory and forever connect you with insomnia. And they’re gonna talk to people for the rest of their life that aren’t sleeping well, and if they know what you do and how to send those people to you, because it’s really approachable, it’s really simple, it’s really easy for them to explain, then they’re going to do that. So referrals, hello, that’s great. But also it invites conversation about what other things may be connected that they never knew were connected. So this gives you an opportunity to talk about the other aspects of what you do and other things that, oh yeah, people that have heartburn and they’re getting no like they always have heartburn, they think that they’ll just have heartburn forever. Actually, my friend, do you need more clients? Or, even better yet, do you need higher quality clients. Because if you said yes to either of those questions, I’m going to help you do it. Go to the profitable nutritionist.com/clients, C, l, i, e n, t, s, plural, and save your seat for a free virtual event September 9 to the 13th. During that five days together, I’m going to teach you everything you need to know about marketing to get the right clients on autopilot an unlimited amount all the time. Again, the profitablenutritionist.com/clients go, save your seat, and I will see you there. There’s a lot that we can do about that that’s going to help them really quickly and also probably make their joints less sore, or put something in there inflammation related, connect some dots. Like, that’s a great conversation. Like, Wait, what are you talking about? Like, well, most people that have heartburn. Now, as I’m saying this, I’m like, Is this even true? But I think it might be so. Fact check me on this. But like, most people that have heartburn also have data like, put something else in there that’s a plaguing symptom that people have, and say it in a really easy to understand way. So they think, Huh, this is wild. I like I want to talk to you about this more. I want to do some of this testing that you do, if that’s what you do, and you don’t have to run tests, by the way, I also have some clients that I work with that think, oh my gosh, I have to offer lab testing to be able to help clients. Know, you don’t insert whatever your process is here, but I do know a lot of clients of mine that use lab testing and they don’t know how to talk about it with people. They don’t know how to explain how valuable it is. So I’m just giving some examples here. Anyway, you want to give some conversation starters, drop some nuggets in that are going to be buzzwords that people understand and are going to connect you with that word from that point forward. And then you just need to tell them, if you know anyone struggling with that and they’re not getting any answers, you have to send them my way. I would love to talk to them. We’ll do a free call together. Tell them, tell them that that’s where people really, really drop the ball, because they think, well, they know someone that’s interested. They’ll they know how to. A hold of me. They’ll track me down. They’ll go find my website. They’ll go, no, stop it. Tell them. Tell them what to do if you are struggling with that, or you know anyone that is, you have to send them to me. I will help them. Okay, that’s what it sounds like. Copy that down, because your certainty about it and your conviction around it and your confidence is what they are going to borrow. That is what makes anybody want to send you a referral. When they’re like, Oh man, she’s got this, or he’s got this, because you are making people feel comfortable send, like, putting kind of putting their name behind you, putting their neck out a little bit to refer you to their network and their audience, however big or small that may be, see what I’m saying. All right, so you got to be confident about it. You got to have a little conviction there. Even if you’re not feeling it, you just pretend. Pretending to be someone that’s confident is the fastest way to be confident. By the way, it’s the same thing. Just act the part of someone that’s confident, and you’ll be amazed at how fast you actually just feel confident, and then you are that person. It’s amazing. So just, oh my gosh, if you know anyone that has that, you have to send them to me. Okay, that’s all there is to it. And then tell them how to do that. All right, make it really simple. Make a really simple process for how they send people to you and how they share the info with you. Now, ideally, if they’re like, oh my gosh, my sister has insomnia, we’re just gonna go with the insomnia example, oh my gosh, my sister has insomnia. She has been on sleeping pills for years. It’s, I feel so bad for her. She never can sleep. Go, okay, here’s what I want you to do, pull out your phone, do a group text with me and your sister, and just tell her who I am, and I’ll follow up with her. She we can do a free call or something, or if there’s someone else I can send her to, I’ll do that. We get, like, really, just no nonsense. This is not hard. This is not a hard sell. It’s like, I’m gonna give you some answers. I’m gonna do a free call with you, just do a three way text, three way email, something like that, ideally, so that you can then follow up with the person. Because what happens is people get busy, they forget that they were going to send someone to you. Then you end up feeling awkward, like, Oh, should I follow up with them about their sister? Or were they just being nice? I don’t know. Then you get in your head about it, so the more comfortable you can be just telling them, Hey, start a three way conversation. I’ll take it from there, the better. Or you could send people to your website or say, give them my phone number, give them my email. That, of course, works as well if they remember to pass it on, but a lot of times people won’t. So just know that it is an option for you to suggest that they just start a conversation right then and there and say, I’ll take it from there. I’ll handle it. Be confident, right? Be professional. Be confident. Let them know. Oh, this is professional. She’s She just can handle it. That’s so great. Okay, now, when it comes to your clients, and how to talk about your clients, about referrals, you have to use the assumptive close. What the heck is the assumptive close? It’s assuming that you have the clothes already. It’s assuming you’re making the sale. In this case, it’s assuming, and just presuming, that people are already referring you. So you don’t say now, if you know anybody, here’s what you do, no. You say no. When you talk to people about the work that we’re doing together, here’s how you can explain it to them. When you talk to people about the process we’re doing together, when you talk to people about these amazing results that you’re getting, when you do that now, do you see what just happened? You kind of set the expectation to your clients that, of course, they’re talking about the amazing results that they’re getting. Of course they’re talking about how life changing this process is, and the work that you’re doing together is and you’re presuming that they’re going to be sharing it. So now they’re thinking, oh yeah, I should be sharing this. Oh yeah, I should be talking about this more. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but it’s these little subtle just it’s the nuances. It’s the little things. When you talk to people about the work we’re doing together, here’s how you can explain it. I know we’ve done some really, really cool stuff. We’ve done a lot of things. My clients often ask me, like, I don’t even know how I should be telling people about this. So I just wanted to share with you, here’s how you can explain it to people when you’re talking to them about it, and then tell them, like, here’s what we do. First, I do a free call with you to figure out what’s going on in your body, because it’s very different person to person, and that’s why this approach works so well, because we’re going to find out the few root cause, things that are giving you the problems that you’re having. And then we’re gonna do this, and then we’re gonna do that. Make it a three step process. Tell them. Here’s how you explain it. Make it really simple, make it really approachable. Make it easy to understand. For the love, do not say the word dysbiosis. Okay, we’re good. No dysbiosis, no functional lab testing. We don’t say that. We don’t say dysbiosis. Don’t do it. Simple messaging, simple process for how they refer people to you, tell them what that is. Be confident. Just be normal. Don’t be a weirdo. When it comes to talking about your business in the beginning, if you’ve never done this before, you will sound like a weirdo, because it’s a skill that you have not learned, and that’s okay. We gotta put in the reps. I could tell you stories my friend, about the weirdo conversations that I had as a newbie real estate agent. I could tell you about some weirdo conversations I had when I was trying to explain to people what a nutritional therapy practitioner did and how I could help them. Weirdo I sounded like. A weirdo, but here’s what I did. I kept having conversations. I was willing to sound like a weirdo a few more times so I could figure out how to not sound like a weirdo anymore, and that’s what I want you to do too. Nothing has gone wrong. If this is a little clunky in the beginning, but if you’re paying attention, you’re going to see what causes people to lean in, what causes them to ask follow up questions. What gets them excited? Just pay attention to those things and do more of those things. And then when you have a weirdo moment, take note and go, Okay, that was not the angle. We’re not gonna do that again. Not gonna say dysbiosis again. That wasn’t helpful. Okay, moving on. Note to self, it’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up if you have not done this well up to this point. It is just a skill you’re learning. Best news ever. It’s really not that hard to learn. Okay, you just need some practice. You need to have a really good, solid offer, by the way, of how you help people, so that when people say, Okay, well, what’s the next step? I know someone who needs you, or I need this, depending on what that conversation sound sounds like, you know what to tell them, Okay? And you have a really solid offer, and you have a really great process that you bring them through that guarantees they’re going to get results. That’s what we work on in the TPN program, by the way. So I’m going to make a shameless plug here that you need to know how to do some basic business stuff. In addition to your messaging, you need to have this really solid offer. You need to have a really solid client process, and you need to simplify the things that you’re doing in your business so that you’re not wasting a bunch of your own time. And that is what we do in the profitable nutritionist program. So get into the program. If you are not in there, why aren’t you? I’m very confused. Go to the profitable nutritionist.com/join you will always see the dates of the next enrollment on that page. And right now, as I’m recording this episode, the next dates are September 12 to the 18th. So if you aren’t in the TPN program and you’re not sure if you have a good offer, and you’re not sure if you’re messaging it very well, and you aren’t having a ton of referrals come in, and you’re a little confused about how you could make your client process better so that you get even more referrals. That’s what we do in there. Okay, come in, the profitable nutritionist.com/join, is where you’re going to get all the info on that. So now let me ask you this. I’m going to switch gears a little bit, but I’m going to ask you a question that I asked one of my clients recently, and it yielded a very interesting answer. It wasn’t surprising, but it was interesting. And so I’m going to ask this question to you. She was telling me that she didn’t have a lot of leads coming in. She’s struggling to get clients. We established that there should be plenty of clients available for her, and there should be for you as well, but they weren’t flooding in the doors. So I said, Let and she was looking at some really complicated and advanced internet marketing strategies, like creating a webinar and marketing a webinar, and all of those things work really well, by the way. And those are things I do in my business, but they didn’t work well in the beginning when my messaging was not dialed in. So I was coaching her basically on that same concept, and saying, you know, yeah, all of that works, and all of that is a great idea, but first we need to figure out why they aren’t organically coming in right now. What is not landing with the way that you’re talking about your business right now. And so I was trying to figure out if she was not talking about her business well, or if she was just not talking about her business. So I said, Hey, does your best friend know what you do? She was like, No, my best friend has no idea what I do. Okay, that’s interesting. Does your hairdresser know who to send your way? No, I don’t talk about my business to my hairdresser. Okay, so this is where we’re gonna start. This is where we’re gonna start. And those two questions actually were what prompted me to want to record this episode, because it’s so important. I mean, first of all, your hairdresser talks to people all day long, every day, all week long, all month long, all the time, and knows everything about their their life, and unfortunately for that, hairdresser knows everything about their body and everything about their health complaints. So your hairdresser, my friend, needs to know who to send your way. This is the lowest hanging fruit available, second only to your best friend that knows you and loves you and wants to support you. But if they don’t know what you do or how you do it, or in a really simple way, they don’t know how to explain it, they can’t help you with that. So this is where we have to start, the people that are nearest and dearest to you, and for goodness sake, your hairdresser. So do this audit for yourself. Does my best friend know what I do? Like, really? Could they sum it up in one sentence, and do they know who to send your way? Or are they kind of confused about it? And by this point, so much time has gone by that they’re embarrassed to ask you, like, you know, you know that situation as well. Like, there might be people I can think of, like some of my my friends, spouses, that I kind of know what they do, but I don’t actually know what they do. However, we are good enough friends that I should know. So at this point, I feel really weird asking too many questions. Because, like, I definitely should have asked this a few years ago, and I didn’t. So now this is awkward. Now in that situation, what would be the very best would be if we could have a redo? So if that is the case in your life, have a redo. Okay, I’m going to tell you about that in a second. What that can sound like, but just know that that’s that’s not permanent. You can do a redo. I wish some people in my life would do a redo so that i. Didn’t have to ask about it. Okay, all right, so there’s no right way to do this. There’s no wrong way to do this, experimentation with your messaging and your marketing and your business. But I’m going to give you, like, kind of a framework, four steps that you can do today. Okay, if you, again, haven’t done this well, and you’re like, No, just help. Just give me a little bit of direction on how I can start to fix this, or how I could do this better. That’s what we’re going to go through. But before we do, I just want to say for the 10th time, 100th time, and I will always say this, it’s just a skill that you can learn. Okay, if you have not learned this skill yet, to be a good marketer for your business, you can learn this skill. Many people come into this career of theirs already having learned that in another industry. If you haven’t, it’s okay, this is your time to shine. Teach it to you right now. You can learn it. Don’t be so hard on yourself. All right. So here are your four action items, your action list for today. First of all, I want you to make a list of the people in your life that love you and know you and they want to support you, but they’ve never sent a referral your way. Make that list. Okay, like actually, you’re going to take out a piece of paper and you’re going to make this list of people. You’re not going to complicate it. You’re not going to try to edit this list of people that would be good referral partners, people that wouldn’t be people. No, no, just make a list people. These are people that love me and they know me and they would support me, but they never have. I want to see who those people are. Okay, don’t make it more complicated than that. Now, on a separate page, I want you to make a list of people in your world, either in person or virtually, that have access to an audience of potential clients. For you make that list now, again, I don’t want you to complicate this, but I want you to think of people in your life that are business owners, that are in Human Resources at a company, for example, that are influencers online, if that’s if that’s a thing, and if you have a specific niche, and there are influencers that you know, or people that are in that world that could potentially be a referral partner for you, Just put them on the list. Make the list. Other practitioners in your area, other practitioners online that have like they’re a parallel so they don’t do exactly what you do, but they serve the people that you would want to serve. Make that list. All right. So your first list is people that love you, that know you, that want to support you, but have never referred you before. Those are just people you’re lifeing with put them on the list. Second list are potential referral partners, whose audiences you would love to borrow, or that you could borrow at some point. And then third, I want you to write down what would each of those two lists of people need to know about you, and what would they need to know about your process and the value that you could provide to their people that would compel them to share. Don’t make this too complicated, and it might be different for each of the lists. That’s why we made two separate lists here. Don’t want you to get too complicated about it. I don’t want you to start outlining free workshops that you could be hosting for your chiropractor yet, or something like that that can come later. But right now, I just want you to think in broad terms. What would I want them to know? As a step one for the people in your life that love you and know you and want to support you, or totally would support you, but they’ve never referred you thus far. What do you want them to know? And what would compel them to potentially start referring to you as a step one? And then for that second list, who are people that have an audience, big or small, doesn’t matter, of potential clients, and what do you want them to know? What would they need to know as a step one to feel compelled to have you share something for their audience, or for them to share you with their audience? I’m going to give you an example from my business so that this like you can just see how simple this is when I ask myself this question, and this is an actual question that I ask myself, and this is an actual question that I pose as a coaching question to my clients in the TPN program and in the mastermind I say, What do you want your people to know we were just sitting down to have coffee with them? What would you want to tell them we want to make this so complicated we don’t need to make this complicated. It’s like if we were having coffee together. What would I want you to know? So in my business, I just want people to know that if they’re struggling to get clients in their business, it’s just because they’re lacking a few fundamental skills, and I can teach them those skills. The clients are there. The interest is there. We can have a great process. We can get a great offer together. It’s usually just a messaging problem anyway, that’s an easy fix. That’s what I would want people to know. If you’re struggling, there’s just a few things that we’re going to fix, very similar, by the way, to a root cause approach with your health. If you’re struggling in your health, there’s just a few things we’re gonna address, root cause style, it’s probably gonna fix it. So anyway, that’s what I want people to know. Like the root cause of most of their business problems is usually a messaging problem. That’s an easy fix. And then when I offer to do a free teaching somewhere, like a nutrition school, that’s full of my ideal clients. For example, that’s exactly what I say. I say to them, Hey, I can teach a free class that will help your people know what to say and what not to say, so that they get more clients. Super simple. See how simple that is. Now, most say yes, because that’s the elephant in the room. Is how to get clients in my industry. And you probably understand that that’s. A huge elephant in the room, like, okay, and I have all of these skills, I have all of these processes I could help everyone in the world. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited, but I don’t know how to get clients. That’s That’s what people are wondering, right? So that’s a huge way that I can serve groups of people through my referral partners, is helping their people get more clients. All right, so what’s the elephant in the room for your referral partners, what would you want them to know that you can help their most complex clients, the ones that need so much hand holding and need extra help, are actually the ones that you want think about that. If you said, hey, you know those clients of yours that are pretty complex and they take a lot of time and you don’t have time for them, those are the ones I want to work with, I get them the best results. Tell them that, like, how amazing is that? Right? What’s the elephant in the room for referral partners that you would work with? Don’t expect that they know that those are your people. Don’t expect that they know how you can help in their business. Don’t expect that they know that’s just one example. But you need to tell them just and just make it really simple. If we were having coffee together, what would I want them to know as a step one, super, super simple. So make a list of the people in your life that know you and love you and want to support you, and just make that list. Then make the list of potential referral partners that have access to groups of people. Again, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. You know people that own businesses. You know people that probably work in human resources at a company and are looking for ways to serve their employee base. Maybe there’s other practitioners. Maybe it isn’t. Who knows. The sky’s the limit here, but you probably can think of, even if you don’t have a personal relationship with them. You can think of people that you could probably get in front of, virtually or in person and tell them a way that you could serve their people. But first you have to know how that is. You have to have your messaging figured out for that, and it has to be simple and approachable and really valuable for their people. Okay, so you’re going to do those things, those three things, and then step four is you’re going to make a plan for telling those people those things. You’re going to actually make a plan for it. Is it going to be in text? Is it going to be an email? Is it gonna be in person? Are you gonna send them a DM, a letter in the mail, carrier pigeon? You’re gonna send smoke signals their way. I don’t know what you’re gonna do, but you’re going to make the plan for how you’re going to tell the people the thing you just wrote down. What would I want them to know now? How are you going to tell them that? Put it on your calendar? Actually make the plan. I’m going to do X amount of these per day for the next month or two months, or whatever it is for you, and then you’re going to actually do it. But don’t lie to yourself and say that you’re going to do all of it in one day, because you’re not. And you’re going to punt that task every single day for the next year. And then you’re still going to be listening to this podcast and saying, Andrea, I still don’t have referrals coming in, and it’s because you made it too big of a deal. So break it down. Say you’re doing three or five or 10 per day, whatever it is that’s doable, and you’re just going to break them out over a certain period of time. You’re going to put it on your calendar as the most important thing that you could be doing in your business is telling people what you do in a really, really simple, approachable way. Okay, so you actually have to do this thing. And like I said before, where I kind of wish I could have a do over with some of my friends, spouses, jobs, maybe some of my friends, to be honest, I could probably know more about what they do too, as I’m kind of taking an inventory here. So maybe this is something I need to do, is I need to reach out to them proactively and say I should have asked more questions 10 years ago. But I really don’t Speaker 2 38:20 actually know what you do. Tell me what you do. I’m Andrea Nordling 38:23 sure there’s a better way to do it. I’m kind of I’m kind of kidding, but I’m kind of serious. So make light of it. Okay, if that’s your personality, make light of it. Just Hey, Sarah, it was recently brought to my attention that I’ve been so vague about my business and the kind of clients that I work with that wasn’t intentional. But better late than never. Here’s who I help. I don’t know what you say. Who do you help? I help people that have prediabetes and they don’t want to take prescriptions. Make it specific. You know, everything we talked about in this episode. Use some buzzwords, tell them. Or if you don’t have any buzzwords like that, keep it general, but be specific. Like I help people that have chronic health stuff going on and they aren’t getting answers from their doctors. If that is pertinent to you or I help people that have really limited diets and they aren’t feeling any better. And there’s they like have nothing that they can eat, they feel super limited on what they can eat. I’m spitballing here, but pick something that sounds good, send it out if you know anyone. I would love to do a free call with them, see if I can help. Just make it easy. All right, something is better than nothing here, and just do it. Put it on your calendar and just do it. And then the great thing about this is that you can see, after the first few do people ignore it? Do they send something back? Are they asking clarifying questions? Do they want to know more? Pay attention. Just be curious. Okay, well, you might change your wording a little bit, depending on what people say or what they don’t say, you might change how you talk to people in person, like we said before, when you can tell where they get engaged, where their eyes glass over. All right, so all of this works. If you don’t have a flood of clients in your business, it is not because you’re too expensive. It is not because people in your area don’t want holistic help. None of that is true. Okay, so take all of that out of the equation. It’s only because they’re confused about something. Your messaging is confusing in some way, and it’s time for you to figure out where that breakdown is happening and to fix it. That’s it. It’s just a messaging problem, I promise. And one last note on this, because you may be thinking that referrals from your current clients or past clients are the only kind of referrals. I think I’ve kind of debunked that in this episode, but I will touch on this before we’re done. To just circle back to your clients. Your clients are not your sales force. Okay, they are not but if they aren’t sending referrals to you, why not? We also want to be curious about that. Okay, so get curious. I’m gonna have you hit the pen and paper one more time here, if your clients past present are not sending you referrals, why not get curious about it? Write out a list of reasons why they might not be sending referrals your way. What are they confused about? What are they embarrassed about? What do they not know how to talk about? And how could you potentially help them overcome those things. First, you need to just be curious, like, here are the reasons it could be. And then you need to ask, huh, is there something I could do that would help? I’m gonna give you an example. Here. I have a friend that I referred to one of my clients in the mastermind. So I know both of them. I know the practitioner, and also this is a good friend of mine, so I know her personally as well. She’s having amazing, amazing results, and we know a few other people in common that I think could really use the same kind of support that she’s getting. And so I said, Hey, how come you haven’t told so and so about the work that you’re doing? Because I was like, That’s so strange, like You’re raving about these results that you’re getting, but I but I don’t think that you’re telling these other people that we have in common. I’ll do it. But I was just wondering why she hadn’t, and she’s her reason was, she’s like, I just, I think that it’s too expensive for them. I don’t think that they, they would pay for that. That’s so interesting, right? So she, as the client, has the thought, I’m sure erroneous thought, that other people won’t pay as much as she will to solve this, these health problems like, that’s so interesting. So if I was that practitioner, and I was thinking, huh, I wonder why I’m not getting as many referrals. And she probably is getting a ton of referrals. But I’m just saying, like, this is a concrete example that is fresh in my mind. I would think, Okay, well, maybe people think that other people don’t have the out of pocket to be able to afford it, or that they wouldn’t afford afford it, or that they only work with stuff they can bill insurance to. Like, there could be variations of that, right? So an example of how the practitioner could help overcome that would be to gently remind current clients and past clients how much on average, people are spending to solve this problem out of pocket and how much insurance doesn’t pay, for example, if that’s something that they think, or you would think, might be a hindrance, and then how much money and time it saves to hire you, but break it down, like put some numbers to it, and then have a mechanism in place where you are reminding your clients about this because they don’t know they’re not thinking about it. They have a preconceived notion, maybe, that other people don’t pay out of pocket. So having some numbers here and having, like I said, a mechanism in place where maybe it’s odd, like auto emails that get delivered over the course of three or six months as you’re working together, something like that, or just part of your process where you share some numbers do that okay, because although your clients are not your sales force, if they aren’t sending referrals your way, there’s a reason, if they’re getting results and they’re not telling everybody about it, there’s a reason. I have a friend that does sex coaching, and she’s like, gosh, people don’t really want to talk about this, like, but they do, they do, and it’s if they’re not talking about the topic. There’s a different reason for that. So let’s get to the bottom of what that reason really is. Because people talk about everything they’re getting results, they talk about every aspect of their life, and that is just the truth. So if they’re not sharing what they’re doing with you or how they’re doing it and how it’s changing everything for them, it’s because they’re confused or they’re intimidated about something. And there’s probably something you could do to help overcome that. Okay, so that was a lot about all of the referrals again, if this is not something you’re doing well right now, and you don’t have all the referrals coming in from everyone in your life, every past client that you’ve ever had, every current client, your hairdresser, people that have never met you before. If that’s not your reality right now, that doesn’t mean it won’t be. You just have a messaging problem, okay? And that is what we fix in the profitable nutritionist program. So I’m going to give a shameless plug again, that if you are not in the TPN program, you gotta be there is a tried and true framework, step by step, that you learn in the program for how to do this and then how to do it better, and how to evaluate it and do it better and better and better, and then how to build on that demand that you are generating from word of mouth, so that you can scale with this little thing called the internet, and have all of the strangers from the internet, should you choose to that are finding you as well, because your messaging is so compelling, but in the beginning, it starts with your first few people, and then we grow. From there. Don’t be intimidated. There is a process for this. I will teach you how to do it. Go to the profitable nutritionist.com/join, and if you’re listening to this episode in real time, mark your calendar, because enrollment opens September 12 to the 18th. If you’re listening to this episode in the future, you can always go to that page and it’ll tell you the dates of the next enrollment. All right, my friend, go get all of the referrals, and I’ll see you next week, my friend, listen. You don’t have a business if you don’t have paying clients, period, which is why I am hosting a very special five day free virtual event starting Monday, September 9, called clients week. To sign up for the free training, go to the profitable nutritionist.com/clients, plural, to save your seat. Clients week is free for you to access for all five days of our virtual training together, although you will actually be getting access to paid content. So you get it for free. This is actually paid content from inside the profitable nutritionist program where I teach you exactly what to say and what not to say to get the right clients and as many of them as you want. By the way, I have released this training for free for a limited time before, and the feedback floods in afterwards that the short five daily exercises that you get during the training are more actionable than most paid courses that people have invested in in the past. In fact, I got an email from a holistic nutritionist that took the clients week content and used it to launch her business from scratch and have her first $10,000 month that same month, boom. Not to mention, you get a peek behind the scenes at what the content is like inside the TPN program. Since, like I said, you’ll be watching actual videos from inside and for September 2024 for the first time, you are also going to be getting hands on support from me and my team to create your 60 day marketing plan together. In fact, we’re gonna show you how to create all of your marketing materials in less than an hour. It’s gonna be so fun I cannot wait. So listen up, clients. Week is gonna give you the exact strategy you need if you don’t have any clients yet, or if you do have clients, but your current clients aren’t your dream people, and they are burning you out. So for five days straight, September 9 to the 13th, you are going to learn everything you need to know about marketing and selling to your most ideal clients, the perfect ones, the ones you want to clone and have 100 of including live Q and A time and marketing help from me and my team, where you get to ask all of your questions. The result, after our five days together, higher quantity and higher quality of clients for you, you will not see marketing or client delivery taught this way anywhere else, and you sure as heck are not going to see it given away for free. So to sign up for the free training again, go to the profitable nutritionist.com/clients plural, and save your seat. That’s the profitable nutritionist.com/clients and I will see you on day one with a training video bright and shiny in your inbox on Monday, September 9, you.
