Hey Hey, welcome back to another bonus episode of cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful entrepreneurs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. And this week on the podcast in Episode 197. Our guest, Sara McCabe shared how she leveraged client referrals to grow her revenue by 40%. And I thought a great pairing to that interview would be for us to share five of the best ways, we have found referral partners for our business outside of our existing clients and customers.
I know Sara was really focused on how she leverages her existing clients to become referral partners. But there are so many creative ways that you can go about building relationships and forging these strong referral partnerships. So here are five ways that we have done it in our business. And the first way is actually through a podcast. And really, this comes down to creating any form of media channel or stage where you can feature someone else. The reason this works so well is because when you are creating a relationship with someone, it's always going to be a stronger relationship. If you can lead with generosity, this is something that we have shared across the podcast many times. But really, especially when you're approaching a stranger, and wanting to form trust and finding a way to continue to collaborate together, offering them some form of platform, whether it's a podcast, a YouTube channel, your website's blog, or any form of visibility, where you can show up and provide value to them, and showcase them to your audience before you ever ask for them, to share you to their audience. I think that's the best way to approach things.
And so we have found ourselves with the podcasts being our primary media channel, that it's been such a great networking tool, I'm sitting across from someone typically for an hour and having a deep conversation. So it really accelerates that trust building process. And by the end of the hour, I have gotten to know someone quite well. And it's a great jumping off point. Now for us to then discuss other ways that we can collaborate together. Sometimes that might look like a referral partnership. Not always, but it's an option, right. And again, when you are offering someone else, your platform for them to shine on for you to place the spotlight on them, it is offering value to them before you ever ask for anything. And that's what we do for all of our guests on our show is we're really opening up our entire ecosystem, our entire community, and showcasing them and their business to our audience across all of our different channels. And it all starts with a podcast. So again, the recommendation here is you don't have to go out and start a podcast. But just think about where you're already creating content, and how you can build some sort of visibility opportunity for the people that you want to get in touch with and invite them on to be featured first before you ever discuss any other form of potential partnership. And that can look like a media channel, or it can even look like creating a stage right, whether it's a virtual event or in person events, and providing them again, that visibility opportunity.
Number two, along the same lines of leading with value or leading with generosity is hosting some sort of networking mixer, I have two friends that do this exceptionally well shout out to Selena Soo, as well as Linda Sidhu, I just realized their names are rhyming, that's not on purpose. But these two women are absolutely incredible at fostering connections between people in their own networks. So both of these women have invited me before to a networking mixer, where they are curating a group of individuals within their own network who may not know each other, but they all have the host in common, right. And we show up to this mixer. And they've created such a beautiful space for collaboration and connection. And it's a really structured, efficient, you know, typically an hour session that we're spending together. And it's just another way to lead with value. Because one of the most underrated ways that you can provide value to someone is to connect them with someone else in your community in your network, who might be a good connection for them.
Sometimes it's a good client. Sometimes it's a good referral partner. Sometimes it's just a good contact to have maybe a new friendship. You never know what that connection could form and bloom into. But the point here is that you are taking your time to essentially play matchmaker and bring together people in your community who you have individual relationships with, but who may not have relationships with one another. And by providing and curating a space where they can meet and connect that is provided. immense value. And I know that at the end of most networking mixers, something that happens often is a given get. So what is one thing you can give to the group? What is one thing that you would love to receive from the group. And that exercise is always really powerful in forming potential collaboration opportunities and finding potential referral partners. So that's the second way that we have seen be a really great way to find referral partners.
Now, number three is, if you don't really have a platform, or maybe a network that you can bring together, perhaps it's you giving of your time and your knowledge and your experience. And that can come in the form of guest speaking, right. And this could look like everything from the smallest of stages. And when I say stage, I am putting that in air quotes, because that could literally be you coming into someone else's group coaching program, or their mastermind, or their free Facebook group and offering some form of free session or workshop or webinar or whatever that looks like masterclass. And it's just you giving of your time and your skills and your knowledge to share something of value with the people within that container. And so it could look like those small settings, it could also look like speaking on big stages in person or at large summits, virtual summits, in person summits, there's so many ways to go about this.
But I have found that some of my favorite relationships have been formed, both virtually backstage but also in real life backstage with fellow speakers and with the host of an event. And when someone's hosting an event, especially if you're just getting started in your speaking career, or maybe that event doesn't have a large budget to accommodate paying speakers. If you're willing and able to offer your time and your talents as a speaker, that is a huge value add to not only the host of the event, but it really gives you access to an entire room of fellow talented individuals, your your fellow speakers, right that you now get the chance to connect with backstage. And so this is another really great way for you to find quality referral partners.
Now, strategy number four, that you can utilize to find referral partners is actually affiliating for others. So you can see there's a common theme here, which is lead with value, right lead with your generosity lead with what you can give to people rather than what you can take from people and relationships will naturally form from those interactions. But affiliating for others is a really great way to give in a big way, right? My friend Kathy has described it as building a vacuum of reciprocity. So it's like you've created such a wide chasm of of giving that it almost becomes impossible for someone to say no, when you at some point later on may ask for something. And so you don't obviously give just to get. But I do think that when you lead with generosity, opportunities for you to make an Ask inevitably find you. And it's such a natural process. And so I really think that when you lead with that mindset of giving, things just have a 10 you they just have a way of working out in your favor.
And I think affiliating for others is a really great experience not only in building that relationship and becoming top of mind for the person that you have sent a bunch of business to, right, they want to maybe someday return that favor too. Not only are you making yourself known to them, but also you can learn so much from being a referral partner or being an affiliate for someone else about the process of what makes a great referral program or what makes a great affiliate program. Learning from that experience. And then pulling the best pieces of that experience into designing and implementing your own referral system or your own affiliate system can really help you so I love getting to be a fly on the wall getting to see behind the curtain of how other people run their referral partnerships or their affiliate partnerships and learning from the best in that particular vehicle and applying that to what we can create as an experience for our own referral partners and our own affiliates.
And then the last strategy or way that we have found really great referral partners is actually through participating in or hosting at first participating in later hosting bundles. So digital bundles, if you've never come across one before, are typically a collaborative project between multiple educators anywhere from 10 to sometimes upwards of 50 educators who are coming together and each contributing a course or a resource or digital product or tool that they individually sell on their own websites. But they're offering this product for a significantly discounted price within this bundle for a limited window of time. So I actually we ran our own bundle in the winter of I want to say it was 2022. Maybe it was 2021. Honestly, I feel like time is blurring. So I think I think it was 2021. But I digress, I record an entire episode about this as part of one of our quarterly income reports. So if you want to listen to that, if you want more of the nitty gritty details about hosting a bundle, I'll link that in the show notes if you want to scroll below and get that a listen.
But this concept right of creating this collaborative experience between all of these different educators were essentially for, let's say, three days time or a week's time, however long the bundle is on sale for you're all coming together. And you're saying, Hey, we're going to pool our, let's say, 20 products together, and instead of selling it at their individual prices, which may surpass, you know, $2,000, instead, for one week only, we're going to offer it for $99. So people can get all 20 products for $99. That's a significant discount. And it's a win win for everybody involved, it's a win for the audience who gets access to all of these amazing tools and products at a significantly reduced rate. It's also a win for all the collaborators, because they're all cross pollinating their audiences as they're promoting this shared product together. So they're growing their customer base, they're growing their reach, and visibility all in one.
And the beautiful thing about participating in other people's bundles, is you'll get to meet a lot of other really awesome people who are open who have already proven they're open to these types of partnerships, right. So your fellow bundle contributors are going to be amazing potential referral partners that you could continue to work with. And that's how we ended up hosting our own bundles. We participated in one and we loved it so much, that the relationships that we developed from the first one, we were actually able to bring some of those relationships over to the bundle that we created at a later date. And so that's just another great place to seek referral partners.
And I hope that these five ways even if they're nothing, you know, groundbreaking, you know, these things have been around for a long time, I hope. What really sticks with you, again, is this message of if you're wanting to create referral partners, it all comes down to relationships, and relationships have to be organic. And they have to come from a place of mutual giving, right. And the best way to do that is to lead by example, to lead with that generosity, and to give before you ever ask for anything. And if you can just remember that I think you're going to do really well in the world of collaborations. And I encourage you to explore some of these different channels that I've talked about to develop those initial connections and relationships that may then lead or blossom into potential referral partners. It's all about finding the right fit and making sure that everyone's a winner in any sort of collaboration.
But I hope this was helpful to you. I'm so excited to be wrapping the mini series that we're doing on word of mouth marketing and referral marketing with next week's guest, you're in for a real treat. Next week's episode on Monday is going to be deep diving into affiliate marketing. So we've talked about client testimonials. We've talked about client referrals. Now we're really going to look at how can we scale that word of mouth marketing through an affiliate program. So our guests that's joining us, Molly Keyser is going to be talking about that on Monday. I can't wait for you all to tune in. I'll catch you guys over on that episode.
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