Stacey Brown Randall’s Business Failure to Referral Expert: Building Sustainable Growth Without Asking

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotus Bodie and today’s guest is Stacey Brown Randall, founder of building a referrable business. She is one of the country’s leading authorities on referrals for professional service and creative firms. Stacey’s entrepreneurial journey includes starting a human resources consulting business.

with a pivot into productivity coaching that eventually led her to discover a repeatable science-backed approach to generating referrals without asking or paying. Pay attention to that last part. Without asking or paying. It sounds impossible, but we’re gonna get into it. Over the last 12 years, she’s turned that approach into a suite of programs, a weekly podcast nearing 400 episodes and two books, generating business referrals without asking.

and her newest release, the Referrable Client Experience. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency. Listen, if you run a business, you are likely stuck in the cycle of rising insurance premiums. You’re paying more, but your team is getting less. And many people can’t afford coverage at all. We do things differently. We offer a solution that provides your employees with unlimited access to doctors, therapists, and prescriptions that’s

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the founder and CEO of Building a Referrable Business, Stacey Brown Randall. Thank you for making the time to share your story today.

Stacey Brown Randall (02:07)
Thanks for having me on the podcast. I’m excited to be here.

Anthony Codispoti (02:10)
Let’s get right into it, Stacey. So tell us about your early background, where you grew up, the entrepreneurial influences of your family that you were surrounded with.

Stacey Brown Randall (02:19)
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. So I’m originally from South Carolina and in my family, the weird ones are the ones with the W-2s. So we have a lot of entrepreneurs in our family, which I don’t think many people probably can say, especially thinking about, you know, being a child of the 80s and a teenager of the 90s. ⁓ But it was always an influence in my life becoming a business owner. It was the what would I do? My family comes from a restaurant background, like not all of my

family owns restaurants or is in the hospitality industry, but a majority of our business owners in the family are. And so was kind of like always a part of my life. I mean, I grew up working at my grandmother’s restaurant. My brother now owns it today. My mom still works there because she just likes to work. She likes to help her kids. So she still works there. She’s like nearing 80 years old and you’d never know it. so for us, it was like, okay, we like

but especially with my brother and I, that idea of the ability to kind of decide what your world would look like. ⁓ He went the route of owning the restaurant and loving being a workaholic. I went the route of owning a business that allowed me a lot of time and freedom. And that was more important. ⁓ So, you know, those are heavy influences on my life in terms of, you you in a restaurant, you learn to work hard.

⁓ but also understanding kind of that whole idea of being your own boss from a very early age. So I always tell folks my one claim to fame with working for my grandmother is I was the only grandchild not fired. I should have been a couple of times. I got caught doing things I should not have done a couple of times, but I was the only granddaughter. So I was, and I was the baby. So I got babied and I did not get fired, but I do hold that over my brother’s head.

Anthony Codispoti (04:12)
Okay, one quick story. What did you get caught doing that you shouldn’t have been doing?

Stacey Brown Randall (04:15)
⁓

Okay, so my grandmother’s restaurant is it’s on a lake and it is huge. It’s a two story restaurant. And obviously she built onto it over time. So in the restaurant, there’s this ramp that goes from the upstairs to the downstairs and one waitress. So I’ve done everything in that restaurant, but cook. I was never allowed to cook. It was kind like my dad’s rule. He was like, I don’t want her by the fryers. Like I just don’t want her cooking. My brother did, but I didn’t, which is awesome.

To this day, I still can’t cook. And I think that is a great badge of honor. ⁓ But so I’ve done everything. I’ve waitress, I’ve busboyed, I have worked takeout, I’ve been a hostess, I run the cash restores. So at this time, I was a waitress. And one of the waitresses, whatever section was as close to that ramp, you had to sweep that ramp. But at the bottom of the ramp was a koi pond. Like my grandmother did a lot of crazy things in her restaurant. She had this koi pond.

of like live fish swimming around at the bottom of the ramp. And I was sweeping that ramp and I didn’t think anybody was watching. And I swept all that stuff right into the koi pond. And she saw me. ⁓ my gosh, terrible. I never did it again. I mean, she saw me and she went bananas. She was a very, very strong, strong woman. We always said she was always full of piss and vinegar. So she definitely was not happy with me, but that still didn’t get me fired and it probably should have.

Anthony Codispoti (05:18)
That was poor fish.

Okay, that’s funny. I appreciate you sharing that. Okay, so your brother chose to be a workaholic in the restaurant business, you chose a different path, a business that afforded you more free time. What was it and what was the inspiration for starting?

Stacey Brown Randall (05:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I didn’t graduate college and start a business. Like that wasn’t how my journey worked. kind of, I always kind of talk about like my twenties, like before I started my first business was kind of what I would refer to as like a portfolio career. Like I had different jobs, I did different things. I was exposed to a lot of stuff. I had no idea what I would start a business in. Like wanted to, had no idea what, what it was that I would like have expertise in or that I would have a product in. And so I had some fits and starts with like,

know, investigating things and kind of paying attention to things. But it wasn’t until a couple who owned a research company that did some work at a job that I was in came to me and said, hey, you know, you’re really good in this area. And at that time, it was ⁓ my generational diversity expertise that I did for a company. And they’re like, you’re really good in this area. We’d love to open up an arm.

Anthony Codispoti (06:41)
What does that mean?

Generational diversity, what does that mean?

Stacey Brown Randall (06:46)
The different generations, the baby boomers, millennials, Gen X, Gen Z. Yeah, so was having, I was an expert in understanding working with different generations and would give presentations and some strategies and things like that for companies. And so they’re like, you should join our research firm and develop that area of expertise for our firm. Like we’ll use the research side and you’re able to use the data to tell the stories.

about how people can work better intergenerational like Baby Boomers. At that time it was like Baby Boomers working with Xers and millennials. And I was like, great. And so that was like my first kind of step into business ownership, but I had the comfort of a partnership. But I was a partner with a married couple, which means it was two thirds, one third for pretty much everything. And it was a great learning opportunity. They were a great company, but

our first client that I landed was actually a large accounting firm that I landed for that partnership that ⁓ chief HR person said, you could really do the piece that you do on your own and you should consider starting your own business. And I was like, this is it. This is what I’ll do. And so I had a contract from that accounting firm. I went out on my own.

Anthony Codispoti (07:57)
Light bulb.

Stacey Brown Randall (08:00)
And this is the part of story I don’t think people always know. So when I made the decision to leave my W2 job to join that research company as a partner, I was four weeks pregnant and didn’t know it. Yeah, so I’ve never known a maternity leave. I really would love to know what that would like.

Anthony Codispoti (08:13)
boy.

Stacey Brown Randall (08:21)
That’s why I was like, one regret, maybe more than one, but one regret would have been like, what is it like to work for a company that paid you to be out for 12 weeks? That would be really cool to know, but I don’t know what that’s like. And I’m not having any more children. So I’ll never know. So I started that. And so I was pregnant. And then, of course, building that. that was probably, think, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (08:30)
Nice perk, yep.

Sorry to interrupt, Stacey. I want to

better understand what it was that they thought you specifically did so well to go out on your own to do for them.

Stacey Brown Randall (08:50)
So I was their generational consultant. I helped them understand how the generations worked better together. And so just as a consultant, helping them understand the data, we did a lot of employee engagement surveys. We did a lot of like breaking it down and helping folks understand how the generations work together, how the baby boomers could understand the millennials. Right. I mean, we talk about this every cycle a new generation comes along and really like I would do presentations, I would do trainings, I would do coaching.

to help the leaders understand how best to retain their younger employees. ⁓ And so that’s what I started doing on my own. And so, you know, when I started that company, like, so when I left the research firm, kind of broke away from the research firm, it was still partnered with them on things and started my own company. And that was 2009. Yeah, because Jacob was born in 2008. So that was 2009. I really started out the best way a company can start.

which is with a contract, with money already coming in the door. I had a six figure contract coming in from that accounting firm. I worked with them for two years. And the unfortunate thing about that is it kind of lulled me into complacency. It kind of was like, well, this is great. But I did not do the things I needed to do to really build that business. Right, I wasn’t, and that’s one of the lessons I learned when that business eventually failed after four years.

Anthony Codispoti (10:08)
There’s no business development going on in the meantime.

Stacey Brown Randall (10:16)
⁓ So, I I had that contract for two years. I did pick up other clients, but I never kind of hit the ground running probably the way I needed to, which of course I did very different when I started the business I have now, which is I referred to as business number two. ⁓ And so with that HR consulting firm, when I was working with that accounting firm and I was definitely picking up other contracts and stuff, but no really like long-term engagements.

I didn’t do enough business development. one of the lessons I tell folks is like, you got to figure out how to touch business development every day. It doesn’t mean you’re picking up the phone and cold calling every day. Hopefully you’re not ever having to do that. But you have to have mechanisms in place and you have to have a strategy and a plan that you follow where you are constantly focused on business development, ⁓ whatever that looks like, whether it’s active or passive, depending on how well your business is doing. And I didn’t do that. And so when that contract ended,

I really like, was feast or famine for a couple of years. And finally I just wave the white flag of surrender. I was like, I can’t do this anymore. So the business made it four years. It didn’t quite make it to the five year mark. So I’m part of the 85 % of small business owners that will fail before the business hits year five. I actually had little badges made that said business failure club. So I my own membership badge. I didn’t, yes.

Anthony Codispoti (11:31)
You sort of celebrate it to like take or take the

sting out of it. Is that sort of the idea?

Stacey Brown Randall (11:37)
So not in the beginning and my ego was way too wounded for that. you know, having to say I had a business failure and had to go back to corporate America was really hard. And it’s hard in all the ways you think it would be financially. Of course, it is hard. But the biggest blow is to your ego. And it was just dealing with that. And it was just like figuring out how I talked about it, figuring out how I would spin it in some cases so that it could take the sting out of what I was doing and why things were changing.

And it was interesting when I was in my corporate job. So after my business failed and I went back to corporate America and I was in my corporate job, I got certified as a productivity consultant or a productivity coach.

Anthony Codispoti (12:18)
Sorry, sorry to interrupt Stacey, but can we dive in a little bit more to that really painful experience? Sorry to pick at a scab, but I think it’s I

Stacey Brown Randall (12:24)
yeah, no, that’s fine. I was just, I was just going to say like

when I got certified as that productivity coach, one of the things that I realized when I started this business I have now is that I, took me through going back to corporate America, starting my second business, having some success with my second business before I could finally celebrate the fact that it was actually a business failure. I never talked about it until I could make the connection to how it informed.

my past and how it informed my future. And that was a really important lesson. I remember sitting in a group with a couple of other business owners and trying to figure out like how to explain the business failure to the corporate America to now I’ve got my own business. And I realized the failure was the theme. It wasn’t something to hide. It was something to celebrate. Now I had to get some distance from it.

Right. It was a lot easier when the second business started being successful and it continued to be successful. And now I’ll hit 13 years in business this year or later this year. And so, you know, it’s a look at it totally different now than I did back then. But it took time. It was more of a don’t talk about it. It was, yep, I did the company. Then I had this great opportunity to go to corporate. So I went to corporate. But the truth is, I was miserable and I wanted to go back out on my own. The certification program just became the mechanism to have a

to have a reason and to have an expertise to be able to start a coaching practice. But everything about that second business had to be different. And so I wouldn’t be a two time member of the Business Failure Club. But it did take time. So yes, when you say do you celebrate it, absolutely now. mean, I don’t know if celebrate it’s the right word, but it is a huge part of why I am the way I am today, of why my business looks the way that it looks today, of why I do.

Anthony Codispoti (14:01)
right

Yeah, it’s too strong.

Stacey Brown Randall (14:15)
What I do today, like millions and millions of small business owners will fail every year. And that is just heartbreaking for me. And I know what it’s like. ⁓ And I know what it’s like to be on the other side too. So I understand both sides of it. And I think that’s part of why I do what I do. I do it in a very unique way, but it’s why I do what I do because the business failure could have defined me. And people are like, it’s not a failure, it’s a lesson. I’m like, no, like it’s a failure.

Anthony Codispoti (14:44)
Try telling that to your

ego. Yeah, it feels very different.

Stacey Brown Randall (14:45)
It’s okay to label it a failure.

I learned from it. That’s all that matters. Yeah. And it was a hard lesson. It was an important lesson. Apparently it was a lesson God thought I needed to learn. So I took my lumps, ⁓ but it did take time before I could talk about it. And I remember the first time I publicly talked about my business failure, I was giving a presentation and I was explaining something about

I don’t remember the exact presentation, but I was explaining something about like what I did before and how it informed what I do now as a productivity coach. Like that’s what I was doing when my second business started. And I remember saying, and this all happened because my business failed. And then I heard myself say those words again, like at least a dozen more times in the presentation. Like I’m pretty sure the audience was like, why does she keep saying her business failed? But for me, it was like this moment of reckoning of like,

I can talk about this. I can talk about this and I can still be seen as an expert. I can still be seen as a successful business owner. It doesn’t define me. It’s just a part of the past. Yes, totally.

Anthony Codispoti (15:47)
And it makes you more relatable, right? Because

everybody falls on their face. And I think that’s the thing that a lot of people don’t recognize is they see where somebody is today, this quote unquote finished product, which is the wrong term, but they have no idea sort of the trials and tribulations that you went through. And for somebody who has never had a failed business, lost a business that they poured their heart and their soul and their identity into, they don’t understand just how soul crushing that is.

Right? It’s not only a financial loss, you use the word ego multiple times. And I think that’s a good point to hit on because there is a part of you, there’s a part of that ego inside that dies. It feels like a death that has taken place. Yes?

Stacey Brown Randall (16:30)
Yeah, ⁓ definitely. I mean, let’s be honest, right? There’s nothing really worse than feeling like a failure. And I think that’s the piece that you just have to kind of reconcile, right? But it’s not really the failure that defines you. It’s whether you decide to pick yourself up and keep moving on and figuring out, you know, what the failure is going to mean for you moving forward. But yeah, it was, it’s really hard.

I mean, there are definitely days when I was like, I don’t even want to get out of bed, but you do because I haven’t had children. Right? Like by the time my business failed, which would have been in 2012, because that’s when I went back to corporate, like early 2012. I had two kids then I had a four year old, I guess, and a two year old at that point. And so like, there’s no real time to just like mope around in bed and feel sorry for yourself. ⁓

I was like had the failure, had to go to work, had like my husband and I are a two income family. We have always created our lives like that. Nobody gets to stay home with the kids. It’s kind of our motto. If he can’t, I can’t. If I can’t, he can’t. And so yeah, it was like you just have to keep moving forward. And eventually, you know, the sting fades and eventually you figure out how to talk about it. But a real turning point for me was

learning to talk about it as like this is the celebration of why I get to be where I am today because of what I experienced in the past and because what I survived and I guess and then maybe thrived through afterwards.

Anthony Codispoti (18:05)
Okay, so let’s talk about what that next business was, how the idea came about for that.

Stacey Brown Randall (18:10)
Yeah, so when I was in corporate America, I remember sitting in the lobby of my interview and being like, okay, this has got to be temporary. I want to do a really good job because I am one of those folks that like I’m a three on the Enneagram. I’m a high achiever. I want to do well wherever I am. But I was always looking for my exit strategy. I was always like, how do I get out of here? How do I get back to being a business owner? And so while I was in that corporate job,

Carson Tate came to me who is a highly recognized and sought after productivity coach. She happens to be in the Charlotte area, but she is known internationally. And she came and she said, I’m certifying productivity coaches. And in 2000 and something, I don’t remember, I was pregnant. So I guess it was 2007, 2008. ⁓

I went through one of her boot camps because I just knew I was about, you know, working, going to have a baby. My whole life was going to change. I wanted to brush up on being more productive and just having some better tips. And so I dragged my husband with me and we went to her bootcamp where she taught productivity strategies and she was like, you’re just so good at it. She was like, you’ve done it most of your time. Like you’re a productive person to kind of begin with. You kind of have our own systems. She was like, learning mine is only going to accelerate it. And was like, and we need more coaches. And I was like, okay.

So I got certified as a productivity coach. And then when I left my corporate job, it was to start a productivity and business coaching practice. And what I found, I went all in on the productivity piece, but what I found is having conversations with small business owners. So my niche was small business owners who were also parents. And I worked with actually a lot of husband and wife teams, but also a lot of individual business owners as well. But the one thing they almost all had in common, not all,

but a majority of them had in common is that they also had parents. They were also parents and they had kids. And so it fit really well into the life I understood and the reality that I was walking through. think it made me very authentic in terms of like talking about what I did and how I did it. ⁓ And then what my other clients were doing as well. And so I started that productivity coaching practice, but you don’t talk to small business owners about their inbox without also talking about their business.

And so I quickly morphed into productivity and business coaching. I used to tell folks one of my not wanted superpowers is that I could see a business headed towards failure. Just how the owner would talk just about things of like, I could just hear it and be like, ⁓ they are saying that to make themselves feel better, but that is a lie. That is actually not true. ⁓ Or.

Anthony Codispoti (20:52)
Sorry, let

me let me jump in just with a quick question. So the productivity coaching is about setting up systems processes. How do we break through bottlenecks, this kind of a thing?

Stacey Brown Randall (21:02)
Yeah, so we did a lot with like, you know, managing your calendar, learning how to time block, you know, taking control of your inbox. But a lot of it’s around mindset. A lot of it has to do with like where you decide to give your attention and figuring out how you’re going to prioritize. So there was a lot of tactics to it. A lot of tactical like, okay, you’re in 21 meetings throughout the week. You clearly have no time to get your work done.

let’s look at these 21 meetings and figure out which ones somebody else can go in your place and you don’t have to go or you can cancel altogether. Like it was things that was very tactical in terms of helping people just create more space and more margin in their days and then how they take their whole self to work and to home at the end of the day too.

Anthony Codispoti (21:49)
And so then when you started sort of rolling in bigger level business coaching on top of that productivity coaching, it’s because you could see in advance that businesses were on their way to failure. And was that path that they were often marching down because they didn’t have that sales funnel full? They didn’t have the business development piece in place?

Stacey Brown Randall (22:09)
Not always, not every, most of the clients I worked with, I never saw that, right? I could just see it from time to time. And some folks I’d like, ⁓ I don’t know if they’ll still be in business a year from now. And those weren’t always the folks I was coaching. I could see it when I was in networking groups or when I would go and talk to business owners. ⁓ But what the work that I was doing with them as we evolved beyond productivity and we started talking about business, a big part of what we were talking about was

their mindset and business development. And because I always tell folks the three lessons I learned from my business failure was the first ⁓ is that you have to protect your mindset. It’s actually the most important lesson you can learn. I can distinctly trace back to a moment where I believed something that someone told me that led me to look at my business differently, my first business differently, and was kind of the beginning of the end.

even though it took a while for that business to eventually die. And that was, was going for an award, was a women business owner going for an award through a women business organization. And somebody who was there who had a business kind of like mine said, oh, Stacey, businesses like ours don’t win awards. We’re like a lifestyle business. And this is before lifestyle business was a thing.

Right? So this is before people talk about lifestyle businesses and then they’ve got pictures of them laying on the beach and their Lamborghinis in the background. Right? Like that. This is like the, ⁓ our businesses don’t really, they earn income and they do okay, but they’re not powerhouses is kind of how she implied it. And I…

probably was still in the nursing phase, if I had to guess, with my second child with my daughter. And I probably bought it hook, line and sinker. Like it was like, yeah, that’s okay. I don’t win awards. That’s okay that I feel like doing laundry at one o’clock on a Wednesday when I should be doing something else. And it was like an excuse. Like she didn’t intend it the way that I took it and to the length that I took it to. She meant it as probably trying to protect me from the fact that you’re going up against other business owners for this award and you’re not gonna win.

⁓ and she was right because I didn’t, but it was very, very, it was very much that moment of the end is here and I didn’t know it at that time, but I could start seeing if I looked back, I could start seeing how all my behavior started to shift. the first thing I was told folks is my first business lesson learned from a failure is you have to protect your mindset. You have to be constantly working to protect your mindset. The second lesson I learned was you can’t scale while you’re drowning.

Anthony Codispoti (24:23)
Mm.

How do you do that?

Stacey Brown Randall (24:44)
So I was always trying to figure out how to scale my HR consulting firm, but I was always drowning and that’s an impossible task, which meant when I started my second business, I was always looking for the thing I would scale. And the third lesson being the one we’ve already talked about, you got to touch business development every day. You got to know what you’re doing with your pipeline on an ongoing basis. And so those lessons I was always coaching my clients on and our conversations would evolve past just help me time block.

right, or help me get control of my inbox with some rules, putting some rules in place. ⁓ And so the business coaching kind of evolved as well ⁓ into how that I would help those business owners.

Anthony Codispoti (25:24)
So how do you protect your mindset? And then I want to get into how the whole referral component of this kind of evolved for

Stacey Brown Randall (25:30)
Yeah, so the mindset thing, think it’s, I think it’s different for every person, right? I think that the way I protect my mindset now is that I have, I have moments like when I recognize I’m, I’m backsliding into how I used to be. And that’s just unique to my situation, though I bet we all have them, right? We all have moments like I have this one coaching client.

that I talk to every once in a while and we kind of catch up. I mean, I haven’t coached him in, I don’t know, a decade. And I remember one time he was like, recently, was like last year he reached out and he was like, can I just grab like 20 minutes on your calendar? And he was like, I’ll pay you. I’m like, you don’t have to pay me. Like, we’re a client for forever. And I knew 20 minutes would be an hour and 20 minutes, because that’s just how we are. But we were talking and he was talking about some decisions he needed to make in his business. I haven’t coached this man in 10 years.

but we were talking about things he needed to make in his business. And I said like, and I’m gonna change the details to protect him. But I said to him, I was like, this is not Detroit. And he was like, that’s what I needed to hear. Because I knew something from his past about a business failure he experienced where he lived somewhere else that he always brought into the business he has today, which is multimillion dollar successful.

nothing like what he experienced before, but he has this marker place where he will drop back into a fear factor or a concern factor of it’s going to be Detroit all over again. And I’m like, this is not Detroit. I was like, you’re so far past Detroit. That’s not even in your rear view anymore. Like you can’t even see it. You’ve crossed so many mountains from it. I was like, stop making decisions from that place. And you know, as someone who coached him for a number of years, I’m uniquely positioned to say that to him because I know it and I remembered it, right?

So we all have those things right in our lives I remember I had one client where whenever she would fall about and this is my productivity coaching whenever she would fall behind on things we would we literally she had this one big project she fell behind on and it like haunted her for like a year and There’s a lot of things that go into why that happened and it had to do something with trains and so I told her I was like when we

processed through that from a productivity perspective. And then we process through the mindset perspective of it. I said, I want you to go out, I want you to buy yourself a little small Thomas the train or some type of train or something that is a train, like comes from a toy. don’t really care. Buy a model one. I don’t really care, but I need it on your desk and I need it on your desk forever. Because I need you when you start backsliding and you start exhibiting, right, the behaviors and the mindset that’s going to put you in another train.

I want you to look at the train and be like, I’m not going there again. And I want you to switch yourself over. And so I think we all have those. think it takes, you have to figure out what it is for you from that perspective. But we all have those markers. And for me, I knew with my mindset, for me, it was more about growth and focusing on what can I learn next. So I’ll give you one example. Something that I do now that I would laugh at.

back in 2008, 2009, 2009, 2010, Stacey would laugh at 2025, 2020. Well, I guess it started for me in 2022 would laugh at is like this understanding of affirmations and manifesting and understanding how your mindset and what you believe impacts how you actually show up and what energy you put out into the world. And that is a big part, like just knowing how to, you know,

calm my nervous system when things aren’t going my way and how to focus on what it looks like. I used to just white knuckle everything. I’m just gonna white knuckle it and push through and make it happen versus that ability to like take a breath, relax, let the knuckles turn back to their regular color and be like, I just got to do my piece and let everything else fall into place the way it’s supposed to. ⁓ And I think that…

that for me, there was a few books that I read, there was a mastermind that I was in, and that all set me on this journey for kind of where I am today and the things I look for in terms of like, oh, I like there was something that happened in 2025 and I was like, oh, I sound like I could see the spiral down start happening. I’m like, I am spiraling down. I’m not spiraling up. And so that was, you know, I start noticing it and I make shifts for it.

Anthony Codispoti (29:56)
So if I’m pulling from your different stories there, if I’m kind of hearing you correctly, I’ve sort of identified three steps in that process. So being honest with yourself, asking yourself, what is the pattern that I keep repeating? It’s different for everybody, as you pointed out. The second is identify when you are in the process of repeating that cycle. And then the third is telling yourself that this time is not that time.

Stacey Brown Randall (30:23)
Yeah, and then I would say the fourth step is making sure you have some type of mechanism in place to move forward in the right way. Whether that is, sometimes it’s calling somebody and having a conversation, right? And being like, this is not Detroit, and that’s all you need to move forward. Sometimes for me, it’s like getting up out of my office and going for a walk. And so it’s figuring out what it is you need to bring yourself, like it’s recognizing it, right?

It’s knowing it happens, it’s recognizing when it happens, it’s calling yourself out on it. And then it’s the, do you do is the fourth thing is like, what do you do that kind of moves you into the right direction? That action is going to be some type of action that you take. Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (31:04)
that. Okay, Stacy, now build the bridge for us how we got

from where we’ve been talking about to the whole referral side of business. Yes.

Stacey Brown Randall (31:11)
to why am I an expert in referrals, right?

Because we haven’t talked about it at all. Most people are like, how did that happen? much that I know. So life well lived, right? So here’s what I always tell folks. I did not wake up one day and decide to go from being a productivity coach to an expert in referrals. That’s not how this journey went. I didn’t wake up one day and all of a sudden I’m brilliant when it comes to referrals.

Anthony Codispoti (31:18)
There’s so much great ground to cover, but…

Stacey Brown Randall (31:39)
One of the lessons that we’ve talked about that I learned when my first business failed and then I started my second business was that business development piece that you’ve got to figure out how to touch business, touch business development every day, but you’ve got to do it in a way that’ll work for you. And that was a big key for me. Right. So I always tell folks like you have to figure out how you want to grow your business and get new clients or prospects to get new clients in the door in a way that not only works, but works for you because you will have to keep doing it.

Anybody can cold call for a day. Most people can’t do it for longer than that unless you are like a unicorn, right? It’s just a tough go at it. Same thing with like dropping off things at other people’s businesses, right? Or things like that, like the drop-offs, the drive-bys, the whatever, there’s a, you know, some people can network and they love it and other people are like, maybe once or twice a month and then it just drains me, right? So the most important thing to figure out is how do you want to grow your business? Cause you have to.

Anthony Codispoti (32:15)
It’s tough.

Stacey Brown Randall (32:37)
Right. You have to bring in prospects to be able then to turn them into paying clients, but you got to figure out how you’re going to touch business development every day in a way that works for you. When my business failed, I kind of looked back at to where all my clients came from. And I realized that I landed all of my clients for the most part from networking and all of those situations with all the clients that I landed. we’re talking like Ally Bank, BDO, KPMG, Coca-Cola Consolidate, like

Anthony Codispoti (33:06)
Big clients.

Stacey Brown Randall (33:07)
We’re talking about big name clients, right? It was being in the right place at the right time. You know what that really means? It means being in all the places all the time and it is exhausting. And so here I was, right? Starting my first business and I, yes, I had that contract, but when that contract looked like it was coming to an end, I was like, I’m gonna do something. I better start like, right? So I was networking already, but it was like turbocharged it. I had babies at home. Like it was just a really…

like tough season because what I knew was networking, but it was exhausting. And then it got to the point where like T-ball started. like, I’m not missing games. Like I got other priorities. And so for me, it was paying attention to how you’re going to grow this business. And I looked back where all my clients came from. It was mostly from networking. The only referral my first business received was two years after I shut that business down and had started this business I’m in now.

And that referral showed up and I’m like, wait a minute, this is pretty awesome. Like this client was easier to close, quicker to close because they already trusted me. ⁓ They didn’t waffle at my price. I didn’t have to feel like I needed to negotiate against myself. They said yes right away. They hired me. I was like, and it was for something that I could still do. So I did it. ⁓ But I was like, all my business comes because

people know me and then they hire me, not because they’re referring someone they know to me. And so was one of those things that I started paying attention to. And then the job I took in corporate was actually in the insurance world. And so it was in the financial advising and insurance world. And so you are surrounded by people talking about referrals and I saw how they taught it and I saw how they taught to ask. And I was like, I would never do that. I could never do that. Like, and I was like, must be why I didn’t get any referrals with my first business.

And then I got a referral for my first business once it had already died and it was now in my second business. And I was like, I want to get more referrals, but I can’t ask for them. That’s like a cousin to cold calling. It’s just so uncomfortable and it just doesn’t fit who I am. And so can I do it once? Sure. Will I do it twice? Nope. I will find an excuse. know me, right? Knowing yourself is really important. You decide to be a business owner and you got to know how to identify your own blind spots.

Anthony Codispoti (35:15)
just felt uncomfortable to you.

Stacey Brown Randall (35:30)
And I was like, okay, so I started my productivity practice by what I knew, networking, right? And I used a very specific strategy when I started, but I started by meeting with people who was, I was already a client of theirs, because they’re not going to say no to you. So my attorney, right? My mortgage broker, my financial advisor, right? Like I started meeting with those people when I started my second business, because that’s what I knew. I knew networking. I knew how to stack coffee meetings back to back to back. And I was just telling the story of the

Here’s what you knew me as, here’s what I transitioned to do, here’s the certification I got. And it was all networking. And the first three people that hired me were actually the first three people I just told you. I was already their client, so now they’re my client. And it was one of those first three people that also then referred me to my fourth client. And I was like, whoa, here it is again. This is pretty amazing. And I was like, I gotta learn more about this. I didn’t know what I was doing.

I was like throwing spaghetti on the wall and figuring out what would stick because I refused to ask. I physically could not bring myself to ask and I could not compensate.

Anthony Codispoti (36:34)
Sorry,

you could not ask somebody to help coach you on how to get referrals or you could not ask somebody to give you a referral.

Stacey Brown Randall (36:40)
I couldn’t ask someone to refer me.

Yeah, I couldn’t ask someone to refer me. Like when that referral for my fourth coaching client showed up, I was like, this is amazing. And I didn’t have to ask for it. How do I do more of that? And so, and I wouldn’t ask and I wasn’t making enough money to pay somebody to compensate somebody to refer me. And I didn’t like the idea of kickbacks. I don’t like it when somebody refers you to someone else and then you find out later it was because they made money.

Anthony Codispoti (36:51)
Hmm. Right. And so what’s the answer?

Stacey Brown Randall (37:11)
Not because maybe they referred you to the best person, they referred you to the person who was going to pay them. To me, I have a fundamental issue with that. And that’s how a lot of, this is before affiliate programs were really, really big, and that’s all disclosed up front. And so I’m talking about the kickbacks under the table stuff that still happens to this day. And so when it’s not disclosed, that’s when I have an issue with it. So I was like, well, I won’t ask and I won’t pay and…

Anthony Codispoti (37:11)
Mm-hmm.

Stacey Brown Randall (37:37)
The other thing you’re taught is well then just network all the times you’re constantly seen so that people will refer you. And I’m like, well, I’ve done that and it gets me clients, but it doesn’t get me referrals. So clearly I’m missing something. And it wasn’t that my clients didn’t love me. It wasn’t that I didn’t have glowing testimonials from my first business clients and my early second business clients. And so I just paid attention to the fact that I got that referral and I was like, okay, let’s just try some things. Let’s just…

take care of the people who are referring to me or the people that I want referring to me in a different way. And I made a lot of mistakes. I threw a lot of spaghetti on the wall to see what would stick. But in my first year as a productivity and business coach, I received 112 referrals that I never asked for or paid for.

Anthony Codispoti (38:24)
112 referrals in one year, your first year of throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what stuck. You didn’t know what you were doing and you got 112 referrals.

Stacey Brown Randall (38:34)
112 referrals passed my corporate salary, like at the six or seven month mark. And I was like, I’m onto something. Went on a wait list, was raising my coaching rates. Like it changed everything. Less than a year later, I would then have office space. Like it changed everything. And I was like, how did this happen? And that’s the thing. I don’t know how it happened until I do something that I’m pretty good at, which is reverse engineering, why it happened.

Anthony Codispoti (38:59)
Hmm.

Stacey Brown Randall (39:00)
So I am not one those people that can always pay attention why it’s working in the moment. I mean, I can now I’m much more evolved, but back then I couldn’t. I could just be like, this feels right. So do this, this feels right. So do this. that felt good. Let’s do it again. And there were a few key moments, a few key moments that I remember that stuck with me, that I just kept doing those things over and over again. One of them was when a new client would hire me as their coat. And I talk about this in my second book, the Referrable Client Experience.

one time I would, you I would send these, welcome cards, which I tell folks they’re like better than a typical, thanks for being our client. We’re so glad to work with you, which is what most people send. If they send anything, I was in the hell handwritten card. That was more like a journey card, like welcome to the journey. We’re about to go on together, right? It’s going to be hard. And I’m here with you, like acknowledging, right. The elephant in the room of that quiet voice of what they’re worried about after just paying to work with me. And I remember I walked into that.

client that was referred to me, my fourth client, I walked into her office and I saw the card up on the board and I looked at it and she saw me looking at it and she was like, I’ve never gotten a card like that before. And I was like, Julie noted, we will be doing that again. Right? So it was just moments like that, that I realized that I was yes. And noticing it and being like, do it more, do it more. And so after that, into that year, I didn’t know I had 112 referrals.

Anthony Codispoti (40:19)
noticing what people respond to.

Stacey Brown Randall (40:28)
while the year was happening. I was compiling the numbers because I wanted to look like the year in review, like most people, right? I wanted to look back and I wanted to figure out where my business came from. I just knew that was always an important metric to be able to know where my business came from. And that’s when I added it up and I was like, my gosh, ⁓ 112 referrals, right? And yes, other business came from people who knew me. They were part of my network and they decided to hire me. But the majority of my business came from referrals and it literally changed everything.

about my coaching practice. mean, literally changed everything. And it was before that first year was over. When I am now clients can’t just book me can’t buy a coaching package for three months. Now they’ve got to do a full year and they’re like, what happened? And now I’m like, yeah, and the rates gone up and they’re like, what, what’s going on? And I’m like, yeah, demand, right? Like, when you have a ton of demand, you get to make different choices for your business. My clients inevitably started asking the question. So

What are you doing? How are you growing? And I was like, I’m getting these referrals. And then they started asking the question, what does that look like? Like, how are you doing that? And they’re like, thanks for teaching me how to tame my inbox. But I would also like us to talk about whatever you’re doing to get referrals, which forced me really fast to reverse engineer what I was actually doing and how it was working and doing that in my first year and starting to have conversations with clients as part of their normal coaching package.

right, they were still hiring me for productivity and business coaching, but the ones that were interested in it, we started having conversations around referrals and it was in teaching it to those first couple of clients. I really started to refine some of the processes of what I was doing and what’s crazy, the things I named, like the frameworks that I would name on the fly in a coaching session to one of that first or second clients.

be like, we call this and I would be like the running five, keeping warm. Those frameworks still exist today. Same names. Yep. Same names. And because they’re evergreen. Now do something shift and change. Of course, but I have the benefit of helping people cultivate relationships with other people so that they can get referrals. And that doesn’t change. I’m not, I don’t have to worry about an algorithm.

Anthony Codispoti (42:34)
still have the same names.

Stacey Brown Randall (42:55)
Cause I’m not worried about an algorithm. I am worried about how we take care of other people and how you do that doesn’t really change when you think about the basic human nature and the basic human psychology and basic human needs. And so that’s the cool thing of like when I named something like 13 years ago, I guess 12 years ago now it’ll be 13 closer to the end of this year. I was like, I still call it that. Like it’s still the same thing. There’s still the same tactics. Some things I have massaged and you know, and I’ve seen things now when I, when I started watching things work,

over and over again. Now, like if you learn one of my strategies, I’ll say this is a must. There are no exceptions. I’ve seen this for over a decade. Work. You have to start this way. And then there’s creativity that you can bring to it. So now I’m a little bit more like, Hey, there are things we have to do. And then there’s things that you could do. but yeah, I mean, it informed everything and it was really to survive, right. And make my second business successful. And then as clients started asking,

Okay, teach me the referrals piece. Remember my second business lesson I learned from my business failure was you cannot scale while drowning. I was always looking for what can I scale and I didn’t want to scale the productivity coaching because I felt that would be rude to Carson who had taught it to me. I was like, I’m not going to scale that. That’s her thing, right? I But I want to scale beyond that with something different. And when the referral piece clicked, I was like, that’s it.

That’s what I want to get more. That’s what I want to dive in deeper to. That’s what I want to scale. And eventually over a couple of years, I would shift from doing productivity and referrals to eventually just only referrals.

Anthony Codispoti (44:29)
And so there’s several fun layers to your story here, this part that we just shared. And the one that I really want to draw people’s attention to is how you really listen to your clients to figure out where the business was going next. You weren’t thinking about developing the referral process as like another line of business. It was just a way to feed your productivity business until your clients started saying, I’d like to hear more about that. And that’s when the light bulb goes off. think, I think

Stacey Brown Randall (44:38)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (44:58)
This is oftentimes the best way for businesses to either make a pivot or to just grow their business is listening to what their clients are asking.

Stacey Brown Randall (45:09)
Yes. Yeah. I think that, you sometimes I hear what my clients say today and I’m like, you know, I feel like everyone’s obsessed with a shortcut. Right. And there’s just what’s the hack? What’s the shortcut? Can AI teach that to me? No, it cannot. And so it’s always and I feel like that, I mean, I’ve been hearing this drumbeat now for a couple of years, but it’s, it’s intensified, I would say in the last year or two. And so part of me is like, I know I need to listen to that, but the truth is what I teach.

Anthony Codispoti (45:17)
What’s the hack? Yeah, give me the hack.

Stacey Brown Randall (45:39)
cannot be a hack or a shortcut. Like we’re talking about somebody putting their reputation on the line when they make the decision to refer someone to you. And that looks different, but it is informing, okay, maybe how I deliver things looks different, right? Like, so sometimes it doesn’t have to inform what you teach or how you help your clients, but maybe the mechanism and the delivery model of how you work with your clients. So yeah, I think it impacts lots of ways of how we run our businesses.

in terms of listening to your clients and what they need.

Anthony Codispoti (46:10)
And so Stacey, you categorize your strategies into foundational, situational, and next level. Can you briefly explain what those categories are?

Stacey Brown Randall (46:17)
Right.

Yeah, so I think a lot of people will read my first book, Generating Business Referrals Without Asking, and they’ll be like, OK, so I got it. And I’m like, ⁓ well, wait, no, not even close. That is one strategy of the 20 strategies right now that I teach. And we are adding new strategies as we see things work. And that book is based on one of the foundational strategies. There are three foundational strategies that I believe

every business should have in place. It doesn’t mean you have to run all three of them all the time. Two of them should run all the time. One, you can use it as you need it, but you need to know how to do all three of them and you need to have all three of them in place. And my first book is based on one of those strategies. My second book is based on another of one of those foundational strategies. And if and when I get around to writing a third book, I’m pretty sure it’ll be based on the third foundational strategy. But these are the mechanisms, these foundational strategies are the things are like the engine that runs

the referral system and they are the things you have to have in place to be generating the referrals you want. Everything that follows in the situational bucket of strategies and tactics are usually based on situations you then find yourself in because referrals are happening. And so the majority of the strategies are actually situational. And so really there’s like 14 situational, I got three foundational, think it’s like 14 situational.

right? And then we’ve got three next level. And so the majority of them are the situational. So when people come to me and they’re like, I’m getting referrals, but it’s not the right quality or I’m not closing them or people tell me they’ve referred me, but I actually, nobody ever shows up. I’m like, those are all like, once you know how to solve them in that situation, you just know the tool in your toolbox.

And so there’s the three foundational, there is the situational, and then there’s a couple of next level. And the next levels are really based on once you followed my process, there’s some things you need to be prepared to do as you move into your second year and then to sustain it every year after that. I tell folks, I am not a one-hit wonder. You do not come to work with me. I mean, that doesn’t mean people don’t, but you shouldn’t look at working with me like I’m gonna learn this and this is gonna help me for 20, 20 seconds.

You should be looking at this as an investment in your business. I’m going to learn these strategies and processes. I’m going to put these workflows in place. I’m going to teach my team how to do certain things. And in five years, I’m going be able to tell Stacey, this is all that we’ve kept going and look at how our referrals have grown and increased year over year over year. That doesn’t mean you won’t have some dips, right? Even referrals aren’t immune to what’s going on in the world of the economy or in industries, but that what you build is sustainable.

year over year over year in your business. It is not just help me get through 2026. It’s not just help me figure out how to survive this algorithm change because we’re talking about humans. We’re not talking about algorithms. And so that’s why it’s so robust. Most people are like, I went through referral training and I learned how to ask. And I’m like, so you learned that referrals are a nail and the only solution they’re going to give you is a hammer.

I’m never gonna teach you to ask for referrals. That’s the one tool I’m never gonna give you, but I am gonna give you a fully stocked toolbox that’s gonna help you see referrals as an ecosystem in your business, because that’s what it is. And it’s they’re hiding and living and could be in lots of places you’re not paying attention to. But once you have the right strategies in place, the right plans, you know how to deal with situations when they happen. Language is a big piece of what we do. And you know how to prepare yourself to move forward to keep doing this and keep.

implementing every year. That’s when we built some sustainable businesses.

Anthony Codispoti (49:57)
So how quickly can someone expect to start seeing results? I get that this is planting the seeds for future growth in years to come, but everybody listening is like, yeah, but I need sales today, Stacey.

Stacey Brown Randall (50:09)
Yeah, so the one of the things if you go to our website and you start looking at case studies or you start reading testimonials, you’re going to see things like anywhere from Stacey helped me double, triple or quadruple my referrals and you’ll see things as little as 90 days and it’s for some folks that took a year or maybe longer. Some of that has to do with the industry they’re in and if they actually do what they’re supposed to do, which is obviously a big part of success is the implementation.

⁓ And so for some folks, know, like I’ll have some folks like I did this one thing and I got eight referrals. And I’m like, great, like awesome. It’s a tactic. It is not, if you just do that tactic and nothing else, eight referrals are all you’re ever going to have to show for it. Right. There’s like more that we need to do. So I always think it’s great when people can have that early fast success. I love it when people are like, wow, look at this success we had in 90 days. Right. I think that’s amazing, but I always tell folks what we’re, what I’m after.

is to double, triple or quadruple your referrals based on where you are, right? It looks different for everybody. We have a formula that we use to kind of predict what we would expect to be able to do with your referrals. And so we would love to double, triple, quadruple that in 90 days, but we’re going to ask for a year to do it. And we’re going to ask for us to actually see the opportunity for you to learn it and implement it and then tweak it and then make sure you keep it going. But most people will see.

those results in less than a year. I have people who see those results in a quarter. I have people who see those results in a couple of quarters. I mean, I have somebody who attended one of my in-person events in 2025 and from going from like one quarter to the next quarter, had 132 % growth from referrals. So it just really depends on kind of where you’re starting from. And that’s how our formula is based. When somebody comes to me and they’re like, I want to get more referrals. I need a hundred referrals a year. I’m going to dig into why that number.

And I’m going understand like, do you really need a hundred? Right? What’s your capacity? And then we’re to look at, who’s referring you now? Do you have people referring you now? Because if you do, we can move faster. If you don’t, it’s going to take longer. Like, and I am really transparent in what it looks like from where you’re starting from to what referral growth will look like and what strategies you’ll have to put into place. Some of that’s the benefit of just doing this for 12 years. But the other part is making sure people are really, really clear of not only what’s possible,

but what you’re gonna have to do to make the possible possible.

Anthony Codispoti (52:35)
Well, and that’s my follow-up question is what kind of time commitment should people expect?

Stacey Brown Randall (52:38)
Yeah.

So we always tell folks, we look at time commitment in two ways. And I think it’s important that people break it down in this way. First is the time commitment it’s going to take to learn the stuff, right? Cause you got to learn the things to be able to build out your pieces and then put them into practice. And then you have to maintain them, right? Keep the execution going. So depending on how you work with me, how long it takes to learn something will vary. If you’re in my coaching program, you’re going to an online portal, you’re logging into an online portal.

and you’re going through trainings that are online in video form. So right with videos and downloads and templates and checklists and things like that. I always tell folks, you got to give me a couple hours a month, right? I’m going to need a couple hours a month for you to get through. Like if you’re going through one of our foundational strategies, probably going to need three to four hours for you to learn it and build it and then get my approval on it. And we really do call it like, did Stacey bless this? Don’t do it if Stacey didn’t bless it yet kind of a thing. But how does, and then you have to move into implementation. So.

The learning of it, like some folks are like, I’m not gonna watch a video. So they’ll come to a referral accelerator. Well, I need two days, two uninterrupted days. You’re gonna come to Charlotte, you’re gonna sit in a conference room at a country club, and we are gonna go through all the strategies and where to put them in place. And I have a very unique way I teach it in that setting. So whether you’re gonna give me two days or a couple hours a month for maybe the first six months, you’re gonna have to learn it. Then on implementation, the majority of the strategies are situational.

which means you know what to do and you know how to notice a situation needs something. Most of them are language based. So it’s like, Hey, when this happens, you know how to respond. There are some that are process based, meaning you should set this as a workflow in your business and there should be some form of automation that is making it happen. You may have.

Anthony Codispoti (54:26)
meaning like

I got a new client that should trigger the first step of not asking for a referral, but whatever that process is of sort of warming them up to want to give the referral.

Stacey Brown Randall (54:37)
Right, some of those things where like they’re just process or like you get a referral, right? Once you write the thank you card, what happens after that? That should be a process that is automated, that’s reminding you things that you need to do through that process. And so some of them are language based, know what to say when the moment presents itself. That’s not time, that’s memory, right? The next thing is those processes are automated. You have to do the thing when the automation tells you. And sometimes it could be like an automation that does it on your behalf. So that’s setting it up.

and then just making sure it’s continuing to work. And when you get the task, you do the thing, right? When the task comes in that says, hey, send the thank you card, because you just got a referral that you don’t push it off for 90 days that you do it, right? And then some are actual plans that have what we call touch points. And that’s the three big foundational strategies. They have individual plans and individual touch points. And some are just you do it when you need it. And others are, hey, this plan has five touch points throughout the year.

So five times throughout the year or six times throughout the year, you’re gonna have to take the time to do whatever the touch point is. And some touch points will take a couple hours. Some touch points will take less than an hour. Some touch points could take a day over a month, right? So it just depends on what you build. And that’s really important when I tell clients the framework is rooted in the science of how referrals work, but everybody builds what’s customized for themselves and also for what their referral sources or their clients need.

Anthony Codispoti (56:06)
So let’s say I start your program today, whether, and I want to hear more about the different offerings and I start learning about some of these strategies and I’m like, ⁓ I should have sent that card or that email that she’s recommending to this person six months ago when, you know, this trigger happened. Should you coach people to, Hey, no time like the present, even though it would have been better if you did it right away, still send that piece of communication. Or is it like,

The past is in the past, just look forward.

Stacey Brown Randall (56:38)
No, we actually address that. So we actually have language specific for situations like that. And it’s already a script. I tell folks like the scripts are usually written, they’re very gender neutral. And they’re very, everything I write that is language based is never based on how you’re going to feel sending it. It’s based on how the receiver is going to feel when they receive it. And clients will look at my language and they’ll be like, that’s how I sound. I’m like, yeah, cause it’s normal.

Like we sound like a good human when we do this kind of work. And they’re like, I don’t even have to change your script. That’s exactly what I would say if I knew how to, if I had thought to say it myself, I’m like, that’s why you hired me. I tell you what to say. So yes, we address. Yeah. None of it can be written by AI. And the thing about that is, is that, you know, people always say that they’re like, can AI tell me how to say this? I’m like, I’m sure parts of it. Yes. And today’s age with AI, I’m sure AI can tell you how to write, you know, the thing you need to say the thing or write the thing you need to write.

Anthony Codispoti (57:14)
Doesn’t sound like it was written by AI, huh? Yeah.

Stacey Brown Randall (57:32)
But what people don’t understand is that there are rules that we follow. There’s formulas for a lot of things that we follow that make what we do work. It’s not just the thank you, it’s the thank you in knowing how to plant the referral seed. But the number one thing that I always tell folks is, and my clients will say it, they’ll see it all the time, I also know when to break my own rules. Because I work with my clients, right? I used to have the courses where people would took a course and they never really talked to me and I…

hated that model because I was bored and missed people. And so none of my programs run like that anymore. You get me when you work with me, right? And so you may watch a video online and then you may create the plan that came out of that training you just watched online. And then I’m looking at it, but I know you. And so I’m like, Hey, we’re going to do this. And you’re like, you said, don’t do that. I’m like, yeah, but we’re doing it differently for you because I know your situation and that does make it different, right? That does make it much more customized.

But yes, there probably isn’t a single thing a client could ask me that I’m like, yep, you’re going to find that in this lesson, module two, lesson three, right? Like we’ve like, there’s so many things that anytime I teach something to a client that’s new, I’m like, we grab it and we add it to the library of things. So yes, the, should have done that six months ago. What do I say? We’ve got you covered.

Anthony Codispoti (58:47)
Okay, so describe the typical client that you work with. Industries, business models, size, who’s a good fit?

Stacey Brown Randall (58:55)
Yes.

So for me, it’s more about the relationship you have with your clients versus size. So I can work with a solopreneur and I can work with, you know, a larger business as well, but it’s more about the relationship you have with your clients. So I mostly work in the professional services industry and the creative industry. So I will work with like, say, attorneys, financial advisors, CPAs, bookkeepers.

business marketing, leadership change consultants, business coaches, life coaches, interior designers, real estate agents. And what, while they all sound like, wow, that’s a lot of different industries, right? What they all have in common is that when a client hires them, right, they’re hiring them because they are the expert. So I worked mainly with expert-based business owners, meaning people hire you

for your knowledge. People hire you because of your expertise. They hire you because they need you to solve the problem. And in how you’re going to solve their problem, you’re going to get to know your clients, right? This is not going to order something from Amazon and you never talk to anybody but a chat bot. I don’t work with SaaS based companies. I don’t work with online course creators. I don’t work in the hospitality or retail industries. I don’t work in the medical field. And so it’s understanding in the industries that I do work in.

your clients are coming to you because you’re the expert, which means on some level, right, not like you know every one of your clients and like all their kids names all the time, right? But you know your clients, you have a relationship or you and your team have a relationship with your client, which means you’re uniquely positioned to be able to generate referrals. And the other marker is, is what you do is not cheap. So there is an investment to work with you, which means the client puts a lot on the line.

to make the decision to hire you, which means they’re usually looking for someone to vouch for you to say yes to working with you, which makes your prime for referrals to happen in that way. So most of the time when I work with someone and they’re like, like when we’re looking at like minimums, we always tell folks your clients at a minimum to make you a fit for what I do and the time I’m gonna ask you to put into it is at a minimum, your client should be paying you in a first year revenue, 2,500.

but most of my clients are higher than that. Most of my clients, they’re making, maybe they’re making 2,500 or five grand or 10 grand per client, but most of them are making more than that. And so, you know, it may be the estate planning attorney that charges 7,500 or 5,000 for what they do, but then I’ve got, you know, the consultant that when they sign a contract with someone, it’s $100,000 to work with the company that they’re going to go work with. it’s the return on investment is there very, very quickly.

because of the type of clients people work with. When people come to me and they’re like, make $400 every time I sign a client, I’m like, what I’m gonna ask you to do is not gonna meet the ROI fast enough for you.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:01)
The time

investment is too much to justify that kind of return. So what are the different ways that people can interact and work with you?

Stacey Brown Randall (1:02:04)
Right?

Yeah. So I work with folks in three ways. So this is kind of like the work with Stacey ways. I do have a starter course. It’s called your next five referrals. It’s for folks who are like, want to dip their toe in and kind of feel like, what is it like to work with Stacey? What are some of the strategies look like? There’s some basic strategies we go through and your next five referrals. It is online, right? We do a monthly Q and a for folks who are in that program for a year, but it’s an online program. It’s a starter course. So the way I talk about working with me is like beyond that.

So working with me is three ways. ⁓ It doesn’t matter which way you choose. This is what makes me a little bit different. It doesn’t matter which way you choose to work with me. Those 20 strategies I talked about, you’re going to get all of them that you need, regardless of how you work with me. How you choose to work with me is how you like to work and receive and consume information and knowledge to then put it into place. What does accountability look like that you need? How fast do you wanna go?

that has a lot to do with how you choose to work with me. The solutions are all the same. So I have the accelerator. We do it a couple of times a year. It’s where we have a small group of business owners that will come to Charlotte and we will spend two days together in a room and I will teach them the strategies that they need to understand to start generating referrals. So those 20 strategies we talked about, we break it down in those two days and we have a bucketed way that I teach things. So we group like items and then you learn it.

and then we break and you workshop on it. So you don’t leave with a huge to-do list. Nobody has time for that anymore, right? So you’re doing it while you’re there with me and you’re leaving with it already ready to go. And some of it already implemented. That’s the accelerator. For other folks who want to take more of a measured approach, they’re like, that feels too much like drinking from a fire hose, right? People who come to the accelerator like to see the dots connect fast. And they’re like, and then in two days you can see it all connect and they’re like, got it, right?

Some people like to take more of a measured approach. They join my coaching program. You’re gonna get the same strategies. You’re just gonna watch them through online trainings. You’re gonna watch videos and you’re gonna create the things and then you’re gonna send them to me for review. And we do like, know, a couple of times a month we do a Q &A session and so people can get their questions answered and they have one-on-ones with me and it’s like a whole coaching program for a full year, but that’s video based. And then of course for the client who’s like, I’m not gonna come to Charlotte and I’m not gonna watch any videos, then we say,

Can Stacey just do it for me? And the answer is that yes, that’s our VIP experience where you complete an assessment. I take that and because I work in the same industries over and over again, I know a lot of what I’m walking into, but you complete an assessment, I build out your strategy. I then come to you and your team and I spend two days with you in your office and we deploy everything, we put things in place and after those two days, I’m basically on call for you for an entire year.

as you’re implementing. So we do check-ins and one-on-ones and phone calls if you need them or quick text messages or whatever it is as you’re in implementation mode after I’m there for those two days working with you and your team. To do the VIP level, you do have to have at least one other person in the business. I don’t do that with solo business owners. It’s too overwhelming. They can’t handle it. They need to choose a different option. But we have the accelerator in person in Charlotte. We have the coaching program online for a year. And then the VIP experience.

which is I come to you, I build everything and I come to you and deploy it with you and your team.

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:29)
Lots of options for different types of personalities and different budgets. That’s really cool. ⁓ Well, you know, I’ve just got one more question for you as we head into the wrap up here, Stacey. But before I ask it, I want to do three quick things for the audience. The first is people are on the edge of their seat now. I want to learn more. How do I work with Stacey? What’s your website address? How do they find you?

Stacey Brown Randall (1:05:51)
Yep, so it’s just my full name, stacybrownrandall.com. I’m sure you’ll put the link in the show notes, but I always like to say Stacey is spelled with an E.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:00)
Yeah, we will have that in the show notes for folks. Stacey with an E stacyebrownrandall.com. Also as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to doctors, therapists and prescription meds that as paradoxical as it seemed, actually increases your company’s net profits, reach out to us at addbackbenefits.com. Finally, if you’ll take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app, you will hold a special place in my heart forever. Thank you.

So last question for you, Stacey, a year from now, what is something big, something specific that you hope to be celebrated?

Stacey Brown Randall (1:06:38)
Well, I have two high school seniors. So maybe this question should be more of a business question, but for me, that is all I can think about right now. I will have two seniors that will graduate from high school and will both be starting college in the fall. ⁓

And I think that is gonna, I think this is gonna be a very emotional year in the Randall household. But those are two big things we are excited to celebrate. We’ve got our college acceptances, now it’s more deciding like who’s going where. So I know I talked about, I just wanna say this real quick. I know I talked about earlier in my story, like having my two kids. We also have a third child, it’s actually our nephew we took custody of. Now I guess it was 10 years ago. So he is a senior as well as our biological son is also a senior.

So they are headed off to college and that’s gonna be huge. And then of course our daughter turned 16 and we’ll start driving, which is just another monumental moment after having both boys start driving as well. So for me, my intention word for 2026 is to stay joyful, just to find joy in the moment. It’s word I would never usually choose. Usually I’m like, fearless.

or growth or discipline, those are usually my intention words. And this year, it’s just to remind myself to stay joyful through the entire process. ⁓ I’m excited to be an empty nester. I am one of those moms. know it’s, I don’t think you’re supposed to say that out loud. My kids know it. I’m very excited to be an empty nester. ⁓ I know it won’t last forever. I see all these kids coming home and living back with their parents because they can’t afford a place on their own once they have jobs. So it’ll be short lived, but I can’t wait. ⁓

But I think this year we’re gonna celebrate some huge milestones in our kids’ lives and that’s really exciting for my husband and I.

Anthony Codispoti (1:08:20)
And the big

emotions for you, even though you’re looking forward to being an empty nester is it’s going to be an adjustment. The house gets quieter, right? Is is that sort of like where the conflict is?

Stacey Brown Randall (1:08:29)
Yeah, some of it is over the next six months. It’s like the ending of all it’s like all the last right? So this is gonna be my son’s last varsity baseball season We’re gonna go to our last baseball games, right? Like all that I’m like getting emotional thinking about it like all that’s emotional, right? We’re gonna have our last award ceremony, right? My daughter’s a cheerleader like so for her it’s like we’re we’re starting new stuff with her But like with my son, it’s like the last things that we’re doing And it’s the same thing with with our nephew. It’s like I told him the other day. I was like this is

the last time you’ll ever go to school, the first Monday in January in high school, ever. You don’t have another first Monday in January to go to high school, you’re done. So I think the emotional piece is right now, it’s like it’s the ending season. It’s like this is the last time, right? And then there’s graduation. And then yes, there will become the adjustment this fall when it’s just my husband, I and my daughter. And she’s already said, I do not need all of your attention. Once.

Jacob and Dany go off to college. In fact, I don’t want any of it. Yeah. She’s like, no, no, no, thank you. She’s like, I’ll take more of your money, but I do not want more of your attention. And I’m like, yeah. So I do think there will be a shift in the household, not totally because we’ll still have her and she’s very, very busy. mean, you she’s in theater and she does cheerleading, varsity cheerleading, and she works. So we’re going to stay busy with her, but it will be different. It’ll be very, very different. But you know, you gotta, you gotta embrace every season as it comes.

Anthony Codispoti (1:09:28)
Arms length.

And how nice that you were able to be in a position to open your home and take custody of your nephew. Is that something you want to say more about?

Stacey Brown Randall (1:10:02)
Yeah, so we took custody of him when he was seven and a half. So our son was turning seven, he was seven and a half. So they’re about 10 months apart, but in the same grade. And that in and of itself has been a journey. Like you learn a lot about life and human nature and the fact that you thought you were a really good parent and the ways that you have to shift and change. ⁓ There is something that I used to say. ⁓

or like early on when we took custody of Danny, I used to say that I feel like God is like shattering me into a million pieces, like just breaking me down into a million pieces for all the things that I needed to learn and to understand and to see differently than like this perfect little, you know, two parents, two kids, healthy, happy, great family household. And then you bring somebody else in. And I used to say that I felt like God was like shattering me into a million pieces. It just took a while for me to realize it was to build back something better and greater. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (1:10:56)
like that.

Stacey Brown Randall from Building a Referable Business. want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you.

Stacey Brown Randall (1:11:07)
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

Anthony Codispoti (1:11:09)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.