How To Build Strategic Partnerships That Send Leads

We break down what strategic referral partners actually are and why most networking fails to create real business growth. We share practical ways to define your target audience, bring value first, and turn content and connections into long-term referral momentum. 
• defining strategic referral partners as trust-based leverage 
• avoiding random networking and focusing on the right audience 
• mapping partner opportunities from a clear target market 
• building win win relationships without paying for referrals 
• using webinars and co content to merge audiences 
• creating local guides that help partners and generate leads 
• becoming easy to refer through consistency and authority 
• leaning on an abundance mindset and planting seeds 

How to Reach David Denning:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmdenning

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Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting

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Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-edwardsconsulting/30min 

Transcript

Welcome And Why Partnerships Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Hey, what's going on, everyone? We got a special guest here today. We have David Denning. And we brought him in because I was thinking today about strategic partnerships, strategic relationships. And I think it's something that's can be very misleading, kind of challenging, not fully understood. So I wanted to bring David in and kind of have that discussion. So, David, welcome to the hashtag Clockedin podcast. And how have you experienced or thought about strategic partnerships in your businesses or seen other businesses utilize this? And what is it exactly?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

It's something we talk about a lot and not only implement for ourselves, but something we teach our clients a lot. We work with a lot of in the insurance industry, but really it applies to all businesses. And I like strategic referral partner relationships because I think it's the most leveraged use of your time in relationships because it's people that already have trust with your target audience, already work with them in some capacity or spend time with them that are able to send those people to you and you're able to borrow that trust. And so instead of a one out of a time opportunities, it's ongoing opportunities that they can just send through. So it's really, really powerful. And so when I think of a strategic referral partner, which is what we're talking about, I think a lot of people in their minds, like referral partner, that's a networking event I go to and I hand out business cards and eat some free food, and maybe one day they'll call me and send me somebody. I'm not talking about that. I think we've all been there, we've all spent the time and feel like, man, I feel like I go out to a lot of these things and don't really get anything. And that's because they're not strategic referral partners. They're just people you're trying to tell about your business. Very different. So when we look at strategic referral partners, it is who deals with your target audience regularly and has trust with them, whether they run a business that those that target audience is clients of, or it's just people that they inherently have trust for. So I guess kind of the first key is you got to know your target audience, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah. And what once you know the target audience, from what I've seen, it's really how do you think

What Strategic Referral Partners Really Are

SPEAKER_00 3:03

about positioning yourself where you can provide the value to them, where you're not overlapping, you're not competing with them, you're not in that, it's just a very synergistic relationship where you're both having a win-win. And that's how you want it to work a lot of the time. And that's the kind of the key to make it work, is you got to figure out how it's a win for that other person. So before going into anything, you got to understand both sides really well.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yeah, I mean, I think empathy and your ability to put yourself in another person or business's shoes is key to anything, whether it's sales, marketing, or strategic referral partners, because you're you're talking two different languages and playing two different games, unless you can also understand where they're coming from. But yes, your target audience affects everything. And so this is where, hey, anybody with a pulse or I help everybody is so ineffective, but people feel scared to narrow down because they'll feel like they might miss out. But in reality, it just makes everything easier because who's going to be a good referral partner? What audiences are going to be really great to have people that connect with what I do and how I solve or who I like working with, even all of that's geared around your target audience. So once you know that, like we we work with a lot of insurance agencies, so but I'm trying to think of something that would be super straightforward. Let's take a P and C agent at Cell, you know, which property and casually. So you like your state farm, your farmers, your all-states, people, things you're probably familiar with that are listening to this, and they do home insurance. Home insurance is a big piece of what they do. They all would much rather sell more home insurance than auto, or at least get those two things together. So they deal with people who own homes, right? Cool. That's the target audience is homeowners, generally, also for the types of ones I mentioned, like state form all state, typically people that also have good credit, they're married, they maybe have some kids, they have multiple vehicles, and maybe they run professional careers, they're W-2s, and 35 to 55. That that would be kind of like a target audience, right? There, like, okay, that's who I work with, right? So, okay, so they run an insurance agency, they do home insurance, that's their target audience, right? And we can define that down a little bit more, tie it to the actual person. Like, oh, it's also people that are really sports heavy, right? Yeah, you can you get you can get into those details when you're getting to choose your audiences and dive in versus a lead where it's whoever's on the lead part, right? And so, okay, so that's great. So now let me think through that target audience, right? And this is where that ability to put yourself in their shoes and understand your target audience helps it make it make it easier for who's gonna be a good strategic referral partner. Okay, so I'm thinking about that that target audience. Well, they got kids, cool. So where do they spend time or who they do business with with the kids, daycare facilities, school, like elementary schools, you know, could be a part of that, nannies, any sort of childcare, like we said, any sort of like monasoli, maybe they have like some day uh like element like kids' sports, like uh like soccer or other things. Like there's a lot of things they may spend time, energy, or money on for their kids. Maybe even

Define Your Target Audience First

SPEAKER_01 6:03

stuff like what do you call the doctors that deal with kids, pediatriatricians? Pediatricians, pediatricians. Absolutely. It's a pediatrice is a different thing, and yeah, so it's like start with the P's. Don't accidentally say proctologists, a totally different one, right? So, yes, pediatricians, right? So all these, okay, they they deal with with kids and the parents of those kids, right? And also they're homeowners and they're W-2s. So, you know, they deal with people in, you know, HR for those companies, right? They deal with maybe HOAs and like neighborhoods and stuff like that. Maybe they're a part of different parent groups, like in Facebook groups and stuff like that. There's all kinds of things when you take your target audience and break it down, which you can use AI to help you figure out some of those. Okay, these people would be really great, right? And so if I take like, and and even in related industries, if we go professional, then it could be real estate agents that deal with people now buying homes. Well, great, I can do the home insurance for those. So let's take something simple like a real estate agent, and they specialize in first-time home buyers with families or that are about to have a family, they're expecting maybe, right? And cool, that fits into both the home insurance target audience and also fits into who that real estate's specializing in. And it and so, okay, well, how do I connect? How do I bring value to this real estate agent in a way that hey, that makes sense for them to connect me with people that are now getting ready to buy a home because that's right when they need home insurance as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

And if you execute that correctly, what ends up happening is the realtor will do the deal, and then what ends up happening, they go, Who who's your insurance? The mortgage brokers are asking. So if you're connecting with the mortgage brokers or the title company or any of these, then you get to see because they need the insurance before they buy the home. So you go through this process and it's like you have to refer them someone, and everyone always gets the person through their realtor.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

And that brings up another concept of your your strategic referral partners are also a lot of the times the one who introduced you to more strategic referral partners, right? That are also great. So if I was connected with a real estate agent, hey, I do a few homes a month at the very least for new homeowners that are purchasing. So, and I happily to have them, you know, I know you're gonna do a great job of being on the money and quick when I have someone looking to buy that you can come in, help them, get them a quote, find them not only really good coverage, but do it quickly so they're able to close on that home versus extending out their closing date or missing a closing date. That's super valuable. Well, cool, you did a great job with that, and you've helped me as a real estate agent make sure these deals get done because they need to have this home insurance in place. Let me introduce you to the mortgage loan officer I work with all the time and on these deals because they're amazing. And this mortgage loan officer says, Okay, well, I'm looking for someone who also can do a really good job with that and quickly because that's how I make my money as well. And I have people come all the time, not just from this realtor, but from a lot of realtors that are looking to close them. I'd love to have you as my go-to home insurance for that. And now I have them connected. And then I have a life insurance agent. It's like, hey, I specialize in writing life insurance for people that are own homes with families for mortgage protection life insurance. That's my target audience too. Well, fantastic. You know what? This P and C agency over here doesn't really like writing the life at all, and they need a partner for that. So you you can end up having when you have a similar target audience, and you can have all these referral part relationships together. And that's where the value portion is key. Because a lot of people think of terms of value of, well, do I have referrals sent back to them or do I pay them money? And in some industries, you're even regulated, you can't even pay them if you wanted to. But uh, we like teaching not transactional. So, what are some ways? What are some ways they could maybe bring value beyond just referrals back or paying them?

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Yeah, I mean, so what I've seen is there's a few different ways. So, one is actually doing a good job because the more they do, then the more they're going to be trusted. But after those relationships, you don't want it to happen one time, you want to build that relationship. So maybe you take them out to dinner, maybe you thank them, maybe you have uh different events, you keep it special for them. Because if you're able to go and explain the value of what you're doing, because then you could teach them about some of the insurance stuff. So when they're looking at the houses and people are going to purchase these things, they start to understand, hey,

Build Win Win Value Beyond Money

SPEAKER_00 10:33

this is gonna be around this cost. I'm gonna bring in my specialist, and that becomes a person on their team that's basically a value add.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

And and there's there's so many ways, like everything you just mentioned, also like doing content together, like things that help us bring that target audience to all of us benefits all of us around that. So it's a win-win, and we each have our own unique audiences. If we bring them together, now we're exposed to each other's audiences, and we get to borrow from the trust they've already created. So that could be doing a webinar together. That could be doing right and recorded, that could be doing this, right? And like and and covering that, like, oh, tell you what, real estate agent, loan officer, title agent, mortgage protection agent, and a home insurance agent. Hey, let's all do a webinar on the absolute critical tips for first-time home buyers of what you need to know so you don't miss out on thousands or whatever or something. Okay, well, I need to pay attention to this. Now we have this audience come to it, whether we're doing from our email list or word of mouth or paid ads. Like there's a lot of ways we can bring audiences to this, but now that benefits all of us.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Absolutely. And the biggest benefit is the host. Not saying the person whose ru show it is, but the one who invites everyone and brings everyone together. Because when you're the curator of those experiences, people want to work with you again. They think about you and they view you as a someone who's giving first, which is not common.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Uh no, not common at all. And I'll give you another great example of how to bring value, especially in a if I'm building strategic referral relationships locally, which is a cool value-added way to create these relationships. Because some age some people are like scared to reach out or start a conversation of like, I don't maybe don't feel confident, or maybe I'm newer at what I do, so I don't feel like I could bring a lot, which is not true. There's a lot of ways to help. In fact, like literally, a real estate agent, how do I bring value? Uh and I always say, Oh, ask them first, you know, I'll say, Hey Jordan, how can I bring value? Or whatever. Oh, well, I'm setting up some open houses over the weekend. Could you come help me set up some of the chairs and help get the stuff ready? And I'll introduce you to all these new home buyers who are coming to these open houses. Like, yeah, I can do that. I can set up some chairs and get introduced to a bunch of prospects and stuff. That sounds great, right? It was that easy. I asked, right? But one of the tips I was going to give was if I'm doing stuff locally, is putting together a little local guide of top like businesses for certain things in the area. Now you can do guides for like best parks for families to go to that that hits the family audiences kind of stuff. But this one's great because if I'm looking together, put a top list of a f of different types of businesses for families. In fact, especially if I even relate to my target audience in that way. And now I'm getting a list of the top three pediatricians. We said it right there. Top three pediatricians, the top the the top three like childcare nearby, the top three karate classes for for kids, the top three Monazori schools. If I'm calling these things and being like, hey, I want to highlight some of the top ones in the area, I'd love to have you as part of my guide. I'd love to learn more about what you do and who your best audience is. And I'm gonna include you in my guide and I'll send you a copy as I'm done there and I'd love to talk some more and then be like, yeah, I'd love to be in there. One, and then I'd love to start talking some more as well. And then now, as you send this to me, well, who's gonna be listed as the insurance agent, for example, in there, right? Like you, right? Who's putting the guide together? And now they're handing this out as a benefit

Co Marketing With Webinars And Guides

SPEAKER_01 13:53

because they're listed in there, but you're also getting pushed out from that as well. And that guide of all those local resources, hey, real estate agent, I made this guide and we can co-brand that with you on there and have your information. And this is a guide that now you can hand out all the people looking to move here. And I just gave you a lead magnet and something great for you to use, and I'm listed once again as the insurance agent in there.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

I love that. And the other thing that you got me thinking about is prior to all this happening, as you're going and getting the three pediatricians, you shoot content with them as you're going in. Absolutely. And then you do a moment where you're like the top three pediatricians in whatever location that you guys live in, because then you're doing content with them and bringing them in and linking it all together. And it's honestly just your opinion. So it's not a right or wrong thing. It's like, what's the best burger in town? It's your opinion. So it's like there's no correct answer.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

It's something we we teach with clients, especially when they come come down in person to the office that we're shooting, shooting things with them and helping teach them on how to like highlight local businesses or a potential referral partner you want. Is like, how do I go out and do a piece of social media content showing off like me visiting that business, whether it's a local donut shop we do it all the time with over here, of my experience going there, experiencing it, highlighting some key things from that, me interacting with the team the staff in the donuts case of me getting it and receiving and enjoying this thing, and then how do I do kind of a voiceover of my day? I decided to go here and then tagging them in that. Well, this is a great way to highlight that business, tag them, create a piece of content together, start the conversation off together. And yeah, absolutely you can do that through social media, which is super cool and benefits both of you. Hey, I'm gonna send you this clip so you can also put it out on social and stuff. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

And it's not even as difficult as you think. I literally did it with my wife's 13-year-old brother. We went to go get coffee in the morning, and he was there was a bunch of food trucks where we were, and he's like, dude, I want to shoot content. Like, I want to shoot a video. So we went up to a local person. We're like, hey, like, can he shoot a video? So we start so he sips the lemonade, it's got this big lemonade, and he's like, The lemonade's amazing. The lemonade's amazing. I love it. Shout out to these people, yes, exactly. He's like, shout out to these people, and we ended up doing a collaborative post with them. The post actually did pretty decent, and it wasn't surprising because it was energy, it was different, it was like, what's going on? And everyone enjoys it because he treated it, and and this is for a lot of people, they want to be they want to get paid for their content, they want to get paid for all these things. Everyone does everything for free. Do everything at for free, and you will get this better at the skill, which is what I think about. Cause whenever I think about these strategic partnerships, it's how do you how do you merge the ecosystems? How do you borrow the ecosystems and how do you build on those so that everyone's gaining more value from this in a very positive way?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

100% agree. Like, you know, it's the relationships and connections and and those things, especially if you're doing it the right audiences, they're gonna be way more valuable than getting paid for a piece of content. I'm thinking of one of our like most successful like clients on that side, did did PC, for example, and it's like all kinds of things. Like, but what's a target audience? What do you enjoy doing? What do you want to be known for? And she's like, Well, I really like writing commercial policies for food trucks. Like, like I said, food trucks thing. Food trucks is what I love. I go out to the food trucks parks all the time, I eat all the food trucks food, and I really like writing writing stuff with them. It's like, cool, let's help you become the food truck insurance. And so she would go shoot content at the food trucks and highlight that specific food truck, what they offered, stuff with their food. It wouldn't even mention anything about insurance. She'd like, hey, can I shoot a video, highlight you and your food? I like doing that for social media. I do food truck Fridays as part of my content or whatever. And they're like, Oh, yeah, fantastic. What do you do? Oh, I actually insure commercial food trucks and stuff like that too. And they're like, Oh, I need that. Uh I need someone to take a look. Can you can you can you do this? What's your card? And she'd get so much business off of that because you come in with the value first. But then she create

Become The Obvious Person To Refer

SPEAKER_01 17:53

that content and she get people from across the country reaching out to be on her videos. And then that's yeah, client acquisition, cool, fantastic. But how does this sometimes work to referral partners? Well, some of the people that reached out were commercial food truck manufacturers, and so they were like, hey, every time that we build these food trucks to sell, we want to send them to you to insure them. And so she would just get all these food trucks referred over from these referral partners, but the referral partners reached out to her because they could see she was an authority with what she was doing. She's making these connections, they liked your content. It's like, we're choosing to send all of our stuff to you. So be the person that's easy to refer, that makes the connection, that shows that value, and that makes it so much easier for you to be the person. Plus, when you're showing up consistently in front of them, it makes stay top of mind of, oh yeah, I need to send stuff over to her. I need to send stuff over to her.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

And that's why it's so important to keep showing up and keep going and to share even when you don't feel comfortable. Share when you don't feel ready. Because everything you're doing is shareable.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

And one one other thing on bringing value, you know, because once again, people, it's gotta be time, or it's gotta be like referrals back or money. Money. We went into a whole bunch of other examples. But sometimes the most valuable thing you can do to bring value off the bat, and and sometimes the largest amount of value off the bat is you can make a connection. And this is why building, you know, connections, relationships within your area, your target audience and stuff is so powerful. Of like, hey, you know, I know you have real estate basic business in the area and work with new new homeowning families and stuff. Hey, I know this mortgage protection agent that does a ton of business with people that that are like looking to buy new homes and and doing that, like that that connection would be great between you two. Oh, yeah, actually introduce us. We're doing all this business together because you introduced us. Man, that was such a value. How can I help you, David? Like, oh yeah, well, I do this, this could be great. So making connection be powerful. And I think of of a actually we we can use this as an example. I I made a connection to a mutual connection of ours, right? Of hey, I know this person has a lot of influence, is a go-getter, deals with an audience that this, you know, this what you do would be a perfect fit for. And I was like, hey, let me let me introduce you guys. I think you guys would get along really well, anyways. Well, they call me both uh individually, right? After they talk, like, hey, uh, this this person's great. I can't believe you met him. Like, their mentor knows my mentor, all these things. I was like, okay, that's cool. I didn't even expect some of those connections, but I figured there'd be some connection off there. Well, through that connection, the the one person I think this month added another like 15,000 in like commissions, and we'll add another like 30,000 next month or whatever from me just making that connection. You think I built a little goodwill there, a little bit of yeah, I did, right? Through just all I did was hey, you two are great, awesome people. I already see how you guys would make sense together in capacities that it was a win-win for both of you guys. Let's put you guys together.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Now you're diving into another area, David, where it's like that understanding of the world is very abundant. Yes, you know what I mean. There's some people that's a mindset thing. That's a mindset thing because there's some people who would have done that deal and been like, Where do I fit in? Where where am I in this? I can't share, I can't do this. And I just think it's important for us to realize that sometimes you're in the deal, sometimes you got to figure out a way to get in, sometimes it's just a goodwill thing. You you never really know what the results are gonna be. But if you try to hold everything hostage, like holding your money, holding your connections, holding everything, you're never gonna be able to feel that freedom of it's okay. Like whatever happens, happens.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

And that's the best mindset you can take. You can only control what you can control in the first place, right? Like you work with a lot of agents and businesses and people like focus on the activity or what I'm doing each day, because I can control that. I can control my activity. Like we have our clients focus

Abundance Mindset And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 21:43

a lot on the conversations they're having each day. Or am I doing the things to create conversations each day? I can always control what comes out of the conversations, but I can create those conversations. And through that, yes, I will have sales, I'll have referral partners, I'll get referrals or recruits, I can all those things by having the conversations, right? Yeah, so I can just focus on what I can. And when you do that, it's much easier to let the results kind of go and they end up coming anyways, as about that. But I've always seen referral relationships, you have to have an abundance mindset. Scarcity mindset will kill any opportunities. Absolutely. And yeah, and sometimes it's planting seeds to to reap down the reward. I mean, uh, sales, especially as you get to larger, larger like ticket items or types of things that you're dealing with, come down to relationships and trust. It isn't usually like, oh, well, I need a financial advisor for the 50 million I have. Let me just go online and the first ad that hits me, I'll reach out to them and have my them do my money. It's like, no, you're you're going your butt. Hey, Jordan, like, yeah, who do you use for your guy? Who does who does all your your money and all your stuff or whatever? Like I like you, I trust you, whoever you tell me, I'm gonna go have a call with them. Yeah, bam. It comes from trust, it comes through relationships. The more you build that, the more you'll you'll see the reward in the day for your business.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Hundred percent, hundred percent. David, I appreciate the time. I think we really emphasize something good about strategic partnerships, value, and how to how to show up for our partners through content, through a bunch of different avenues. And I hope this is really valuable for everyone. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

I like it.