Virginia Muzquiz, The Referral Diva®, founder and Chief Connection Officer at Master Connectors, Inc., has more than two decades of experience generating business by referral. She has helped thousands of business owners connect with networks that provide them with the resources and support they need to significantly increase incomes by referral. Virginia is also executive director of BNI Mid-America and host of the podcasts Business by Referral and Bad Girls on Business. She is author of the forthcoming book, Referral Alchemy.

Paul Quinn: Virginia, you work with a lot of entrepreneurs. What are their marketing challenges? 

Virginia Muzquiz: When you think of a solo entrepreneurial venture, getting into a business and learning all the digital marketing, Facebook ads, Google ads, and all that digital space, it’s very vexing for the vast majority of sales professionals, coaches, consultants, and authors I work with. But whether you use the digital approach or not, the world revolves on relationship. 

For me, relationship precedes referrals, and referrals are a natural outpouring of great relationships. When we’re in great relationships with people they’re very happy to say, “I found somebody you need to meet or a book you need to read or a restaurant we should all go to.” So, it really is about the relationship. If we’re thinking about referrals and only thinking of it as client acquisition, it’s really a very myopic way of thinking about relationships and referrals.

Paul Quinn: So, connecting with people and developing relationships is the key to making referrals work. Does a person have to be an extravert to succeed in this?

Virginia Muzquiz: Heck no. In fact, I’m an introvert by nature. I have an outgoing personality but I need [time alone] to recharge. Both extraversion and introversion have their strengths and weaknesses. Typically, we think of extraverts as social butterflies who know everybody. But while they might know a lot of people, they don’t always know a lot about those people. When they start to work with me, they realize that the reason they’re networking like fiends and getting nothing in return is that they’re not really investing in the relationships with the right people that will help them get where they want to go.

Introverts on the other hand tend to go a mile deep with just a few people, so they need to learn how to expand their sphere of influence while maintaining and managing their energy. There’s also a misconception that introverts are inherently shy or lack confidence or don’t like people, which is not really the case.

Introversion and extraversion are really about how we walk through the world and manage our energy. The approach to building a network might be slightly different, but the necessity and outcome are the same.

Paul Quinn: What do you say to people who might be concerned about the possibility of being seen as having an “agenda” when they contact people to try to expand their networks?

Virginia Muzquiz: I’m giggling, Paul, because I have an agenda and I’m not embarrassed about it! I have a process, and at each step of it there’s a little bit of a philosophy behind it. 

The first step is having a criterion. For example, let’s say that I go on LinkedIn and can see that your network could be beneficial for me. And so, I decide that I want to influence you to be, say, my joint venture partner and promote the heck out of me. Well, I have an agenda but I’m being strategic here. I’m thinking: It looks like you’re interesting, we have some friends in common, you seem to be connected to some people I’d like to know, and I like what you’re up to. That’s how I’m going to choose you. I’ve got a criterion. I’m not going to go willy-nilly trying to connect with people. This is the Introvert in me and also the Driver, because I don’t like to waste time.

Paul Quinn: So, you’re careful. You screen and curate your network.

Virginia Muzquiz: Right. But the next part of my agenda is, what do I have to offer you? What would make you find me desirable as a referral partner, or just as a connection in the network? 

I do a three-day workshop called Get Connected Live. One of the first things [participants] do is decide who they want to be, what they want to do, and what they want to have—and then they list all the things they’re missing in order to be, do, and have that.

When they see a big list of gaping holes they say, “See – I’m a big ball of need!” And then I ask them to look at everything they have to offer— their personal, psychological, emotional, and business assets. What do you know how to do? That includes everything from “I know how to make strawberry jalapeno jelly” to “I know how to train dogs or raise chickens.” Do you have a library of books you’re willing to lend? What resources are you willing to freely give to people?

The most important part of the ask piece, is give first. My husband and I own two franchises of Ivan Misner’s Business Network International (BNI). [Its tenets are] givers gain, give without expectation, help enough people get what they want and you’ll get everything you want, blah blah blah. My philosophy is a bit more mercenary than that. I’m giving either because I want to enter into a reciprocal relationship with you or I’m tithing. But either way I’m not resentful. So, my philosophy is give without resentment. If I’m resentful I’m not really giving. 

Paul Quinn: So, you’re really giving with no assurance of reciprocity, right? 

Virginia Muzquiz: I have the hope of reciprocity, but I don’t expect it. When I give an introduction for people, I have zero expectations that they will actually follow through on what they said they will do for me. If they dofollow through I’ll probably send them a gift or do something to acknowledge my appreciation. But if they don’t follow through, I probably won’t be doing much more for them. 

Paul Quinn: It seems that a lack of reciprocity would kill the chances of any potential relationship. How important is balance in the context of referrals?

Virginia Muzquiz: One of the really big challenges in referrals is over giving and under receiving. A lot of my clients come to me and say, “I just give and give and give and nobody gives me anything back!” They’re really miffed and exhausted with the whole process because they have come to establish a paradigm that is, “I give but I never get.” The problem is that they’ve been giving but they haven’t been letting people know that they’d like something in return. 

Paul Quinn: So, they’re not asking for what they want in return, they’re just waiting and hoping to be asked. 

Virginia Muzquiz: Right. Typically, if someone doesn’t ask me, “Well, what can I do for you,” then I simply say, “Well, I have a request. Would it be ok if I asked you to do me a favor as well?” Nobody’s ever going to say no to that. 

Paul Quinn: Do most people follow through on the favor?

Virginia Muzquiz: A lot of people will say yes to it and then not follow through. People are rarely what they say and almost always what they do. I can ask and ask and ask them [to reciprocate] but by giving to them I’m not obligating them in any way. A psychologist once told me: If you’re going to ask, no has to be an acceptable answer, otherwise you’re engaging in manipulation.

No is why people struggle with the ask. It’s because they haven’t made peace with no.

If someone says no to me, it’s not that that they’re a stingy bastard who is a horrible human or they hate me. I can tell myself 101 stories, but the truth is that people say no because they need to say no. They’re setting a boundary that protects them. I want to be in a position of accepting no as a blessing because the only thing worse than no is a no disguised as a yes. 

Paul Quinn: The fear of hearing no keeps many people from asking. In this case, though, it gets in the way of expanding their networks. Could some of that fear be an over-conscientiousness on their part, such as a concern about intruding on the people they want to reach? 

Virginia Muzquiz: “Hi how are you, you seem interesting,” doesn’t feel like I’m intruding. I’m not going to apologize for finding you interesting. But if I’m contacting you because I just want to get something from you, then it is intrusive because I haven’t done my homework. It’s intrusive if I can’t say something complimentary or comment on your posts or blog or website. 

If it’s coming from self-deprecation—”I don’t want to interrupt them, I hate to ask”—then take an inventory of your personal assets, do your homework on the person, and bring something special to the table. My friend Brynne Tillman reaches out to people and says, “Hey I looked at your profile and came across this article that I thought would be really interesting for you—let me know if you’d like me to send it. “Intrusive” would be, “I saw this article, here it is, you should read it.”

Paul Quinn: That’s an online etiquette point a lot of people don’t know about. Unless you know the person well, it can come across as pushy to include an attachment without asking first. Let’s talk about success stories. Of all the times you’ve been asked to connect people, Virginia, what’s been the most exciting result?

Virginia Muzquiz: At the end of my podcast, I say to every guest: “I love making it my business to introduce the people I meet to the people they want to know. Who do you want to know?” When I interviewed Rob Goyette, a pillar in the transformational community, he said he wanted to meet John Lee Dumas [ award-winning podcaster]. Long story short, through a series of connections I made he wound up not only having dinner at Dumas’ house but inking a six-figure deal with a guy that Dumas introduced him to over dinner. It was probably one of the most fun things I’ve done. 

Paul Quinn: You’ve been talking about more today than referral tips. You’re really helping to encourage people to give from a sense of fullness. 

Virginia Muzquiz: If you want to build a referral pipeline filled with high quality prospects and connectors, that takes relationship. But, in order to be in relationship with someone else you need to be in the fullness of who you are and stand really grounded in that. One of the first things I teach people is that they’re not empty. If you’re asking from a place of need or desperation or scarcity, that’s not sexy. That’s not a place that’s going to get you what you want. You have to become a person who people want to give referrals to. And that has to do with clarity, communication, charisma, and congruence. 

I’m going to ask you about you, what you’re up to, what you’re passionate about, what’s going right or wrong in your world, what do you need, where are the big gaps for you, who do you need to meet? And then I’m going to offer you what I have. 

It’s asking in the way that two atoms come together and say, “Can we share this electron, so we can make something cool? We could build something together.”

A shout-out to John Livesay, on whose podcast I first learned about Virginia Muzquiz.

Paul Quinn is author of a book-in-progress about the power of asking, which features portions of this content.