Ever feel like your marketing has lost its humanity? Like you're just another algorithm feeding a lead form? That's the question at the heart of our conversation with Mike Garrison, founder of Strategic Referral Team. Mike has spent decades helping financial, legal, and consulting firm owners scale their businesses. Not through cold outreach or referral begging, but through something much older: discipling, giving, and genuinely being worth meeting.
He opens up about his path from a rough childhood and military service to becoming one of the most trusted voices in referral strategy, and along the way we dig into StoryBrand parallels, the theology of giving, and why the best referral systems are built on relationships, not transactions. It's a conversation that starts in business strategy and ends up somewhere far more personal.
0:00 – Meet Mike Garrison
3:41 – High Trust Marketing
4:54 – Childhood and Military
6:14 – Mentors and Networking
9:39 – Discipling Scales Referrals
15:11 – Can I Borrow Your Car
16:56 – Giving System First
20:33 – Be Worth Meeting
25:10 – StoryBrand Parallels
34:51 – Raving Fans and Math
37:35 – Ideal Clients and Service
38:58 – Ideal Clients Only
39:15 – Service vs Segments
40:59 – Advisor Says No
42:19 – Guides Not Takers
43:41 – Staff Referral Test
45:22 – People of Peace
50:33 – Giving System Framework
53:45 – Proactive Referral Farming
55:25 – Beyond Referrals Marketing
58:28 – Behind the Brand Qs
1:03:03 – Fly Fishing Memory
1:05:22 – Success and Next Steps
There's a tension every leader of a B2B service has to navigate: How do you scale without compromising the quality of your services - or the values that drive them? The CEO's Heart for Service is where accomplished B2B leaders share hard-won insights on walking that tightrope.
The CEO’s Heart for Service is a production of Brand3. If you’re a B2B service provider who delivers exceptional service but struggles to get your marketing to connect with the right people, find us at brand3.net. And sign up for our Brand3 Newsletter that only sends marketing insights worthy of your inbox - genuinely helpful stuff for the road ahead.
The CEO’s Heart for Service is also supported by Forge Podcast Company, a turnkey production solution for using podcasts to reach a wider audience, win new clients, and grow. Find them at forgepodcast.co
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Hi everybody, welcome back to The CEO's Heart for Service. I am Matt Wolfe, partner at Brand3, and today I get the pleasure of hanging out with Sarah Pattisall again. Hi, Sarah.
Sarah Pattisall: Hello everyone.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: This is a fun one. You are about to meet Mike Garrison, founder of Strategic Referral Team. Let me read a bit from his website. He has built a powerful coaching program to help people build their own referral systems and strategies.
Strategic Referral Team is designed for owners of established professional service firms with ideal client values of at least $250,000, who want to scale by design rather than by chance. He works with financial, legal, and accounting firm owners, consultants, coaches, M&A advisors, and boutique firm leaders serving sophisticated business clients.
But beyond all that language, you are about to meet someone with exceptional heart behind what he does. Sarah, what did you take away from today's conversation?
Sarah Pattisall: This conversation was incredible for so many reasons, but what really stood out is that Mike brings such an authentic and vulnerable perspective to business and referral partnerships. And the real insight is that building referral partners is not about getting at all. It is entirely about giving. I think this conversation is going to help a lot of people figure out how to grow both their business and their network.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: I cannot think of the last time I saw such a powerful mix in a leader like Mike. He is strong on structure and goal setting, someone who challenges people to be their best, and at the same time he carries this deep sense of vulnerability and humanity. You do not often see those two things collide in such a helpful way, but that is exactly what you are going to get from Mike today.
Sarah Pattisall: I will just add quickly that at some points our conversation turned genuinely philosophical in surprising ways. Mike is also an author, and if you are listening to this, Mike, and looking for your next book idea, I think business ethics would be a fantastic direction. I am happy to talk more about that anytime.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: He has written several books, and we are going to talk about those. I cannot wait for you all to meet Mike Garrison. Let's go there now.
Mike, welcome to the show. I am so glad you are here today.
Mike Garrison: I am glad to be here. This is going to be a lot of fun. It was exciting to meet someone who actually gets what I am talking about, so I cannot wait.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: We were definitely on the same page when we chatted the other day. There is a lot to cover. I think we are actually tackling the same issue from different seats, which is going to make this a really helpful conversation. Let me jump in.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: The first thing we like to do, since we are talking about B2B marketing, is remember that we are talking about businesses delivering what we call high-trust, high-stakes services. We are asking people to let us take care of their finances, their business exit strategy, their tech platform, their marketing, essentially their future and their ability to exist and move forward.
Those are big asks, built entirely on trust and relationship. And things only really happen when we facilitate genuine human encounters. We are trying to figure out how to make marketing less digital and more human.
To honor that, we like to start with a simple human question, and we will end with a few more at the close. The first one we always ask is: what did you want to be when you were growing up? Because you probably did not picture yourself starting Strategic Referral Team at age seven or eight.
Mike Garrison: I was going through the pre-show prep and honestly could not remember what I used to want to be. That is what happens when you get old.
Mike Garrison: On the personal side, I am a child of a very difficult divorce. My parents blew up my entire life when I was 11. All I knew at that point was that I wanted to leave. That was it. I had offers for scholarships, but I could not get my parents to sign the financial aid paperwork without fighting about it. So I told myself, I have a solution. The military. All I really wanted was to jump out of planes. I have no idea why. None whatsoever.
Sarah Pattisall: I love that.
Mike Garrison: So I joined the military still not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, and very shortly after joining I knew it was not the military long-term. I had a great time, and I was in a special forces support unit, incredibly hard work. I still carry injuries from it. But I went out, went to college because I had earned a lot of money for it through the military, and figured I would use it.
The last class of my associate's degree happened to be speech communication. I liked it. It was the first class that actually made sense to me, so I majored in it and finished with honors at George Mason. While I was there I met a guy who sold copiers. He owned a copier sales company, and he decided that was going to be my next step.
Mike Garrison: It was only when I met Art Radke, who I write about in Can I Borrow Your Car?, at a BNI meeting, that things really shifted. I walked up to him after the meeting with almost a discipleship kind of energy. Follow me, rabbi. He had only spoken for 10 or 15 minutes about networking as a human being, and I said, I do not know how, but I know you can help me get where I want to be. I want to be able to talk the way you talk, and I want to be able to help people the way you help people.
Art was also part of my becoming a Christian. He was a significant part of that faith journey, and he was the most gifted teacher I have ever known.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Mm-hmm.
Mike Garrison: Also an incredibly frustrating teacher. He would never just give you the answer.
Sarah Pattisall: The best teachers usually are.
Mike Garrison: In my experience.
Mike Garrison: He was terrible in that way. But a great guy.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: That is a very rabbi-like approach. Ask a question, let you find the answer yourself. That is such a gift, having people like that in our lives. I do not think we always recognize it until we get a little older. There are certain people who step into our lives, directly or through their actions, and say: I believe in you, you can do this. I have had a few moments like that myself. My most recent was when Orsi, my partner here at Brand3, asked if I wanted to become a partner. I had been a fairly cautious solo operator up until that point. You have to pay attention to those moments.
You have such an interesting background. You mentioned some of this the other day, and two things in particular made me want to stand up out of respect. The first was your military service, and thank you for that, genuinely. I know you served out here in Washington State at Fort Lewis. And then you brought up the copier sales thing, and I nearly stood up again out of respect for that too.
Mike Garrison: That is hilarious.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: For those of us who remember that era, we know what that job actually was. It was a tough gig.
Mike Garrison: You have not been in sales until you have worn a three-piece suit in an industrial park, cold calling businesses in August.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: And it was tough, because everyone already had a copier. You had to catch people at exactly the right moment of need. That is honestly a lot like the services we talk about in these high-stakes, high-trust spaces. There are windows where people are open to change and recognize the need to move forward. So much of the question becomes: how do you build relationships and stay present in someone's awareness long enough that when the moment finally comes, they think, I like that person, I want to work with them.
Mike Garrison: Or they come to you through a referral instead of a cold call.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Exactly, and we will get into that too. Let's trace this a bit further, because you are one of our favorite kinds of guests for a number of reasons. From our conversation the other day, you clearly have a heart for service. But you have also been a businessman, and now you are in consulting, which gives you a wonderful vantage point to speak to the theme of this podcast: scaling while staying true to your values and how you serve people. Can you walk us through how you got from copier sales to building a Strategic Referral Team?
Mike Garrison: One word: discipling. The reason people talk about referrals not scaling, which is false, is because they've never understood the disciple-making process. I'm a direct result of intentional disciple-making by men and women, very, very gifted people, not all of whom were devout Christians, but all of whom were values-based people, at least nominal Christians.
And that's how you do it. Because if you want to remain human, right, which is what service is about, I don't believe that you can deliver exceptional service if it's just based upon monetary results, even though exceptional service does cash flow, right? It absolutely does. But if you want to be heartfelt, like, I was talking to a guy today about a big referral he's going to give me to do some exit planning for a client of his.
And he's like, "How do we do this process?" And I said, "What we have to do is call the current owner, who's the father, into the next level of intentional leadership. And then, with that room that's created as he grows as a leader, we have to call his son into a level of intentional leadership, right?
"And we're going to do this all through discipling." And so that's the process.
Because evangelism is one-to-one. It's kind of like those really bad direct messages on LinkedIn that we all get all the time, you know? Right? It only scales through mediocrity. But discipling, which is the multigenerational, intentional growth and care of human beings, service, which is why I love you guys, that is how we scale as humans.
Sarah Pattisall: That's some powerful stuff, man. I love this. I'm wondering, though, if you could give an example of what that discipling has looked like over, like, for you personally over the course of your career, or maybe in the beginning of your career, when you were learning the framework for how you were going to approach that as a leader yourself.
Mike Garrison: Um, lots of pain. No, no, no, I'm sorry. So discipling only works if you have a rabbi and someone that's willing to follow. And so there should be affinity between the people. Discipling is not delegating. Discipling is an intentional relationship that should deepen and, to my belief, it should embody the beauty of humanity, right?
The way it worked was Art, when I went up to him, he told me later, it was like I was walking along the beach and this guy walked up beside me and said, "Hey, Rabbi, where are we going?" You know? And so what happened was he intentionally spent a lot of time with me. I'm just thinking of, like, this really famous historical figure who was really successful for thousands of years, and, like, when he started off, he spent a lot of time with a small group of people, and, like, then they did—
Sarah Pattisall: You think there were about twelve of them, right?
Mike Garrison: Well, there was one, you know. There's some attrition. There, there—it didn't work.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah.
Mike Garrison: Yeah, gotta watch out for that silver, that silver, right? But anyways, that's what it really was, Sarah. He invested an incredible amount of time with me. He put me in positions where I was safe, but where I was forced to grow.
He allowed me to make mistakes, and it was the worst and best type of growth I've ever experienced because I knew we were doing something that was really important. Because I was not a believer at the time. I was not a Christian, but I knew that what we were doing, this way of helping people in referral groups change their lives through giving, what I didn't realize is no one else was doing that in BNI. It ended up changing the entire organization, literally.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah.
Mike Garrison: But that was the process.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah, that's just so fascinating to me because, Matt, I'm curious if you see it this way as well. You know, I feel like a lot of people, when they think about the kind of relationship and mentorship that you just described, Mike, they're not thinking about that in the context of how their business is treating clients or referral partners.
They're thinking about that more so in, you know, how are we going to get ahead or how we're treating our employees internally. And I feel like there's this kind of perspective shift that's required a bit to take on that mindset fully in all of your engagements. Then that makes me curious. Well, first, Matt, let me let you chime in and see if you have any thoughts there.
Matt Wolfe: No, I think you're on a roll. Keep going.
Sarah Pattisall: Well, because then that question leads me to ask you, Mike, given that, you know, it's not enough to just learn how to take on this discipling or how to be a part of it, but you really have to fundamentally change your perspective and your approach to business, leadership, and life. How does the Strategic Referral Team fit into all of that, and how is that part of your process and what you all help people do?
Mike Garrison: I'm just going to start with a disclaimer. I'm a serial entrepreneur, and I'm already building two other companies. So Strategic Referral Team is going to morph into a product line.
Sarah Pattisall: Well, then tell us about the new companies. Let's get some plugs in.
Mike Garrison: Well, it's always interesting, but we're going to be rebranding down the road under Can I Borrow Your Car? That will be the parent company. Because it's not just a book. It's actually our identity. It's our identity. Our identity is about—
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah, I noticed that with the podcast.
Mike Garrison: Intentionally mitigating risk, right?
And I believe that Can I Borrow Your Car? is a book about two things. So it's really a book about networking, but that's just a disguise because it's really about: How do you become a fiduciary, an intentional fiduciary, of human beings? How do you work to do what is in their best interest, knowing that down the road, either first generation, second or third, or maybe never, you will be better? Because this is what people don't get about referrals. What I'm really selling you is an endless process of personal development because you're the channel.
So many referral programs don't scale because the human being doesn't, because the human being's not encouraged, nurtured, and developed to be able to operate at a larger scale. And so they just tend to be shallow. Kind of like, I don't know, there's this story about growing grain, you know, the tale of the sower, right? You know, so you really... That's why we talk about cultivate, plant, reap, which is kind of our execution model, right?
But at the end of the day, here's what we do. We do two basic things.
Mike Garrison: Number one, I will help anyone that wants to learn how to really do referrals at scale in a predictable sense, but I'm going to ask them a very important question. And it's a trick, right? So, Sarah, is it all right if I pick on Matt?
Sarah Pattisall: I think that's a great idea, Mike.
Mike Garrison: Okay. So, hey, Matt. Matt, I would never pick on you. However, Sarah said it's okay. So, Matt, I'm going to ask you—
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: If Sarah says it's okay, then it must be—
Mike Garrison: I thought it would be. So, Matt, I'm going to ask you: You have to answer like a real person. Matt, how would you love to get referrals given to you predictably?
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah, that would be okay. The secret is to do it for other people first, right? And so the problem, the whole thing around Strategic Referral Team, values-based mindset, Can I Borrow Your Car?, my latest book, Would You Build This?, it's all about understanding that for you to be a safe driver, you have to learn how to drive. And the coin of the realm, Sarah, is giving on purpose.
Mike Garrison: And I'm not talking about giving at Chamber of Commerce mixers and events, but literally, my best clients schedule time every week to think about their giving system. And at the highest level, they're all putting on their payroll a referral concierge whose entire job for the organization is to lead giving.
Sarah Pattisall: Wow.
Mike Garrison: So I do that, usually for financial services firms.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Boy, that is fantastic. That really does turn everything on its ear in terms of what people would normally invest in and what they would typically value. But, you know, it's not hard to see why that would pay off.
Mike Garrison: So the challenge becomes, right, and this is why I make a lot of fun about being a #referralpredator and #referralbeggar.
Most referral systems are around the measurement of activity, and we're all marketers on this call, so we know there has to be a certain amount of measurable activity. I'm just going to say activity, to be able to have enough data to tell us if it worked and what we have to change. Well, the problem is, if all of your activity, your system for activity, is based upon you only asking other people to help you, number one, you know it doesn't balance.
Number two, if you're the person, the right kind of person, that's going to have people wanting to give you referrals anyways, it's going to start getting awkward. And I never see very successful people, even if they built their business initially that way, I never see them continuing it.
Here's what I do know. When I developed the skills and the network to be able to give referrals easily and also powerfully, with intention, people like it when I ask them how I can help because they believe I actually can and I will. And by the way, every time. And here's our script. You ready? It's so unbelievable. It's the most complicated script. It's like, "Hey, Matt. I love referrals. How can I help you?"
Sarah Pattisall: That's perfect.
Mike Garrison: Very, very intricate. Very intricate.
Sarah Pattisall: I've got a couple of follow-up thoughts and a question. Well, first off, you're giving me some deeply philosophical vibes in a lot of what you're saying, and I'm very much enjoying that. And I feel like what you're fundamentally describing is moving from a reactive mindset when it comes to referrals to being very proactive and intentional in how you go about that.
I think that what I've seen from businesses that I've worked with, and what we do at Brand3 a lot in helping people identify their niche and their unique value proposition, what makes them truly exceptional at what they do, can be one of the biggest discoveries and the biggest challenges.
And I feel like you probably face a similar challenge, which is: What value can I offer these people that I want to make my referral partners? And how do you help businesses answer that question?
Mike Garrison: So, I am not sarcastic. I'm just cynical. So I always say to people, I say, "Look, you have a choice. You can be identified, like, so you can declare your value proposition around what it is that you do," stupid, "or you can identify it around the result for your client after they have successfully executed on what you do."
So, in the realm of professional service providers, my ideal client profile is predicated around the percentage chance of success of that client experiencing massive 10X ROI from using me. It's not about whether they can pay me or what they do. I'm looking for a specific type of athlete, right? And so it's always financial services, but within financial services, it's really narrow.
My last book, my publisher's like, "You're really only talking to 1,000 people in the country as ideal prospects." I go, "On one level, yes." So that's part of it, Sarah. But here's what I tell people: Most of what I consider to be the ideal client profile stuff and value proposition and avatar and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, most of that stuff I find is aimed at the bottom 20% of the buying process.
Which isn't without value, but that's amateur time, right? You're competing—
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah, you need to consider the entire market funnel.
Mike Garrison: Well, the biggest thing is this: If your marketing program is designed to have the client discover you when they want to talk to you, you're a victim. And so my thing is, how do you become worth meeting?
And this is the first question I ask every client when they hire me, right? Not that Brand3 would ever need to, but my first question would be, "Let's start discussing why you're worth meeting when I'm not in the market for what you do." Because if your value proposition can't stand up to that, it's not a value proposition. Fundamentally, Sarah, you have to be worth meeting as a human being.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah.
Mike Garrison: Now that's different. That's referral re—this is referrals, right? So the way you scale in referrals is you have to look at marketing science. You have to understand the math, but then you also have to understand the channel is a human being.
It's not an algorithm, not, you know, a gateway where you have to figure out how to get your emails through it, right? It's a human being. And at the end of the day, that human being is either going to believe in you enough to put their personal integrity on the line or not. I get more referrals because I have a severely autistic son, and I talk about it enough online to try and help people, and because I possess the most glorious hobby in the world, fly fishing, right?
But I get so many referrals because of that, and people know what I do. They know what I'm about, and so they're never introducing me to a florist, right? But, like, the guy I was talking to today that we're working with is a passionate fly fisher. We spent a half an hour of the meeting talking about fishing, and then rapid-fire went through some stuff. He's in a relationship I've known for less than 120 days, and we're talking about six-figure deals.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah, that's amazing.
Mike Garrison: And, you know, Matt, I want to see if you have any thoughts you want to share on this because throughout this conversation, a lot of what you've been talking about, Mike, I'm just seeing so many parallels between what you're describing and StoryBrand and a lot of our process. And Matt, I'm sure you probably have some thoughts there.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: So many thoughts. I'm just trying to organize them all with everything you're tossing out here, Mike. It's so good.
The StoryBrand piece of it, yeah, I mean, what StoryBrand does is it disciplines you. It forces you to focus on empathy. It focuses you on trying to understand the other person and to understand their story before you tell yours. And then it plays out in the way that we use it. You always start with what that person is trying to accomplish, what is in their way, and then they meet you.
And I always tell people, such a more fun way to arrive into a story than to try and force your story on someone else is to tell theirs, and make them feel truly heard and understood and seen, and then arrive within their story. In StoryBrand terms, we say the potential client is the hero of the story. They're the protagonists. You arrive as the helpful guide. You arrive as the Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Gandalf, the Dumbledore, you know, in that—
Sarah Pattisall: Mm-hmm.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: The Rabbi.
You know, to help walk along the journey and say, "I really see where you are and who you are, and what you're trying to accomplish, and I want to... I've been down this road, I've seen how you can solve it, and I would like to go on this journey with you." Rather than, "I would like to sell you some stuff. I would like to sell you some services." It all begins with empathy and understanding. And everything you're talking about.
So, you know, Mike, what we talked about the other day is, people look at the new program we're rolling out, Scale Beyond Referrals, and then yours, where you're talking about scaling trust through referrals, and there are phrases on your website. And we had never met, and I had never seen your website until about a week ago. And I was like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Did we meet somehow and I missed it?" Like, it's that kind of encounter.
Because we're also putting this huge, right, we're talking about the B2B space. Especially finance is a big focus of ours. Like I said, high-stakes, high-trust things, where everything has to be about meeting humans. And we just did our first workshop for Scale Beyond Referrals yesterday, and we were talking a lot to people about how we have been conditioned to forget the humanity of our marketing in a lot of ways.
We've been taught, in recent years, to put a bunch of information out there. You know? Put a bunch of stuff out there and trust that people will respond to that, and they'll fill out a lead form and all these things. Well, they don't just need the information. They need everything you just said.
They need to meet the human behind the brand, too. And they do need to know the fly fishing, and they do need to know about your son, and in my case, my theater background and this crazy thing I did where I bought a boat. And, like, all these weird passions that I have, right? So that we can connect as whole people. Because the question people are really trying to answer in their head when they're thinking about hiring a B2B sales provider or service provider isn't, "Do you know what you're doing?" It's, "Do I trust you in all possible ways? Do I trust that you do know what you're talking about?" But do I trust you as a human?
Mike Garrison: Actually, you know, I think it's beyond that. So, I'm a big... Like, so I've been through the Donald Miller stuff. I don't have any of the worksheets anymore, but I used to, as part of my coaching practice, I would take people through StoryBrand. So I love it. But I'm convinced that we are past that, unfortunately.
I still think that's very valuable, and so I'm a big, big fan of the frame-making sale, because what I'm noticing, the commercial research I see about buyers, commercial buyers and business owners, I'm noticing that it's really the buyer being confident that they're making a good decision. It's not so much about, "Are we credible, and can they trust us?"
More deals right now and more sales processes, the length of the sales engagements, they're lengthening. They're getting the buyer teams, like, I think we're up to 22 on average in a commercial buying process, 22 people in the process. And if you're not meeting all 22 in the first one or two meetings, you failed, right? So what's happening is, these buyers, because there is no hero's journey in marketing out on the internet now, and also humans are devalued so much, they don't have confidence.
What I do love about StoryBrand is if you can get that owner or their team to engage in that, that's really a story, a story about, you know… If they'll engage with that, they're going to be confident because they're going to understand the different acts of the play. They're going to understand that they're the director, right? You know, and that...
But that's really the secret. And when you look at referrals, so often people don't understand the people that want to buy from other human beings want to buy from someone that loves them and loves what they love. Like, if you... I always say this: If you had a choice, so you love theater. Would that be fair to say, Matt?
Matt Wolfe: Sure.
Mike Garrison: Right? So if you had a choice between equally credible vendors, between one guy who is a chemical engineer, God bless him, I pick that because that's about as far off of a theater person as I can think of, and someone that was actively volunteering and on the board for a local theater troupe who was just pouring the...Which one would you want to work with?
Matt Wolfe: Yeah. I mean, obviously it's number two, but there's so much wrapped up in that. I mean, that's because I know, or I know there's a very good chance, you know, even before meeting that person, that we speak a similar language, that we share similar values, similar sense of mission and purpose, right?
All of these things that go far beyond the job that I need them to—
Mike Garrison: There's a buyer for the chemical engineer, too. Like, that's the thing. I always say the worst thing in the world, the most craven thing you can do in sales is hide who you are before you're paid, knowing they'll hate you afterwards.
Sarah Pattisall: I gotta give you snaps for that.
Mike Garrison: Knowing—
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah, we tell people—
Sarah Pattisall: Real quick, love the use of the word "craven" there. Just had to say that. Excellent.
Mike Garrison: Liberal arts degree.
Sarah Pattisall: Same. I am an English major.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Music theater.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: That's... Now, wait, now we have our own tribe.
Mike Garrison: Yeah.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Tell people all the time, I just did yesterday in the workshop, you know, there are... Look, there's two people in any relationship, and there's two great characters in any good marketing story.
Mike Garrison: Period.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: I do think that's part of what gets misinterpreted in the StoryBrand thing, too. Sometimes people think the guide role is being minimized, and they're not. They're a hugely important part of the story. Who you are as a business, and I don't mean just the business, I mean you as the human behind the business, because in the kind of businesses we're talking about, the human really is the brand. And all of who they are has to be considered when you build the brand's strategy. But the business is a character in the story, so is the ideal client.
And when we do discovery, our first thing is to discover who are you, the founder, the face of that brand and the business as a character, and we can't even figure out who your ICP is, your ideal client persona, until we do that. And we call that process finding your hidden opportunity. Who are you really—
Mike Garrison: I love it.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: —as a business? And then you've had all this experience with all these different kinds of people. You know that within that experience base, there are certain kinds of people. And I don't mean niche. I don't mean certain kinds of categories or niches.
Mike Garrison: I mean people.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Certain kinds of humans.
Mike Garrison: With names.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: When you're working with them, you know it's all going to click. You know they're going to be the best served. You know your team is going to do its best work. You know there's going to be actual joy and celebration and the mix of all of that. You know that it's not just going to feel like work, that you're going to share values.
All of that matters, and people don't know they have permission to make that choice of that person. And we had a guy yesterday whose mind was blown because we were going through, you know, the rough marketing language. You're finding your persona, and they've heard that. And he's like, "Man." And we start people by saying, "Think about your experience. Who have been your favorite clients for these reasons?"
And he's like, "You mean we're not going to do, like, a speculative, we made-up-this-guy kind of exercise, and then I'm not going to go out in the world and find out that's not the guy I was talking to?" Which speaks to your thing earlier, right? We're aiming for, like, the bottom 20%. We're trying to get them to aim for that actual, human, unique connection. And much like you, there may only be 1,000 of them out there, but boy, once you guys connect, that thing is going to grow.
Sarah Pattisall: I think really, at the end of the day, what it comes down to is, you know, how can we make sure that you and your team get to show up to work every day and have an absolute blast being unapologetically your authentic selves?
Mike Garrison: So, have you read Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard?
Sarah Pattisall: Mm-mm.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Mm-hmm. I'll write that down.
Mike Garrison: You need to. It is not on Audible or Kindle. But it is the best book on customer service ever. I wept as I read it because it talks about what does it mean to have a raving fan? People don't understand that doing good work in no way should engender a referral, because what the hell are they paying you for, right? Like, I don't hire anybody for mediocre service, but I refer you when I'm a raving fan, and that's when I have an experience of service that is clearly and distinctly almost abnormal. Now, here's the trick. When I do this ideal client work, and I do a lot of it with my clients, I also make them show me mathematically why that client deserves that spot. Like, I want to see their systems for how... Because for me, everything is a sales process. Everything, from "I want to start making tires" to "I'm selling a company," everything is sales.
And so one of the things that I find that's a weakness when people are doing this type of work is they haven't done the business process work to understand what's my client acquisition cost, what's my onboarding thing. A big part of it when I'm working with clients is we are getting in the weeds with their operations team, with their... with their accounting, their CFO, and we are vetting everything on the marketing side through the hard look of finance, which is how I get all of them on board.
Sarah Pattisall: The due diligence.
Mike Garrison: Right? You know, I mean, if you're in exit planning, you better understand due diligence because the LOI means nothing. The only number that counts is when they recast the value within, you know, a couple of days of the close, and that's a playbook in the industry.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah, yeah. We do, you're right, we do a similar thing, and we tell people, once you understand who that ideal client is, and then you're going to tell a story about what that relationship is between the business and that ideal client, you tell the right story to the right people. That's your brand strategy, and then that applies to everything: marketing, sales, and especially client experience, because that's where all the fancy promises you made in the websites and in the sales process have to come true, both for the integrity of the thing, but also for the growth.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Can I say something controversial?
Sarah Pattisall: Yes, please.
Mike Garrison: No, I'm just talking about wealth management.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Hmm?
Mike Garrison: It's impossible to serve lots of different types of ideal clients.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Mm-hmm.
Mike Garrison: And so I'm really talking about this horrible concept of having different levels of service in your business. That's fine if you're a multinational or regional conglomerate and you're not really... Like, at that moment, you are commoditizing yourself. Like, the second you have different strata of clients, you're commoditizing yourself.
What I always say is this: The purpose of doing really good ideal client work is to identify not only who's the most enjoyable, to Sarah's point, but they're also enjoyable because they're profitable and they create enough resources in your organization that you can hire the best talent, treat them the best, they do the best work, you get the best clients. So, you have to be virtuous in that. And I tell clients, and I do this all the time with financial advisors, like, "How many new clients do you actually want?"
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Mm-hmm.
Mike Garrison: And they're like, "Well, what do you mean?" I'm like, "Don't talk to me about revenue, but, like, how many new clients do you want this year per advisor?"
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah.
Mike Garrison: And that number's never over 25, ever.
Mike Garrison: And when we start talking ideal clients, it goes down to eight to 10. I mean, the average lifetime value for my clients is between $500,000 to $1 million for a client, for an ideal client, because of the long hold and stuff like that.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah.
Mike Garrison: But that's the controversy. Like, you guys are so about service, and so am I, and I'm like, you know, just because they were great clients for you when you began your business and they were incredibly important to you, that doesn't mean that they're great clients now. And usually, what I've found is that you cannot optimize customer service for multiple levels of people, right?
In Raving Fans, it's really cool. Those businesses design their business the way... So they've got a gas station. One guy's a rental car guy, like, Uber before Uber, then a supermarket. They designed their businesses so that they could drive incredibly radical customer service because of the design of their business, but they weren't doing professional services. In professional services, you are the delivery system.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Hmm.
Mike Garrison: It's about human-to-human empathy and stuff like that. I don't know. Maybe it's not controversial, but you know what? You can't... Those older clients probably aren't being served well by you anyway.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Pattisall: I don't think that's controversial at all. I think that, I mean, that's something that we always try to bake into our process when we work with clients. You know, at least once a year, we're looking at their strategy, and we're asking ourselves, what's changed for them this year in their business goals or in their industry? And based on those changes, is our current strategy still going to help them meet their goals?
And if that answer's no, then we're going back to the board, and we're asking ourselves, "Okay, who should we be talking to instead?" I think that's really important for people to do.
Mike Garrison: So, so I have a definition of what makes someone a professional advisor.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: It's once or twice in your work with that client, you can tell them no, and it sticks. Because if you think about it, right? If you're a financial advisor, those financial advisors that had developed, intentionally or unintentionally, the right relationships in 2007, 2008, saved their clients millions of dollars by saying, "No, we're not going to sell when the market's low."
Mike Garrison: And so I think, I bet you guys can resonate with this when you look at your clients who are like, "Oh, I think we gotta do this thing," and you're like, "No. No, we're not going to do direct messaging on LinkedIn." Or, or, like, whatever, whatever the scheme is, right? And I want you to think about that because if that resonates with you or somebody who's listening, well, what kind of person do you have to become? What kind of people do you have to help your team become?
What kind of relationship do you have to create with your clients so that when it's life-changing or business-changing, and you know they shouldn't go there, you can have them stop long enough to figure it out on their own?
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah. No, that is such a—
Sarah Pattisall: Good point. And I know one of the things that a lot of people should be doing, and that we've done at Brand3 with that in mind, is it used to be, you know, there were only certain roles that were client-facing, and we'd get on meetings and talk about projects. And now it does not matter your position. Like, if you are the expert on it and you're going to be working on this thing, then we want you to hear the client, and we want them to be able to speak to you, and that has made such a huge difference.
Mike Garrison: Huge.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: We are, we try and help our team, and Sarah knows this, maintain an identity as being guides. Like, you know, we tell them, "You're not order takers. You are the guide, the strategic guide, for our clients, and you're there to help, you know, in a way, protect them from themselves."
But what I really mean by that is, you know, they forget stuff, so they have to be reminded, "This is the strategy we were trying to run. This is why we're running this play." And you do that with an open ear to maybe that does need to change. You know, you don't just—
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Stubbornly on the same path. But they need to remember why we're doing what we're doing, and they need to have encouragement to have the courage to stay on the path, especially when you are, when you are niching down, when you are making choices about who your ideal client is. And people think that's going to restrict them, but the paradox of it all is it's actually going to set them free. They're going to see better results on the other side.
Mike Garrison: Restraint, it increases velocity.
Mike Garrison: So, you ready for a horrible question?
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yes.
Mike Garrison: You should ask your guys' clients this.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yes.
Mike Garrison: Ask them how many referrals their staff have given the business in the past year.
Sarah Pattisall: Oh, Matt, we do have to add that to our questions.
Mike Garrison: So now I have—
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah.
Mike Garrison: I have a system for how we do that. And the only reason I brought it up is when I have a client who's like, "Oh yeah, we get all the referrals. You know, we have, we're perfect referrals." I go, "Good. How many referrals did your staff give you?" Well, I go, "Look, if your staff's not introducing you to people, there are a couple of things that are really horrible that may have happened, and I'm just gonna assume that you didn't want this to happen.
"But number one, they don't believe you want their help."
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mike Garrison: Bad, bad message. Number two, you haven't asked for their help. Number three, they don't believe in what you're doing. And number four, you just don't care. So which is it?
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah. No, it's—Funny, Mike, because when you were starting to pose that question, I thought for a moment there that you were talking about asking your clients—
Mike Garrison: Well, we do that too.
Sarah Pattisall: What we do is interview the ideal customer, and that's... I can see that question working so perfectly there too, right? You know, this is supposed to be your client, your referral partner, and we're gonna interview them and ask them, "Well, how many people have you actually referred to this business?" That'd be very telling as well.
Mike Garrison: Yeah. But that's all part of it, 'cause I'm measuring first generation, second generation, third generation. And the reason being is the most important thing in referrals is finding a person of peace from Luke 10. You have to identify that person that's gonna receive your peace, because not everyone is comfortable referring, and it's kind of wrong to expect everyone to be okay with it.
I wrote *Can I Borrow Your Car?* to help more people be comfortable with the risk elements associated with doing referrals in B2B. But I'm... Everything I do is designed to identify people that get pleasure from referring.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Hmm.
Mike Garrison: Those are the people that receive your peace. You have to identify the people, and what's the best way to identify the people who love referring? Giving. Because here's what happens. When you've got a giving strategy, it's the greatest thing in the world. It doesn't happen all the time with me because not everybody's into it, but I'll tell you a story about Eric Owen.
He's a friend of mine, and he loved *Can I Borrow Your Car?* It changed his life. He's an incredibly prominent CEPA, certified exit planning guy. He runs the Wisconsin chapter. Unbelievable guy. And every time he and I would talk, he was asking questions about *Can I Borrow Your Car?* And he'd be like, "Hey, well, what can I do to help you?" I'm like, "Oh, don't worry about it." I kept giving to him on purpose, number one, because I was looking for data.
So finally, one day, I will never forget, I had just... I was east of Charleston, West Virginia, driving back from actually being in Cleveland at Exit Planning Institute doing an event. I was coming back through West Virginia, and I'm talking to Eric, and he's like, "Well, what can I do to help you?" I'm like, "Eric, don't worry about it."
He goes, "Damn it, I'm sick and tired. Every time that I try and help you, you deflect it. We are gonna talk about how I can help you." I went, "Wow. Oh, I'd love to." He goes, "Well, oh, okay. Well, what's that look like?" I said, "Well, Eric, do you know someone that owns a financial services company with at least $5 to $10 million in revenue that is within an hour of where you work?" He goes, "I know three." That's how we can help each other.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Mm-hmm.
Mike Garrison: And so I'm looking and creating opportunities for those people to show me without me having to be a velociraptor of referrals. I mean, I probably give 1,000 introductions per year, actually more, but I probably get 1,000 referrals. 950 of them I refer to other people after I talk to them.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: That's incredible.
Sarah Pattisall: How do you keep up with that?
Mike Garrison: Not well. Thank God for AI search and email.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: So, Mike, you're... Let me come back to the giving piece because you're talking to the right guy. I'm the two Enneagram, right? I'm the giver, like, to my own detriment sometimes, right? That, you know, what kind of qualifies us is we keep giving.
But, and I'm familiar with the theological framework, you know, that you're coming from, right? For me, it comes back to the Sermon on the Mount, which you could sort of look at as, this is sort of a crude way of describing it, but like a handbook for the best way to live. God's design for how we will live our best lives. And it opens with a thing called the Beatitudes, which turns all of our assumptions and values about how the world works best on its ear.
But at the heart of all of it really is this idea that if you live in this posture you're talking about, to be a giver first, and that that's the heart from which you're coming from, and that's the forward momentum that you live with. And then that unpacks in all kinds of directions in terms of service, in terms of giving up the right to be right all the time, and to forgive, and to create pathways for reconciliation.
You know, there are all sorts of things tucked into that, but it does come back to being a giver. I think that's so powerful, and we look for simple human, and in this case it's a spiritual truth as well, in this. And I think that's a big one to take away today. The fact that you're turning that value... You know, so much of us think it's about survival, it's about taking, it's about protecting ourselves, and giving is a vulnerable place to live, but ultimately a stronger one. And again, that's kind of the paradox.
Mike Garrison: Die to self.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah.
Mike Garrison: Right?
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah.
Mike Garrison: We are flesh and we are spirit, right? And so I never will condemn somebody because they surrender to the flesh because, hey, like, you know, it's been a long day. So, you know, I'm sure... I don't even wanna think about all the mistakes. But when you get down to it, the way that I make sense of that, Sarah, just to give you the… And it's from the book, but I'm just gonna unpack it a little bit.
Mike Garrison: I have a macro strategy for giving, a macro strategy, which is not predicated upon me being able to help everyone that asks for help, right? So the macro strategy is low friction, high frequency, low risk, which is, "I love referrals. How can I help you?" And the only way this falls apart is if you become transactionally focused, which is hard because we are flesh, right?
And so if the reason I talk to people about having a giving system is you have to... It has to become in your DNA as a company, kind of like StoryBrand. When everyone in the organization knows the story and understands the arc for their clients, everything works better because it makes sense. So here's the macro strategy. Ask every client at least once a quarter, and other people you meet, how you can help them, and then shut up and listen.
What's cool is some of them, your best clients, should be like, "Oh, Sarah, there's nothing. You guys are so great. I'm doing good." Well, don't beat them up to death and argue with them. Say, "Hey, that's nice." Right? 30 seconds. What happened? Number one, they heard you honestly and sincerely ask if you could help. That's a marketing event.
When you say, "I love referrals. How can I help you?" It's a marketing event. Then maybe the second time, third time, fourth time, and then they're having that day. It's... And they're like, "Do you really mean it, Sarah? Do you really mean help me?" And you're like, "Well, sure." It's personal. "Okay, great." Like, and you try and help them. Maybe you don't know a counselor, but you can pray for them. Like, often because of the nature, some of the nature of what I do, it's like I had somebody who's like, "Hey, do you know anybody in international trade?
"I've got stuff stuck in customs in another country." I'm like, I said, "I have no earthly idea, and I don't even know who to ask, but would it be okay if I shared this with a couple of friends of mine that might know?" And I found venture capital, I found all these different things because what people really wanna know is, do you give a rip about them? And, like, I always, the... You have to make this... Like, not everyone has to be the guide for the entire thing. They can come in and come out.
So the micro-strategy, though, when I have that data moment, like with Eric, where they show me that they wanna help, everything changes. They become a priority on my calendar, and we go deep. I wanna know their StoryBrand, to use your guys' term. I wanna know who are they, who are they, what are they really about? I wanna know everything. And then instead of... 'Cause that's when we shift from what I call Chicken Little marketing for referrals, where you walk outside and something falls out of the sky, and you're like, "Oh, my strategy works."
No. Survival's not a strategy. Survival's a result. It's not a strategy, right? So instead, we shift to proactive.
Mike Garrison: And so I was walking through some of my clients. They've got a $150 million financial services business. They're incredibly successful, right? It's gonna be a $400 million business in five years. And I reminded them, "Guys, remember the woodpile from Farmer Boy, Little House on the Prairie, that series?" Farmer Boy is a book about her, her husband, and guess what you do a lot when there's no electricity in Upstate New York? What do you do a lot of the time when it's nice out? You chop wood because winter's coming.
Like, that's the Game of Thrones for newer generations, right? I told them, "Hey, guys, you've earned the right. Don't go ask them to give you a referral. Ask them to share with you everything they have." We're literally gonna have them identify between 100 to 200 owners of specialty manufacturing in the Midwest in two meetings, by name, by relationship, and then we harvest all that. Cultivate, plant, reap. That's how we do this, because I get most of my referrals from four people, and those four people have shared everything, and we're working on multi-year strategies in some cases for seven-figure... Sound like marketing?
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: It does.
Mike Garrison: It is.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: It does, and I think it's a cliffhanger for anyone to wanna come and learn more from you. I mean, there's so much. I wish we had two hours today, you know, to just keep going. This is so fun.
Sarah Pattisall: Me too.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: I wanted to point out, before we do our last little bit here, you know, it's... So you're teaching people to scale through referrals. We have a new program called Scale Beyond Referrals, but they are not in conflict.
Mike Garrison: Not at all.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: What we're not saying at all is that referrals are essential and I'm dying for people to, "Ah, now I wanna learn more."
Mike Garrison: Well, my system's not—
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Dying for people—
Mike Garrison: My system is not for everybody. It's not. What you guys do can benefit far more businesses than what I'm talking about.
Sarah Pattisall: See, what I thought to be the case, though, and Matt and I were kind of talking about this, at the end of the day, when we're saying Scale Beyond Referrals, it's more like scale beyond your current referral network.
Mike Garrison: And a lot of that is, do you have the, I call it, do you have the grease, right? Is your branding, is it appropriate? Is it effective? Because what people don't understand is, all of my stuff is within a commercial sales process. I'm still a copier guy. I don't sell copiers. Like this friend we were talking about before we got started, right? We've gotten to a point where the branding and stuff around it needs to be better to help get bigger clients more confident, because that trust, we've got multiple points of trust in a referral process.
I can get a meeting, but maybe I can't close it because they went to my website and my website was clunky. It didn't match up with what they expected. Oh, you know, like, there's so much about the... When I look at what you guys do, is you guys not only can create opportunities that we can't do 24/7. Like, I'm not open to talk to referral sources 24/7, baby.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Right.
Mike Garrison: But you can also provide what... You can increase momentum. I call it the sequence of trust. So, yeah, no, I think it's, when you say beyond referrals, yeah, no, it's no conflict at all.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah. We think of it as, we just meet so many B2B service providers who gave up on marketing because they were never taught the right strategy. And we just know and believe that it can work for them if they take a human, relational approach to it that honors the fact that they are a human relationship-based business.
And that's, you know, so we just help them reach a wider audience of, to our earlier conversation, the right people who they are meant to make those human connections with.
Mike Garrison: If your clients, if you help them develop a story and then you make that story tangible and visual and auditory, right? If you bring that story to life, they own their story, and then they're more confident telling their story. They're more confident sharing their story. They feel worth meeting. That is so important because sales is incredibly hard.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Hmm.
Mike Garrison: Yeah. What you do is beautiful.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Thank you. You too. Right back at you.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Well, Mike, if you're willing, we have a final thing we like to do with people, 'cause, you know, we've been talking about this has to be—
Mike Garrison: Is this seven questions? I'm so excited. Like, you guys, we're not gonna interview—
Sarah Pattisall: But we have a surprise today that Matt doesn't even know about. I'm adding a question because I've been wanting to ask it since the beginning of our call, and I've been patiently waiting for this moment.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Ah.
Mike Garrison: Let's do it. I can't wait.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: This is our Behind the Brand questionnaire. We like to get to know the human behind the brand, and if anyone is interested in working with you, it's gonna help them get a few more steps—
Mike Garrison: Let's do it.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Into who is Mike Garrison?
Mike Garrison: I can't wait.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Sarah, kick it off.
Sarah Pattisall: As someone who also enjoys jumping out of planes, did you get to jump out of planes, and do you still jump out of planes?
Mike Garrison: Thirty-nine jumps. They were all static line. So I jumped out of helicopters and planes, which means I landed, like, bad, right? Um, I do not currently jump out of planes. I jumped out of planes so much that I'm afraid that the odds are against me on regular flights.
Sarah Pattisall: Give it a few years, and the stats will level themselves out.
Mike Garrison: No, actually, I was involved in a horrific parachute accident where we lost an entire Green Beret A-team because the winds were too high, and so they were doing HALO jumping. They, these are the guys, tabbies we call them. Those of us that were doing static line jumping, we all got wrecked.
I was one of the few people that was able to walk off the drop zone. I had a broken nose, bit through my lip, knee was ripped open, no bursa, bleeding profusely, but all the Green Berets were desecrated because they tried to pop their chutes, you know this if you've done HALO, in 50-mile-an-hour winds.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Wow.
Sarah Pattisall: They just got—
Mike Garrison: Right. Yeah. And so, yeah. So yeah, no, I'm good. No, I've done also winter mountaineering, ice climbing. I've done lots of crazy stuff 'cause I love adrenaline.
Sarah Pattisall: That's really cool. Yeah, my fiancé and I are, uh, the same—
Mike Garrison: Good.
Sarah Pattisall: That's amazing. Well, the next question then: What is your go-to karaoke song?
Mike Garrison: It would have to be, I hate to say this because it sounds awful, but what comes to mind is Kill 'Em All, Metallica.
Sarah Pattisall: No, I think that sounds fun.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: That has the distinguished note of being our first heavy metal entry into the series as well.
Mike Garrison: Good. But I consider, Metallica to be rock and roll.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: There you go.
Mike Garrison: And then, and then we just move upwards in intensity.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: We get heavier from there. All right.
Mike, what is the last thing that made you laugh out loud?
Mike Garrison: You, you guys, like, this podcast.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Right.
Mike Garrison: Like, I mean, that's the truth. I've done it like four times on this podcast.
Sarah Pattisall: Okay, the next question here is: What is your favorite way to get away from it all?
Mike Garrison: Fly fishing in a high-gradient mountain stream. Tenkara, fixed-line telescopic rod.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: That was spoken like a fly fisherman. That was—
Sarah Pattisall: And I'm gonna throw this out quick for you, Mike. If you're ever in the Maryland area, hit me up. I'll connect you with my brother. He's big into fishing, and he would love to take you out.
Mike Garrison: I fish regularly on the Gunpowder.
Sarah Pattisall: Oh, you're in Maryland.
Mike Garrison: I mean, my mom lives in Maryland, so yeah.
Sarah Pattisall: I live right off of Susquehanna, and my brother has a boat in Havre de—
Mike Garrison: Cool. Excellent. I won't forget.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah. What smell reminds you of a specific place or time?
Mike Garrison: Wow. I have never been asked that question. So I'm gonna eliminate the fart smell reminding me of the military, 'cause that, f—like, bad farting reminds me of when you drink a lot when you're young in the military, a lot. Right? And so every time in a Green Beret unit, everyone, even if you're a cook, everyone runs every morning fast.
And so when men that are really hungover run at high speeds, things happen. But on a good note, on a good note, every time I smell coffee, I think of my dad.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Oh. Wow. That's awesome.
Sarah Pattisall: Good one.
Sarah Pattisall: What is one day in your life that you would like to relive?
Mike Garrison: So this would be, um... So my dad passed away from cancer. He was the guy who got me into fly fishing. Um, even though he wasn't a Christian, he's the reason I'm a Christian 'cause of how he loved me. And so his picture's right here. Here. That's him at my graduation from airborne school.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Wow.
Mike Garrison: So I love my dad, greatest man I've ever known, and with great demons. But, um, the last time we went fly fishing together was above Taos, New Mexico, so we're about 11,000 feet. And we had... Everyone had told us... It was the only time we could do that. I was visiting him in Santa Fe, and everyone had told us the water's too high, it's runoff, you won't be able to catch anything. And Dad and I were like, "You know, screw it. We're gonna go."
So we go up there, and we finally get... We're way up in the Jemez Mountains, way up. And, um, we look in the stream, it's just chocolate milk. Chocolate milk. And my dad's like, "Well, we went this far, we're gonna get in." So, so we suit up, everything, get in there, start fly fishing, and, like, nothing happens for the first half an hour.
My dad's about 100 yards away upstream from me, and all of a sudden, the light turned to that golden light that you only see in the mountains. And bugs started hatching, and trout rose everywhere, and we were slamming them. I mean, every cast, bam, into the trout. And I'm fishing, and I remember I was like, "This is the...This is one of the greatest days of my life."
And I looked over my shoulder upstream, and my dad was just turning to look at me. We smiled at each other, went back to fishing. We never talked about it, but that was one of the greatest moments of my life.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: He clearly felt the same. That's so powerful.
Sarah Pattisall: Also, you just told that really beautifully. I felt like I was there.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yeah. A real gift. What three words would your loved ones use to describe you?
Mike Garrison: Tense, passionate, vulnerable.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: It's a great combo. All right, Sarah, bring us home.
Sarah Pattisall: I'm really excited to hear your answer here 'cause I know it's gonna be amazing.
Sarah Pattisall: What would it mean to you, Mike, to have truly succeeded in your work, and not with your company, but you—
Mike Garrison: To hear Christ say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." At the end of the day, that is the one thing that I desire the most, is in spite of who I am, and only because of who He is.
Sarah Pattisall: Yeah, that's really beautiful.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Well, it feels like we should just end it there, but I... I... Where do you go? How do you... Where do you go from there? But I do need to make sure we ask you what is the best way for people to reach out? Who should reach out to you, and what's the best way for them, you know, to do that, if they wanna talk further about the referral training that we've discussed?
Mike Garrison: I got too many, I got too many stupid websites and too many brands out there, but, like, if you're at all interested in anything I'm talking about, go get a copy of Can I Borrow Your Car?, right? And the reason being is that if you invest the time reading that book, you can then contact me through LinkedIn or anything and say, "Hey, I read your book. I have some questions." And I will absolutely, with no screening whatsoever, give you a half an hour, 100%. You'll get a link. I'll send you a link for a half an hour, schedule it whenever.
Now, if you use it too many times, that's different. But, like, buy the book. You can find me on LinkedIn. I am, um, I'm somewhat active on LinkedIn, but I don't play the algo game 'cause I understand that I'm a product on that platform.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mike Garrison: But you can find me on LinkedIn, you can do that stuff. The best email for me, because it's the actual parent company, is [email protected]. [email protected] works. [email protected] works. But, like, read the book, because I wrote the book so that people would be imprisoned by talking to me.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Wow. Well, I've never heard anyone describe a book that way. That's great.
Mike Garrison: If you think about it, like, I charge $5,000 a day minimum to work with people when I'm working, right? 'Cause it's super intense. There's lots of pre-work. You guys know this, right? Like, anytime there's so much research, I had a problem. How in the world do I help enough people? I'm like, well, if you can't afford 20 bucks, you're not in B2B sales anyways. But, like, a book, I always tell my clients, write a book so not everybody has to be a millionaire to hire you.
Sarah Pattisall: That's great. And Mike, I do wanna say quick for our listeners, the full title of Mike's book is Can I Borrow Your Car: How Successful Financial Advisors Can Grow Their Business and Love Their Life. I know it's available on Amazon. Is there anywhere else that listeners can get your book?
Mike Garrison: I don't know of it, but if you do, great. If you could...Maybe, maybe it’s yard sales around the country.
Sarah Pattisall: You've got good reviews on there too.
Mike Garrison: I like... And it's amazing what happens when you beg. I mean, ask people to help you. So that, that, that book is a love language for sales.
Matt Wolfe, Brand3: Yep. We look, on this podcast, we look for people with a heart of service. We look for difference-makers, and it's just those qualities just sit with you with every word you've spoken. So it's just been a joy to spend this time with you. From our side of the table, if anyone, like... We were, what we were talking about, if you're a B2B service provider, you gave up on marketing a long time ago and just didn't see how it could work for you, we have an ongoing workshop series called Scale Beyond Referrals, where you can unpack that and understand why so often people have been guided down the wrong path for B2B marketing.
Scalebeyondreferrals.com, is where you can find that. You can also find it at brand3.net. Thank you, Mike Garrison, and this has been Matt Wolfe and Sarah Pattisall with Brand3, and we'll see you next time.
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