[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back for another episode of the Unscripted Small Business podcast. Our guest today is Brandon Barnum, also known as the king of referrals. He's an award winning entrepreneur, speaker and visionary leader dedicated to helping people thrive through connection and community. As the CEO of HOA.com and the best selling author of the Raving Referrals book series, Brandon has built networks connecting millions of members across the Globe, helping over 250,000 real estate professionals grow their businesses. In this conversation, Brandon shares his inspiring journey and the key role referrals played in his success. He'll discuss mindset shifts, strategies for building referral partnerships, and effective networking techniques, especially for introverts. Plus, we'll explore the power of community follow up and how AI is changing relationship building. Get ready for actionable insights on growing your business through connection and the art of asking for referrals. Let's jump in.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Brandon, it's so wonderful having you in the studio today. Thanks for being here.
[00:01:12] Speaker C: Oh, thank you, Abby. It's my pleasure.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: So I'm really excited to talk about all things referrals because I hear that you are the king of referrals.
[00:01:22] Speaker C: Well, that's what they call me.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Why don't you give us a little bit of background into why you might have adopted that nickname?
[00:01:31] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, it's interesting, I didn't adopt it. It was described to me on the magazine cover and so that's what people say, so I accept it. But I got started back in my 20s. I found out in college you don't have to be married to have a kid. And I had a son at 22 and I had full custody at 24, and I was only making about 20,000 a year at that point. And so I just, there wasn't a enough month left at the end of the money and I had to make a change. And so I got into the mortgage industry and thank God I had somebody that taught me the art and the science of what I now call raving referrals. And through that mentorship, I was able to 10x my income from 20,000 to $200,000 a year within 18 months. And so ever since then, I've just been on a mission to help as many people as possible do the same thing. I've closed over half a billion dollars in training transactions by referrals. And, you know, now I get to partner with some pretty amazing companies and do lots of fun things. And over my career, I've helped over 5 million people improve their referral business. So it's something I'm super passionate about.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Well, Brandon, that is absolutely incredible. Congratulations on the success that you've witnessed throughout your lifetime. And just all of the people that you're helping with referrals. That's super incredible. And referrals are so important when it comes to business, because that's oftentimes how we get our customers.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. So important. So what's interesting is if you are in B2B sales, you sell to business owners or businesses. 84% of B2B sales start with a referral because it's all based on trust. So if you want to sell to a business, you better be working by referral, otherwise, it's a long slog and a hard road. So. But the other thing is, maybe you sell to homeowners and super important there, too. If someone is referred to you, they are 400% more likely to hire you because of the trust that gets transferred by the other person saying, oh, my gosh, you gotta meet Abby Crane. She's amazing. You're gonna love her. She's gonna take good care of her, of you. And then the other thing that happens, Abby, is when you get referred like, you're on. You gotta deliver to keep those referrals coming. So it sort of elevates your service standard as well.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, I'm so excited to talk more about just the mindset of, you know, giving proper referrals and receiving referrals. But I want to jump back to what you originally said of how you increase your income from 20,000 to 200,000 within 18 months. I mean, that is a really significant increase. What was that mindset shift like for you to go from, you know, making 20,000 to 200?
[00:04:11] Speaker C: You know, the mindset was fantastic, right? Because then it was financial freedom. It's like, okay, now I actually have money to not only pay for daycare, but also for my mortgage and other stuff. But it was really the strategy shift that led to the breakthrough. And the strategy shift was all about identifying other people that were serving my perfect prospects every day. Right? So in my case, I was in the mortgage business. Clearly, I got a lot of business from real estate agents. That was, like, the center of my bullseye. I always teach people, if you look at a bullse. A dartboard and think about who's your perfect prospect in the middle of that dartboard? Who is that? Can you define it? Do you have a vision for it? Do you know exactly who you want to partner with? And if not, you need to. You need to take the time and audit that and really, for me, it was beyond real estate agents. It was general contractors. It was property managers, home inspectors, appraisers, financial advisors, people that were serving homeowners every single day. And what would happen is they'd have a client or a customer come to them with a problem, or they were thinking about buying and they hadn't been approved yet. And I became the solution to their clients challenges. And so I made myself invaluable to them because now they had a trusted partner and professional that they could refer to, and they felt confident knowing that I was going to take care of their people and make them look good. And so that was really the strategy shift that unlocked everything for me.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: What was that like trying to find out the solution for your target customer?
[00:05:52] Speaker C: You know, I started by interviewing the partners that I wanted. What I did was I first went and I said, okay, who's already serving the homeowners? I want to search and serve. And we talked about some of those industries. Then I went to them and I said, what is it that you're looking for? How can I help you? How can I add value to your business? What challenges do you face? And what I wanted to do is find a solution that nobody had thought of before. And so quite frankly, part of my secret to my success was back in 1997, I built an early version of Zillow. So back in 1997, in Portland, Oregon, there was really no way to sit online and view home listings. If there was a property listing, it had no photos. And I said, this is silly. I want to sit at home in my underwear and shop for homes. And now it's like, duh, of course. But back then, it didn't exist. So that's what I created in Portland, Oregon. It was called the Portland Online Home Buyer Guy. And then I went to real estate agents and I said, I'd love to feature your
[email protected] and I chose properties that were on busy streets. And I chose those properties for two reasons. One is I knew they'd get a lot of traffic, right? A lot of visibility, so that when they saw that for sale sign at the bottom, I gave these signs to the realtors that said, view this
[email protected] and the realtors were able to win more listings because they said, hey, if you list your home with me, I'm going to get it featured on the Internet. And people are like, what's the Internet? Right? This is almost 30 years ago. But then what I did is the two reasons I wanted visibility of that writer sign. But number two is I knew that if it was on a busy street, that property wasn't going to change very often. So my ad was there on the bottom of their for sale sign being seen for a long time. But adding value to the real estate agents was the key. I separated myself from the competition. I offered something that nobody else had and nobody was even thinking about. And in doing so, I added massive value to the partners that I wanted to attract. And then I started attracting buyers myself, and I was able to refer business to them. And that's the key. You want to have reciprocal referral partnerships where you're not just receiving, but you're giving referrals. You're on the lookout and scouting for business for the people that you're in partnership with, where a client for one becomes a client for everyone.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, and I love that you're touching on this, because something that I find to be really valuable in business is just having an abundance mindset, meaning that you're not going to be the only person that is going to work with a potential client. And there's always somebody for every person in your customer base.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: 100%. And my mentor taught me that one plus one equals 11. Right. And so you look for who can you put together. Like, I love what you're saying about the abundance mindset, and I love to give more. One of the seven laws of raving referrals is to is that giving is the key that unlocks receiving. Right. The more you give, the more you receive. And so just yesterday I was on with the partnership manager for pods and we're doing a partnership with pods and my tech platform, hoa.com and so we're going to promote pods to all of the homeowners that are going to be moving and need to help with their moving and storage. Right. It's a great brand. They provide amazing service. I'm proud to partner with them. Now, what I did is, as I'm on the conversation, and this man manages all of their relationships with aaa, with USAA and all of these massive corporate enterprise accounts. But I'm sitting there going, okay, who doesn't they have? Who don't they have a partnership with? Who can I connect them with that they're not already working with? And so I'm getting them connected to a new mover utility setup company that does all the work, the concierge work for Zillow. And I asked him, do you already have a relationship with this company? He said, no. So now I'm connecting those people. And what I love about connecting people is several things. One, you're adding value to every single one of them, and you're just able to make a lot of impact and sometimes a lot of income. But also, every time they connect, I guarantee you they're going to say, hey, have you talked to Brandon lately? I love that guy. He's always giving and making a difference every time I talk to him.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's wonderful. And that kind of leads us into how do you start to build that. That base? How do you start to build connections? Especially as somebody that maybe might be a little bit more shy. I'm thinking about the people that are at networking events. They're kind of along the wall. What type of advice would you give them to help kind of establish some of those strong partnerships?
[00:10:51] Speaker C: You bet. You bet. Great question, by the way. I'm going to do this in two parts. Okay? So first of all, let's talk about how do you build referral partnerships? You can go to hoa.com blueprint and download the referral partner Blueprint. This tells you who to connect with, what to say, how to really create a profitable partnership. And what you want to do is look for three things. Who's already sending you business? Who's already referring you? Number two, who are you referring business to that maybe you want to double, triple, or 10x the number of referrals that they give to you? And then number three, who do you know like and trust that's already serving your perfect prospects, but you've just never approached them about formalizing your referral partnerships. And it's super easy, Abby, what you want to do is call them up and say, hey, Abby, I just realized I have a lot of clients that can use your services, so I'd love to grab a cup of coffee, go grab lunch sometime, or jump on Zoom and just talk about how we can create a powerful, profitable partnership where we can look out and cross promote each other, cross refer each other and build our businesses together. How does that sound? And you're going to find that everybody's going to be like, oh, that sounds amazing, because they never get that call. So if you're the one that is the leader and offering that up, then people are going to follow and say yes. Okay, so that's the first half of the answer to your question. Now, the second half is you just asked about networking events. So networking events are fantastic if you approach them strategically. And there's 10 best practices that we teach in the raving Referrals book. And so if you want the whole game plan, you can go to Amazon and you can pick up the raving referrals book. And there's 10 strategies about going to networking events. But number one, have a plan before you just stroll and stumble into a networking event. Have a vision and intention about who it is that you want to meet. Right? Because people that don't have a vision, they don't get a great outcome. But if you know exactly who you're looking to partner with or connect with, that's number one. Number two is go find the people that run the event and let them know, hey, Abby, the reason I'm here today is I'm on the lookout for a great financial advisor or property manager that I can partner with and refer my clients to. So I just wonder if, you know, if there are any quality financial advisors, property managers, whatever you're looking for here tonight that you can introduce me to. The beautiful thing is that's their job and they love it. They love to connect people. So if you just help them understand who you're looking to get connected with now rather than stumbling around the room and what I call pitch slapping people, right? Hey, here's my business card. Don't pitch slap them. Like, literally find out what they're all about. What are you most passionate about, Abby? What's the most interesting thing about you that no one's asked you tonight? Right? Ask an interesting question rather than, so what business are you in? What do you do? Right? You can get there, but be interested rather than interesting. And then have the people that are hosting the events lead you and introduce you to the people that you're looking to connect with.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: I love this advice because I consider myself to be more of an introverted person. And so I find myself on the, on the back wall and I'm like, I don't know who I want to talk to. So it's important to go up to that person. That makes so much sense that you just go up to the person organizing the event and ask them to connect you to those people before we move on.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: Bring a buddy with you. I love inviting people to events because even if they say no, it gives me a reason to reach out and offer value to people. So I always recommend that you attend events with your other referral partners. If you're building a strategic alliance or referral partnership with somebody, invite them out. You can invite three, four, five people out to an event. Even if they all say no, you get credit for inviting them.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: And.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: And if they Say yes. Now you can work the room together. And what you want to do is either meet up or strategize at the beginning of the event and say, hey, here's who I'm looking to connect with. Who do you want to meet here tonight? What would be a win for you? And once you understand who they're trying to connect with? Now, as you're meeting people, number one, you've got somebody that you could hang out with so you don't feel all alone. But number two, you've got somebody else that's scouting for you, and when they find somebody, they're going to be able to introduce that person to you and go, hey, you need to meet Abby. Let me introduce you right now.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: I love this advice, and I love what you said about, you know, starting off with an interesting question versus, hey, what do you do? Because I find that a lot of times when we connect with people, that's really. We're trained from, you know, childhood. What grade are you in? Who's your teacher? We're always trained to kind of lead with what we do for work, but there's so much to people than just what we do.
[00:15:57] Speaker C: Yeah. And it's transactional, and you want to be relational. Right. So when I ask what you do, that's more about your business side of your life, and you're so much more than that. Right. If you really get into people's passions and find out their purpose, now you know who they are at the core, and you can determine if that's somebody that you want to work with. The other thing is, when it comes to partnerships, it's about quality, not quantity. You want to find the people. Like I love saying, your vibe attracts your tribe because it's so true. You want to find people you vibe with people that you want to go to happy hour with or go to a concert with. Right. My best referral partners are my friends, people I love hanging out with. That's who you're looking for. Find people that share your values, that you have not only the same perfect prospects. Yes, that's important. But more so that than that, somebody that you can be confident and proud to promote and represent absolutely well.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: Because it comes back to when you're giving somebody a referral to one of your partners, they're now trusting you that, whoever you're referring, is a good person to work with. And so it is important, I think, to have that relational connection with them.
[00:17:09] Speaker C: 100% and to find a reason that you can introduce them to others and talk about something beyond business. Right. Hey, I'm going to introduce you to Abby Crane. She's an amazing human. Not only does she do this super cool podcast, but she has this going on. And talk about, I love being a charity champion. So talk about the charities and the causes, your purpose and your passions, and that way people get to know you beyond the business.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Absolutely. I want to touch on something that I saw on your page. And you said that you can know everything that you need to know about somebody in 90 seconds.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Tell us more about that.
[00:17:51] Speaker C: Yeah, and I'm not sure that that statement's totally true, but let me say it in a different way, which is that you can learn someone's personality in 90 seconds and really understand who they are at the core. And what I like to do, I carry these cards around from a system called bank code. And what it is is it's a personality science system. And so when I meet somebody, if I go to a networking event, I always have these four cards with me. And if I meet someone, I'll say, do you want to see a magic trick? Literally. I've never had somebody say no. Everyone always says yes. I hand them these cards and I say, do me a favor, read the information on the cards and then sort them in the order of what's most like you to what's least like you. That will help me save you, save us time, and help me serve you better. And so what happens is that they then sort the cards in 30, 60, 90 seconds. They'll hand them back to me, okay, this is who I am. And then I'll describe to them who they've just told me they are. And this is kind of. It's personality science. Right. So it's like a Myers Briggs or disc or Colby index, anything like that. But normally you have to do one of two things. You have to be like a profiler and guess who somebody is. I'm not very good at that. Or you have to send them a link and have them fill out some mind numbing online form to get the information. With these, what happens is in 30, 60, 90 seconds, they'll tell you who they are. And I've never seen something build rapport faster. In fact, not long ago I was at a tech conference and one of the women that was a speaker came over and I had just said, do you want to see a magic trick? And I was doing this with somebody else. Well, she overheard that. And after I was done with him, at the end of the conversation with him, I said, what's so Cool is normally within three minutes of meeting somebody, they'll think, wow, this guy gets me. Right about then, this woman says, hey, I want to see a magic trick. So I hand the cards to her. Took her 3:30 seconds because she's high action, right? She's a get it done kind of girl. She's not going to overanalyze things. And so she hands me the cards back. I took 60 seconds to describe who she was, and within 90 seconds of meeting this woman, she turns to the man I was just talking to and she says, wow, he gets me.
I've never seen anything like that before. It is so powerful. And the beauty is it comes from the book why they Buy.
And so this is the book that describes that strategy. And you can go check it out. Whytheybuy.com I think is the URL. I didn't write it. I was hired by the CEO to create the AI for that system back in 2019, long before ChatGPT. So we created an AI to really understand people's personality and use that in a sales world.
Because what we know is that when you customize your conversations and your presentations based on the prospect and the way that they process information and make buying decisions, you can close more sales in less time.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Wow, that is incredible. And I love this deck of cards. Where can we purchase the deck?
[00:21:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I think at why they buy dot com. Quite frankly, I just use them. Personally, I don't sell them, But I think whytheybuy.com has them for sale. They're usually about $20 per set. But buy the book, get the cards, you'll love it.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: I'm definitely gonna have to check that out. And I love that. I think, again, it's just another creative way to start a conversation with somebody at some of those events.
[00:21:40] Speaker C: It's brilliant because it's all about them. Right? Again, we're talking about being interested, not interesting. And what happens is within a few short minutes, you know exactly who that person is. Because once you understand this personality system, you're like, oh, okay, I get who you are. And now you can really start to uncover what they're passionate about and make sure that this is going to be a fit for you and your partnerships.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: I want to touch on. I know you already mentioned AI, and we are just in this really digital landscape. I mean, everything's kind of shifting more towards online, and I feel like we're missing, you know, a lot of that in person, human interaction. What advice do you have for building referrals within the Digital landscape.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: Oh, great. Great question. I think that community is the new currency you see behind me. Unity through community. I think it's all about community and connection. I think the reality is, since 2020, we're more connected than ever, but people feel more disconnected than ever. And so human beings want to connect. We want to belong again. Right? And so in your business, you want to engineer a community. At hoa.com, we're actually re engineering and revolutionizing the homeowner association industry because 53% of all homeowners in the US live in an HOA, and most don't love their HOA. So we're out to change that. And one of the things that we do is we coordinate community events, right? Like ice cream socials or an Easter egg hunt or, you know, things at. At. At Thanksgiving and Halloween and all the different fun festivals. And we have. We teach real estate agents to farm those local HOAs and help them become the certified HOA specialist for those neighborhoods they. They serve. But recently I was out at one of the events that was happening here where I live, and it was a barbecue. There were about 50 people out on a Saturday. The realtor and the mortgage lender had put this on together. And it was so cool because I was looking around at all the people in the park, and the dads are playing cornhole. There were kids that were playing kickball and basketball, and moms were just listening to music, singing, dancing, laughing, having fun. But the coolest part, Abby, is as I looked around, I looked at every single person in the park, and not one person was on their cell phone. People are just connecting in the real world. And when you can manufacture that in your business, when you can create connection and community, that elevates you above your competition. Because now people feel something about your business. So I think no matter what business you're in, take time to really invest in nurturing relationships. And if you can, we're creating community as a service, right? So you hear of software as a service. Well, we're creating community as a service. And so start to think about your business and how can you engineer more connection and more community within your company?
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Do you feel like. And I know there's a big difference between community in person versus just digitally. Let's say somebody's business was only digital. Are there ways that you have found to foster community within the digital platform?
[00:25:01] Speaker C: 100%. 100%. So the fortunes in the follow up, right? And what happens is, even myself, you know, I do these podcasts. I did 98 podcast interviews last year. I have to have a system in place to follow up with the people that I meet because I meet amazing people like you. And I'm like, okay, I want to nurture that relationship over time. So we use a digital system to do that, right? Both email, text message, outreach. Social media obviously is huge. And then also video is key to really, video helps to inspire and create an emotional response faster than anything else out there. So I'm actually doing a video startup right now with some partners specific for the real estate industry to help real estate agents tell their story more effectively and really elevate their expert authority. So definitely you want to be telling your story with people and dripping on them is kind of the old terminology. But follow up with folks, right? If your brand isn't on their brain, then somebody else's is. So you've got to stay connected, you got to follow up, you got to communicate, share your story, share your message. But remember, it's not about you.
You are not the hero in your business. Your clients are. So what you want to do as you're telling your story is tell the story the difference that you're making in the lives of the people that you serve, right? Be a charity champion. Share the impact that you're making both personally and professionally with your company and the difference that you're making your community. Because the more that you share that you care, the more people care about you and will share what you do.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: I love that you're touching on the power of follow up because it is so, so imperative. And I've noticed that, you know, with this change in the digital landscape, we're now seeing a lot of AI automated tools that people can use so that they're digitally following up with people and not having to necessarily do that themselves, saving the entrepreneur time. Have you utilized any of those platforms or have you noticed any, like, key differences between the automated systems in this versus the personal approach?
[00:27:22] Speaker C: Yeah, so I was kind of an early pioneer in AI. As I mentioned, I've been doing this, you know, since back in 2019. Back then, we had to hire an IBM Watson engineer to build our AI because there was no open AI and ChatGPT that you could plug in with an API. Like that just didn't exist. So I've built tools to help to accelerate relational building. And I think the reality is in the future, you're going to have your own personal AI agents. It's already happening. This is the year of the AI agents. More and more people that the adoption curve is way up so people understand the power of customized messaging, and you can automate so much of what you do these days through AI. So, yeah, I've been a long fan and kind of pioneer in this space, and I think it's only going to accelerate. I think there's some industries that are going to be transformed over the next several years because they rely on relationships. And here's the reality. I was just at the ReMax Global Convention two weeks ago in Las Vegas, and they talked about the fact in the real estate industry, in 2024, it went through a massive transition where new home buyers went from 32% of the transactions down to 24, and the major buyers were older and richer. And so it was a different market. And you had agents that were spending a lot of time on social media, on TikTok, attracting people on TikTok, and the buyers aren't there. Who are the buyers? They're older and richer and they're into relationships. And so that's why relational equity and community equity is so important and powerful. So you want to follow up through automation, but nothing beats the power of getting together in person, face to face. So in my newest book, we just Launched at the ReMax conference Raving referrals for real estate agents, we teach a concept called your top 50.
If you look at your business and you identify the top 50 people that have the ability to make the biggest impact on your business, and you schedule every single month, you're following out and doing individual outreach. I love to do voicemail memos because then people can hear your spirit. I'll do individual video messages for people. They take me 30 seconds to record a video message and text it over to them. But what that does is it feels personal, Abby. Because they know that it's something I created just for them. So while you want to use automation, you also need to personally invest time and energy into that relationship.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think that, like you mentioned boomers, I think it again, goes back to knowing your target audience. And so if most of your audience is boomers, then you're going to need to be more personable within your. Your follow up.
[00:30:13] Speaker C: Yeah. And it's. It's critical. You have to understand your market. Right. And who owns the wealth in our nation. They're typically over 50. And if that's the industry that you serve, then you've got to communicate to them in a way that it's going to connect with your audience. So if, on the other hand, your product or service is focused on millennials, fantastic. Go, go conquer TikTok but if it's not, if it's boomers, then they may be on TikTok, but they're probably not likely to buy from TikTok.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, this is kind of a random question, but it just kind of came to mind as we're talking about networking and business cards. What is the most interesting business card you have ever received?
[00:31:00] Speaker C: Ooh, the most. That's a great question. I've never heard that before. I freaking love it. You rock. The most interesting business card I ever received was actually a medallion. It was a coin from Jeffrey Gittamer. Jeffrey is the author of the Little Red book on selling amongst many authors, best selling author. We had breakfast a couple of times years ago and he gave me a coin that on one hand had his profile of his face and it said in Jeffrey we trust. And on the back of it it had his contact information, his phone number and his email and a little bit of info. So that was the most interesting card I've ever received. But I have a lot of others that I received that are like metallic is a new kind of card that a lot of people have done. But definitely that coin of Jeffrey Gittamer's takes the cake for the number one best coin or business card I ever received.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: That's so cool. I love that he thought outside the box. I was always told in business school you have to kind of think outside the box with your business card. But I'm noticing that a lot of business cards nowadays, it's mostly just QR code focused. So you just scan it and then it gives you all your information, which is also really cool.
[00:32:18] Speaker C: It is. And I think this is a really important conversation too, around. Do you have a physical business card? Because I go to a lot of events and people are like, no, I don't have a card. And so they have a digital business card. And there's nothing wrong with a digital business card. But here's the issue. I just came back from this ReMax conference. I have a stack of physical cards, right. People that I met with in person. I also probably have another dozen or so digital business cards that are in my phone. And I have no idea who those people are. I'll never talk to them again because they didn't give me something that I could take with me. Right. They didn't give me something physical that sits on my desk that I have to look at again. And so it's invisible to me. So my recommendation is if you want to do a digital business card, go for it. Absolutely. Have one and when you connect with people that like digital business cards, you can use it all day long.
But I think it's the lazy person's play. And I think it's so important to have a physical business card that you can give people so that not only can they take it back, but if they're on a conversation or on a phone call or a zoom call and somebody says they mention the service that you provide, you want to be able to give them that card so that they're like, oh, you know what I need to connect you with, Brandon, you want to make yourself easy to refer is what it comes down to, Abby.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I love on the card that you just showed, it had a picture, too, because I think sometimes people will remember faces and not names. So the best way to get people to contact you is give them all the points to remember you as much as possible, 100%.
[00:33:59] Speaker C: And I love taking photos if I meet somebody. One of the other networking tricks that I recommend you do is if you meet somebody at an event that you want to connect with, schedule the meeting right. Then don't take their business card and follow up later.
Your goal should be to go into an event and have three, four, five conversations that you've already scheduled on your calendar for later in the week or next week, because now you're not chasing somebody down, hoping that you reconnect and trying to remember what you're going to talk about when you do finally connect with them. So get out your phone, get out your calendar, and say, you know what, Abby? I think there's a lot we could do together. Let's go ahead and schedule a call right now or lunch or zoom, whatever it is, so that it's on our calendar, and that way you know it's important. And then the other thing is when you get done with a call, I learned this from the number one business coach in the world. This man made three and a half million dollars as the number one coach for Action Coach, three and a half million dollars a year coaching businesses. And what he said is, what he taught me is that when you're at. When you're having a meeting and you know you want to do business with somebody at the end of that meeting, always schedule the next call before you end this call. And that way you've always got a next step. And it's not. I'm going to follow up with email, which you could do, of course, but you want to have a place that you're guiding them to and a plan in mind. So always Go ahead and schedule that next call before you finish your existing call.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: I love that. In your experience, what do you feel like the success rate has been with the follow up? When you're scheduling it, then do you find that most people stick with that next meeting?
[00:35:46] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, 90% plus. Normally, I mean, I make a good impression on somebody and so they want to meet with me, right? Yeah, I'm doing fun stuff and having amazing conversations. I have connections unlike many people that I know. So yeah, normally I give them lots of reasons to meet with me and I think that's true for most. I don't think there's a lot of people that get stood up from those meetings, but sometimes it happens. Life gets busy. We have issues that pop up, emergencies happen. And so, you know, if that ever happens for you, just communicate proactively, reach out to somebody and say, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I've got to take care of my 80 year old mom with Alzheimer's. I can't meet with you right now. I need to reschedule. People will understand. And if they don't understand, that's probably not somebody you want to do business with.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, Brandon, this has been so insightful and I've just absolutely enjoyed our conversation so much. I have two more questions for you, and the first one is, and I know you've mentioned lots of books already, but what has been one of the most influential books that you've read within the last year?
[00:36:56] Speaker C: Oh, within the last year. If you hadn't added that last part, I would have said the 1 Minute Millionaire by Mark Victor Hanson. That book changed my life. I recommend everybody read it. It's basically two books in one. It led me to connect with Mark and he's been my mentor for the last 20 years. I think probably in the last year, a book that I really loved was the Gap and the Game. And the Gap and the Game talks about looking at your life and a lot of people look at the gap right from where they are to where they want to be and they experience a lot of anxiety because they haven't accomplished and achieved everything they want. Whereas if they look at the gain and they take a look back and go, okay, you know what, over the last 612 months, where am I? As opposed to where I was? And when you look backwards and it's really about being in an attitude of gratitude and when you're looking back and appreciative about what you've done or created, achieved, manifested, attracted versus being anxious about what you haven't done. Life's a whole lot more fun.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: That sounds like such a great book. I'm going to have to add that to my list.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: Awesome.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: So I actually, I lied. I have two questions for you.
Where can we find more about you? I know that you mentioned your Amazon and your book and I'm definitely going to put that in the show notes. But where else can we find you?
[00:38:20] Speaker C: Yeah. So best place is brandonbarnham.com if you go to brandonbarnham.com you'll see all kinds of info about me and my businesses, books, all that fun stuff. There's some other podcasts you can look at. If you run a podcast and you like to book me, you can do that on brandonbarnham.com as well. But that'll give you links to hoa.com and raving referrals, Referral champion and some of the other things that I'm doing.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Wonderful. What advice would you give to somebody that, because I know you run hoa.com to somebody that maybe they don't want to buy a house in an hoa? What advice would you give them?
[00:38:54] Speaker C: Well, you don't need to buy a house in an HOA.
Homes and HOAs are valued 5 to 6% higher than a non HOA home. But a lot of people don't want the restrictions of living in an HOA community and that's fine. Like find what you love. There's no one size fits all. It's all about what property and where do you want to be, what kind of home do you want to have. So I think it's about choosing the right real estate agent in that case. And you need somebody that's going to take the time to really listen to you understand what you're looking for. And you need somebody that's an expert in the market, especially if it's a different type of property. Right. Some people want acreage, some people want luxury, some people want an active adult type of community. So find somebody that specializes in the types of homes and communities that you're looking to live and they'll give you the best advice and counsel.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: That's really great advice.
So my last question is a fill in the blank style question.
And the question is you have to blank to blank.
[00:40:02] Speaker C: Okay, well, so I'm going to give you two answers to this. The first is you have to ask to get. We didn't talk about asking for referrals, but it's one of the biggest gaps that and I teach a three step process for how to ask for referrals in a way that's comfortable and confident for you and for your clients. So if you want more referrals, you gotta ask, ask more. But the second thing that I would say is that you've gotta try in order to succeed. And a lot of people get so anxious and concerned, and their fear of failure stops them from attempting anything. And I love to say the first is the worst. The first time you do anything is the worst you're ever gonna be. My first podcast interview was awful because I didn't know how to do it right, and I was anxious and felt uncomfortable and awkward doing it. But now, after doing hundreds of them, it's easy and natural. So the first is the worst. Give yourself grace and space to try and fail. But instead of thinking of it as failing, thinking of it as a learning. We're learning how to do it better. And after you try it the first time, you're going to learn from that. You're going to get better and better and better. And if you keep on it, there's no doubt you're going to win.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: I love it. Brandon, thank you so much for your time today. I'm really excited for everybody to listen to your insights. This has been such a pleasure.
[00:41:29] Speaker C: Thank you. Abby. It's been my pleasure and honor. Thank you for having me. And I just want to really give you a shout out because your leadership in helping bring this type of information to the world is super important. So thank you for being you.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: My pleasure.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening. If you found value in today's conversation, make sure to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And as always, don't forget to share.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: This episode with anyone that you think could benefit.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: And for more information about today's guest.
[00:42:03] Speaker B: Be sure to check out the show notes. We'll see you next time.
