021: The Language of Referrals Exactly How to Explode Your Business – Bill Cates

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Bill Cates: There’s all kinds of stuff going on that stops people. And I respect the fact that they feel that way in the sense that, look, when you feel a fear Whatever it’s about, saying something touchy subject with your spouse or partner. It feels real. I get it. It doesn’t have to be there, however, and sometimes knowing what to say and having the clarity of where you’re headed can take that fear that it’s really a lack of confidence can take that away.

Tony Maree Torrey: Welcome to the Legacy in the Making show. I’m your host, L. A. ‘s foremost success coach, Toni Marie Torrey. I interview leaders and influencers who’ve gone beyond the superficial markers of success and claimed true fulfillment by leveraging their positions to create positive and profitable changes. In their businesses and beyond, they share their stories and offer real world boots on the ground experience that translates into practical advice to apply to your own journey.

I invite you to this injection of wisdom and inspiration so you can prevail and leave your own lasting legacy. Welcome to the Legacy in the Making show. I am so proud to be here today talking to the wonderful Mr. Bill Cates. And Bill is widely recognized as one of the foremost experts in the art and science of acquiring new clients through referrals and personal introductions. Bill is president of referral coach international founder of the Kate’s Academy for relationship marketing and the host of the podcast, top advisor podcast.

Bill was recently rated as the number one financial advisor, influencer by Indigo Marketing. That is super impressive. Bill also is a bestselling author. His books get more referrals. Now, don’t keep me a secret beyond referrals, Radical Relevance and his latest book that I had the privilege of getting the the preprint version of the language of referrals.

Tony Maree Torrey: Bill, you are a. Force to be reckoned with. And I’m so happy to have a conversation today.

Bill Cates: I’m not sure I’ve been described that way, but my ego board behind me, I have to add my new book to that one. I call it my ego board. Yeah. It’s great to be here in case anybody misunderstood. It’s not Bill Gates. Sorry.

But, Bill Gates has a lot of money, Bill Cates, maybe I’ll help you make a lot of money by serving more clients. So that’s why I’m here.

Tony Maree Torrey: That’s awesome. And so obviously, we’re going to be talking about Bill’s book today, because that’s an important, fresh piece of information that we’ll have to share with you.

And also, of course, we talk about how it is that we create a lasting legacy on this particular show. So I’m really curious to know, as a leader, as a person that’s in a position of influence, Bill, what is it that you want to do and create in your lifetime? What are the problems that you want to solve on a larger social context?

Bill Cates: It’s actually shifting a little for me right now. So forever, almost 30 years, I’ve been helping financial advisors, financial professionals, a lot of different types, acquire more clients through referrals, personal introductions, and other related topics. And so forever, it was helping them grow their business, helping them make money through serving more people, all the good stuff there.

And then about halfway through. Of doing this, I got so in touch with the importance of the work that advisors do and how it helps people create financial dignity. It helps them build wealth, whatever their definition of wealth is. It helps them create legacies for other families. And we’re in some cases, some sectors of our economy where some families weren’t able to even think in terms of legacy and, helping the next generation.

And so now. It’s even shifted a little bit more. And after this book, the language of referrals, I’m in the midst of writing another book, which is all about helping people with their beliefs and their assumptions and their thinking and emotions around money. And it’s going to be a fun book actually.

So that’s my next step of just helping the population and I’ve been helping the population of the world through advisors. Now I’m going to do a little bit direct to them. With that next book. So that’s my story.

Tony Maree Torrey: I love that. And a term that really resonated with me there that you mentioned is financial dignity.

And I feel the same way. I’ve worked with a lot of different people in various different aspects of business, a lot of leaders, CEOs. And when I started working more with people in the financial services sector, I really got in touch with the synergy that we create in helping them build their businesses and the broad impact that has on empowering the rest of the population.

Bill Cates: I agree. I call it the ripple effect. You help one person, especially a business owner. And this is true. I know there’s more than just financial advisors listening to this. Anytime we impact the life of someone else, we’re impacting everyone else in their life to some degree, right? You help another CEO or an owner of a business get his or her act together.

And guess what? It affects not just their family, it affects their employees, which then affects their family. So there’s such a ripple effect. And I think it’s important for us to really understand the power, if you will, the ripple effect. And I’m not trying to overstate it. I, it’s not like we are always like changing lives and it’s life or death.

And yet there is an impact and that’s what I like to do. That’s what I want to make sure I have that impact. So thanks for bringing that up. Yeah,

Tony Maree Torrey: I agree. And I really, I firmly believe that the ways in which we are going to change and improve the world is through the business sector more than any other arena, more than politics, more than anything.

I really think business is what’s going to change the face of the world.

Bill Cates: I think about it. Capitalism has brought more people out of poverty than anything else. And there’s a new vein of capitalism. If you will, it’s called conscious capitalism. And it’s, it’s being ethical and doing what’s right for everybody, for clients, customers, employees, et cetera.

So when we act on that level of dignity with our own business and integrity with our own business yeah, we, we really do impact a lot of people. So I agree

Tony Maree Torrey: with you. Absolutely. And I’ve actually had the privilege of interviewing some of the people that are involved specifically with that conscious capitalism.

Ah. Yeah, we’re definitely in alignment there. So let’s talk about your book now, Bill, because it really is super hot off the presses. Sizzling hot, there it is. Baby,

Bill Cates: yeah. Your

Tony Maree Torrey: baby. So I’m curious. Why another book about referrals and introductions? Because I know obviously you’re a huge expert in this area.

You’ve already written other books on this. Why, what at this point in time called you to write a new one?

Bill Cates: Sure. A couple of reasons. First of all, the landscape has changed a little over the years. Not a lot. The principles stay the same. Principles are universal. They don’t change as quickly as, let’s say, a strategy might.

Tactics can certainly change a lot and they have because of the do not call regulations because of the pandemic and doing a lot of virtual stuff now and other changes. It’s hard to reach people. The tactical aspect has definitely had to change. And one of the strategies has had to change as well, and that is, we’re emphasizing introductions a lot more than ever before, because it is so hard to reach people and to be relevant and get on their life’s radar and et cetera, get our foot in the door.

I would say the fastest way to relevance, the straightest line to relevance with someone who doesn’t know you, is an introduction from someone they do know and trust. And so that’s how I tie all this together and why the language of referrals is, it’s the tactical side that so many people want and need.

I found that a lot of folks are afraid to ask for referrals, introductions, we can talk about all that. They don’t have access to the strategy, but when they see the words and they go, Oh, I could say that, or I could say that, but I’d shift it a little, I’m expecting people will change the words a little to be natural for them.

Then all of a sudden the strategy becomes accessible. Usually when we think strategy first and then tactics, there is a role and a place to think tactic first, because it can open us up to the strategy when they see how it fleshes out. That’s this book. It’s really just giving everybody what to say, or at least sparking their imagination on what to say around all aspects of personal introductions.

Tony Maree Torrey: A lot of what I see out there in the book world and I railed against it in my own book is like a lot of books are out there, that are used from a marketing perspective and they agitate the problem, but they don’t really provide any tangible solutions and I have an issue with that, actually.

It’s like in my book, I was very specific, I shared specific strategies, scripts, wording, just like you have in your book, to empower anyone who reads the book to be able to take that and make it actionable.

Bill Cates: It’s actually bad marketing to agitate the problem, not provide the solution whether you’re providing it right there or hinting that you have it.

People get aggravated. And I’ll give you a specific example. I have a guy on my podcast who’s talking about, I don’t want to give it away ’cause I don’t want to rag on anybody, but he was offering up a problem, and a test. It was medical, nutrition related. And I said, okay, you do this and then what do you do?

Bill Cates: And the solution was actually what you should have been doing anyway, even if you didn’t get the test. So why get the, it sounded cool, sounded sexy science, right? But why even get the test if your behavior is just what you should be doing anyway? So yeah, we, yes. Aggravate the problem stimulate the opportunity and then make sure that the solution is at hand.

Tony Maree Torrey: Exactly. And then there’s always going to be a certain set of people who want help implementing. And that’s really where we come in with our businesses. We help people execute on these ideas if they don’t feel they are able to do it themselves. But we empower them in the first place to go and do it by themselves if

Bill Cates: they want to.

Yeah, I agree. And that’s what today’s going to be about, right? We can get nitty gritty a little bit on this. So great.

Tony Maree Torrey: Exactly. So I know you make a distinction between referrals and introductions. And it’s really interesting because without having read any of your work, I actually made exactly the same distinction in my book, too, because to some extent, it’s intuitive knowledge, but it’s not intuitive knowledge to everyone.

So share with us why you made that

Bill Cates: distinction. Yeah. And with that people maybe, saying referrals, introductions, I’m going to advocate for introductions. So why did I call the book language of referrals? So let’s get to that. First of all the referral, which is often called a referred lead, call George, use my name.

It just doesn’t work like it used to work because of all the barriers to reaching. George doesn’t pick up the phone if he doesn’t know who it is, wondering why his friend’s giving his name out. So we know that just doesn’t work as well. As I mentioned earlier, the straightest line is an introduction.

So we always got to be thinking in terms of connections, introductions. I think the conversation around referrals, if you will is not done until we’ve negotiated or Arranged for a good connection to be made. So highly recommend everyone listening that if you’re talking to a client, customer, prospect, center of influence, anyone has ability to connect you with others, use the word introductions because that represents what you want.

The connection. Now, why did I call the book, language of referrals rather than language of introductions? What I know in marketing is that you always want to use concepts that are already in the person, the listener, the audience’s brain, right? You don’t want to introduce a concept that they don’t understand or they don’t get or they don’t normally think about unless you immediately define it.

Like in the financial world, a lot of people say we’re a fiduciary. Most people don’t actually know what that means. So all you’re doing is confusing people rather than helping them understand that’s a good thing for you, right? So we know that the word referral, everyone understands referrals.

Everyone wants more referrals. Yeah, we’re really talking about personal introductions here, but that’s a marketing thing just so people will say, ah, I get the basic topic of this book. And then we emphasize, we got a big part, big section on turning the willingness to refer into an actual introduction.

Yeah. And I,

Tony Maree Torrey: I totally get it. And in my own business, I had that experience of, people making referrals to me, which meant they told their friend about me or they sent their friend, friend, colleague, whatever, and email about me, but I didn’t hear about it until after the fact. And guess what came from it.

All of the, the decades that I’ve been in business, crickets, like nothing. And that’s actually how it is that I started realizing, Oh, this doesn’t, the system doesn’t work this way. And so now I teach myself, teach my clients how to introduce me and teach them how to do the same thing as well as part of my practice.

You obviously dive deeply into that. And I know your book has six separate sections in it as you dive deeply. Tell us about those different parts and why you’ve broken it up into the various areas.

Bill Cates: Sure. So the part one is let’s call it the internal language of referrals or introductions.

Mindset, a lot of mistaken beliefs and limiting beliefs. around this and self talk. People don’t even realize sometimes their self talk or their stories that they believe just aren’t, are getting in the way. So we start with that. Not a huge section, but it’s important we start with that because if you don’t have the right mindset, all the strategies and tactics in the world will be certainly, if not useless, less effective.

Then we get into the language of referability. How do you become more referable? How do you get to a place where you get more unsolicited introductions? And if you do ask, you have more fertile ground there because people are loving your process and you, etc. Then we get into the language of promoting or encouraging introductions.

It’s not really asking. I always tell people don’t confuse it with actually asking. And it does have its place and it can stimulate unsolicited introductions. Then we get into the actual asking and how do you do it without, when people come to me for coaching, they say, Bill, is there a way to ask?

For referrals, or sometimes they’ll say introductions without looking like that cheesy referral guy, I get cheesy referral guy or creepy referral guy. And when I do presentations in person, I have a slide of that creepy referral guy and it gets a laugh and no one wants to look like that except for that guy.

There is a way to ask. That’s dignified. That’s client centered. That’s not pushy. That’s not needy. Then the next one is the language of objections or concerns. How to let’s say someone doesn’t want it. Not everyone likes to provide introductions or give referrals, especially in the financial side where we’re talking about individuals financial situations.

So how do we deal with that? It’s a soft approach, the most important thing when you get any kind of objection or concern or resistance or whatever word you want to use is to learn more about it. The first thing is to explore it and to understand it. And sometimes you have to back off.

It’s fine. No big deal. And then the last one is the language of introductions. In other words, as I mentioned, how to turn that willingness to do this from folks into actually making the connection. So it’s pretty complete in terms of that. And the aspect of the process. Yeah, I love

Tony Maree Torrey: it. It just really, the book takes people through the entire journey.

And one of the things that I love that you had in the book is you actually have some instructions on how it is that people can take the language that you’re providing in the book, make it their own and have it feel natural and unscripted.

Bill Cates: Words are important and the words we use are important. And with that said, sometimes how we say them is more important. There’s a lot of folks quote, bad statistics around the percentages of how much the word versus the, the, how the word said. So I’m not going to get into that, but we do know, there’s some people in our life, right?

You’ve seen this, Tony. They can say anything, anybody and get away with it. It doesn’t matter what words they use, they just get away with it. And part of it has to do with how they do it and who they are doing it. But I expect people, I tell them in the book, I say, look, if you like this word, these words, for instance, you brought up the idea of that word of mouth, you get the word of mouth, but it’s not turning into anything and you’re doing the right thing.

You want to teach your clients. Prospects, customers, the best way. In fact, gave you some scripting here, it’s simple little phrase that I’ve learned to say is here’s what I found works the best. And most everyone likes to know what works the best. Now they may want to adjust how they introduce you.

They may want to do something differently, but at least have a favorite way. And here’s the way that works best. It works very well. And you will at least garner their attention and they will pay attention to that and realize that word of mouth is nice. But it’s not always enough, right? You need to create that connection.

Yeah. I’m expecting people to use what words they like, discard the rest. But if you don’t like the way I said it, how could you accomplish the same thing with your words? And all the scripts and word tracks in the book will just stimulate that imagination and creativity. And all of a sudden people say if I could say it that way, I never thought about saying it that way.

Oh, I could do that. And that’s a huge ahas I’ve given to people over the years. I just love it. And as I mentioned earlier, now the strategy becomes accessible to them. And so people are asking more and get, and a lot of people that I work with just start getting them without even asking because they’re doing all the other good stuff.

Tony Maree Torrey: One of the things that we do and recommend for our clients is actually help them write and publish a short, helpful book. And I’m curious to know, because, my belief is that it actually really helps grease the wheels of these introductions and referrals, but I’m curious to know, what is your opinion about people implementing that

Bill Cates: strategy?

Yeah I generally advocate for folks to have their own book, but a good book, not just any book, to have a book, because if someone actually reads it and said, this is crap, and then, it’s not gonna help you at all. My theory is, or philosophy is this, experts, and pretty much everyone listening to this is an expert in their area, experts write and speak.

It’s what they do in my humble opinion. And so first of all it’s a great calling card. It’s a great demonstration of your credibility and expertise. Generally speaking, most people that self publish, they don’t make a lot of money from the sale of the book. They make their money by having the book.

First of all, writing a book, by the way, will get your head around a body of knowledge like nothing else will. I remember a long time ago, one of my mentors said, Bill, even if the book’s never published, you’re going to be glad you wrote it. And it was, he was right. That was my first book. Unlimited referrals.

It’s just got my head around this body of knowledge, and it made it much easier for me to communicate and then it’s a great referral tool. A lot of folks who are going to introduce you, refer you, whatever word you use they like to have a tool. They like to have a way to do it. It could be a link to a video on your website, could be a guide report checklist that you’ve put together, and or it could be a tangible tool.

Product like a book. And if you’re there in person, you can even autograph it to the person that it’s being given to. And that adds a little, a little something to it. Yeah, it’s a great tool. I really do encourage people. There’s so many ways to get a good book written. You don’t have to necessarily do all the writing, but make sure it’s coming from your thinking that’s important.

And don’t use chat GPT or Claude or any of the other AIs to write the book. You can use it to stimulate ideas. And I use AI all the time to stimulate my thinking and to think of something in a little different way. But it’s, 99. 9 percent coming from me and that’s important. So yeah, totally support your concept there.

Tony Maree Torrey: Yeah. And just speaking of chat GPT, it’s like clients ask me if we use it as we’re helping them write their book. And the answer is absolutely yes, we do. But. Especially once you do start using it, you get really, you know what AI language is. You can recognize that it’s actually very recognizable once you get used to it.

And we don’t want that in the book. We want, one of the reasons why we actually, we record all our sessions with our clients and transcribe them. So we can get their exact language, their turn of phrase, all those because it has to be in your voice not a robot’s voice.

Bill Cates: Yeah, it really is.

And if people know you and then they read the book, they hear you as they read, even if it’s not an audible version, they can hear you in the words if they know who you are. I interviewed someone from my podcast recently and I should let everybody on this listening to this know that I’m also interviewing Tony for my podcast and we’ll just flip the script a little here, but Jay Bear, he said, Hey, right now.

AI stands for average information.

Tony Maree Torrey: I love it.

Bill Cates: So let’s understand it’s average and often wrong information. It’s a tool to use, but it’s not the end all.

Tony Maree Torrey: Getting back to the referral conversation, Bill, would you agree that most advisors are not as proactive as they could be when it comes to getting these introductions and referrals?

Bill Cates: Oh, yeah, without question. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been in business for 30 years. A lot of it to get back to the mindset. They’re afraid to look needy. They’re afraid to look pushy. They’re, they don’t want to make it all about them. They’re afraid they’re going to lose the sale, the deal.

Everything that I write, everything I teach is all designed to boost the reader’s confidence so that they will actually take action. And again, back to what I mentioned earlier, if they don’t have the right words, they don’t have the right, they can’t access the strategy. And that’s what’s happening right now.

I get a lot of folks come to me very successful, and they get unsolicited introductions. And that’s good. And that counts as long as they’re the kinds of folks you want to get introduced to. That’s a caveat there. And there’s ways to deal with that. And I deal with that in the book, but they come to me because they almost feel guilty.

They know they’re sitting on this gold mine of opportunity. They’ve done well and they know they could do better and that’s what we help them do. And it’s taking that desire and then giving them something that we know works and building their confidence. And then they take action.

And the goal is to not need me anymore, whether it’s reading a book or coaching or whatever. Otherwise I work with folks. The goal is to get you to a point where you don’t need me. And you just say, thank you. And I’m happy with that. And the check clears, of course.

Tony Maree Torrey: I too have had the opportunity of working with some very successful people in the. Three over the years. And it’s actually one of the reasons why I end up doing so much mindset work when people do come to me and we do the whole, business coaching aspect of things, as opposed to the marketing and the publishing, those that hire, those that make the most money from working with me do so because we’ve hit all three areas and we’ve worked together for a few years and then they’re ready, their wings are spread and ready to fly.

So I have a bunch of different certifications that are all geared towards helping shift people’s mindset because, when I first started coaching, I was super excited about my new found skills and I took people through these amazing conversations and they got clear on their vision for their life and what it was that they wanted to create and the action steps associated with doing that.

And then they’d come back to sessions, time after time, not having taken the action. And so I do think that’s a really core piece that oftentimes people are missing. As as one of my mentors used to say, a business problem is a personal problem in disguise. And

Bill Cates: and so

Tony Maree Torrey: when we really go in and do the.

Kind of personal work in a way, it’s amazing how that helps people shift mindset blocks and then they’re on fire and it’s so much fun to

Bill Cates: see that it is. It starts with that. And a lot of folks don’t often come to folks like you and me because I need to shift my mindset, right? But on some level, they know that’s true.

Because whatever story they’re telling themselves about the situation, and they’re unhappy with the situation, and they wouldn’t be coming to us, or they have some huge opportunity they want to take advantage of they know that their thinking and perspective has to change. And and I know I’m preaching the choir with you, but what happens when our awareness shifts.

When we see the problem, the issue, the situation in a slightly different way, then we open ourselves up to new options of thinking and acting. And that’s sometimes what it takes to take that next step. To be candid in my opinion, the first thing one needs to take action.

Clarity. Clarity on the action and the result that will ins clarity on the situation. Clarity on the context, right? We know that we’re, if we’re not clear on what we wanted to do or what we wanna say, we’re not gonna act. But once we have a sense of that, then we can do the work. To gain the confidence to actually take the action.

So I’m sure that’s a lot of what you do is help people just let’s get clear about this, clear about our feeling, our thinking, our, the context. And then we can make a better decision.

Tony Maree Torrey: Absolutely. And it’s interesting. I had, I do a consultation with people and it’s usually we start out as I recommend a short 15 minute conversation just to make sure that there is like the alignment, the synergy, and it’s someone that I want to work with.

And they’re interested in working with me. That’s the most efficient use of time. Rather than a lot of my clients used to have people put, a good hour on their calendar only to discuss. prospect for them. 15 minute and then a longer consultation. And this was with actually the head of a large nonprofit.

And even just after the consultation, he was like, Oh, now I’ve heard myself talk. I actually know what my decision is. It was, an area that he was feeling really stuck in. He wasn’t quite sure what path to take. He had a lot of this kind of back and forth going on in his head and just hearing himself.

Like sometimes it’s just asking really good questions. And of course, that’s what we do for our clients. And we teach our clients to do the same thing. And, leading down that path there, one of the things that you talk about in your book is how people can overcome the objections to making these introductions.

And I’ve not buried the lead so much in that obviously questions are a lot to do with it. Share some thoughts around that with us.

Bill Cates: Yeah. So actually I have a simple formula, which really can be applied to any scenario, you want to go out to a restaurant with your spouse and he, she doesn’t want to go, whatever it is, right.

Except for teenagers. When it comes to teenagers, there’s nothing that good, solid logic won’t aggravate further. So the key. Is to understand that the concept is they’re not ready to hear your position or your logic or your thinking or why you want to do it until you’ve heard theirs.

And them saying, no, I don’t want to, is not fully hearing theirs, right? So first step, and the first two steps come almost instantaneously. First step is to acknowledge and explore. So let’s just say, let’s go to the referral thing, right? Let’s say someone says, ah, I don’t like to give referrals. Acknowledge.

Yeah, it’s fine. I know some people don’t. I’m curious. Have you had a bad experience? Can you tell me a little more? Great words, by the way. Tell me more. These are the three best words. And curious is a great word too, because it’s a soft, for those of us old enough to remember Columbo, the bumbly detective, very soft.

Now we got into the conversation. I want to know more now once I’ve learned what happened in their situation, whatever, what are they concerned about? I might be able to reframe their thinking. What if you could talk to them first or what if we did an email introduction and they heard from you first and then I follow up there, so that we can present perhaps a different way that’s in their head.

And that might open them up to it. That’s the reframe. Or they may not want to go there, in which case we back off. It’s a kind of a rule of thumb. It’s, we acknowledge, explore, learn a little bit about the situation. If we feel there might be a, another way to look at it, we present that. If they don’t want to go there, we get that second objection.

They repeat the same objection. I just don’t want to go. Whatever it is. Now it’s time to back off, but it’s the exploration, the understanding their perspective that gives us, that helps us earn the right to share our perspective. And so we have, we can’t yes, but objections or concerns. We have to yes, and acknowledge and explore.

And then we see what comes up in the dialogue. And we might be able to reframe their thinking. We might not a big deal. I don’t teach a, an aggressive approach, a hammer approach to introductions. And we do know, and I bet you everybody listening to this can relate to this. Everyone here has asked at some point in time for an introduction to somebody else.

The client didn’t want to do it for whatever reason. And then later. That client comes back and say, Hey, I think I got somebody for you. So we know that the asking and even getting some resistance and backing off still plants a really nice seed for the future, promotes the possibility for later and it works very well.

So that’s my thing on the objections to concerns. And in the book I give lots of different scenarios. It’s a different objections that people, he’s already working with an advisor. I don’t like to give referrals or let me think about it. And so just variations of the formula for the different situations.

Tony Maree Torrey: Yeah, it was a real lightbulb for me when I understood that an objection Is not a no. An objection is a question. Usually it means that there is something that has not been expressed, has not been asked, has not been resolved.

Bill Cates: You don’t know until you explore, right? If you just take it at face value, then of course it’s a no because you took it as a no and that’s all whatever it is, right? But if you explore and learn a little more about it to see what’s going else gone in that situation, they may have a mistaken assumption of how you want to reach out to their friend or colleague.

And all you gotta do is just shift that and make them realize what I like to say is after I’ve listened and it’s not a hard double no, I’ve listened. I’ll say, I appreciate that and I have a little different perspective on it.

Can I share that? So I’ve earned the right and I’m getting permission to share a slightly different perspective. And most people will say, sure, look, all of this is based on the relationship you have with your clients and prospects and centers of influence. So the better the relationship you have, the easier all this gets, of course, and the more latitude you have in terms of how much you might, go for a certain result versus backing off a lot more quickly.

So context is king when it comes to this sort of thing.

Tony Maree Torrey: Of course, absolutely. And as you said, sometimes it is a heart. No. I think the distinction that I was making there was more like the mindset in my own mind in that when I first started out in sales, because we’re almost all in sales.

Sales is the highest form of service if you’re meeting, if you’re matching someone with a need in an a lot, in an aligned way. And when I first started, Doing, having sales type conversations to be in service in my mind, as soon as an objection came up, it was a no. Because I didn’t have the tools and I didn’t have the skills at that point in time to get curious.

And so that’s where I was going with my commentary. And yes, then there are points in time when you just need to recognize that, yeah, someone just isn’t going to go there and obviously don’t, you don’t want to push or pressure them.

Bill Cates: And sometimes it’s clear right on the, right away.

It’s I don’t do this. But usually that’s not it, but you’re right, it’s the internal thinking first and just learn. That’s why I got, if you just learn to understand the concern, the objection, the resistance, that’s all you got to do first. And in the learning you’ll be thinking, you’ll be hearing new things.

Sometimes you can shift the perspective and sometimes you can’t.

Tony Maree Torrey: Absolutely. Bill, this has been an amazing conversation. I want to end with a question around purpose and legacy. What is it that you do on the day to day, like bringing it down into the, actionable. Side of things. What do you do for yourself that could be helpful for others to make sure that you stay in alignment with what it is that you really want to create in the world and not get distracted by all the various different temptations and ways of thinking.

Bill Cates: Squirrel. I see a squirrel . Exactly. You’re ask, you’re asking an a, d, d guy, . How do you not get through? Sta distracted. And a lot of entrepreneurs are a DD sometimes to extreme, but yet they can hyperfocus and get things done. You, that’s a good question. I’ll tell you for me, personally. Is I try to be first of all, extremely organized with my calendar and planning my day and knowing what I want to try to accomplish on that day.

That really helps. That’s from a micro level. I also have learned over the years. I could have 100 plates spinning. And I think I’m doing fine. It’s just like natural for me, drives my team crazy. And it’s really driving me crazy and I don’t realize it. Over the last five, six years, I’ve learned just not to spin so many dang plates and, just realize, all right, that’s a great idea.

And it doesn’t have to be done now. So I just make sure I park it in a place where I won’t forget about it. So this next book I’m writing after the language of referrals around educating folks around money and beliefs and all that’s something that I had on back burner for a long time.

And I got inspired by another speaker at a conference and he had done something similar enough to where it’s maybe it’s time for that. And all of a sudden two and two got put together for me and I went for it. So you don’t have to do it all at once. Just, two, three, maybe for me anyway, that’s what seems to work.

And it also helps the people around us. If anyone knows the Colby scale, if you’re a quick starter, I’m a quick start on the Colby scale means I will start things easily, quickly, and I will change them quickly, but I tell my staff, we’re not changing, we’re enhancing but it drives them nuts if it’s too much.

That’s

Tony Maree Torrey: my answer. And, self awareness, I think it’s really important like that. Oh, yeah. Nice. That. And to your point, a lot of the folks that I work with it at high levels, burnout is a real risk. And oftentimes they’re trying to be all things to all people instead of taking that time to be grounded, be centered, work out what’s really important and stay on mission, stay on,

Bill Cates: stay on mission.

That’s it. That was what I was going to say. It’s, if it’s part of the mission, entertain it. If it’s not, it better be really darn good. Timely relevant. If you’re going to add it to the mission otherwise back burner don’t lose it forever. Or maybe you do, maybe you just let it go.

It’s just, we’re not, we can’t pursue every opportunity that comes our way. And we can’t pursue every great idea that comes our way. It’s just nuts if we try to do that. So anyway, good question.

Tony Maree Torrey: Bill, you have imparted so much amazing wisdom and knowledge that I think can be, it’s I know financial services industry for sure, but I think it can be applied to so many different industries leaders, businesses.

So thank you so much for sharing that. Where can people find you and what’s the best place for them to go to? Get information about your new book.

Bill Cates: So the book has its own little website, languageofreferrals. com, languageofreferrals. com, also Amazon and all those good places. And my website is referralcoach.

com, referralcoach. com. And I’m on LinkedIn or bill at referralcoach. com. So those, I’m very accessible, happy to answer questions and see how I can assist.

Tony Maree Torrey: Awesome. And we will also include in the show notes links to Bill’s resources, his website. He’s got some amazing free resources. So absolutely check out the show notes, even if you’re listening to the podcast or watching it on YouTube, check out the show notes for links to other resources from Bill Cates.

And it’s Cates with a C.

They are both to be reckoned with. Thank you so much, Bill.

Bill Cates: My pleasure. Thank you.

Tony Maree Torrey: I’m glad you tuned in to the legacy in the making show. If you’re genuinely interested in creating positive change in your business or your life, or on a more global scale, I invite you to connect with me at tonymarie. com. That’s Tony with a Y, Marie with two E’s. When you get there, you’ll find the path to purpose master plan, the truly brilliant method to make sure you’re clear on why you’re here.

This is the absolute critical foundation to honing your instincts and leaving a legacy you’ll be proud of. Thanks for listening. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and we’ll see you next time.