Referral Diva

Virginia Muzquiz is the Founder of?Master Connectors ?and the creator of Referrals On Demand, which teaches solo entrepreneurs how to turn their network into a referral generating machine. With more than two decades of experiencing, developing and leveraging social capital to build a business, she has been teaching entrepreneurs and small business owners the art and science of filling their sales funnels with high-quality referrals.

She is passionate about increasing prosperity across the globe and uses her business to further the efforts of?Ten by Three , an international nonprofit, creating economies of scale in third world countries by turning artisans into entrepreneurs. Her IMPACT FIRST philosophy inspires her clients to make different skills that inspire others to promote, connect and refer them to perfect ideal clients. Virginia, welcome.

Let’s go back as far as you want, your childhood, college, wherever you want to go and give us a little sense of when you start getting passionate about the value of relationships.

Every time someone says, “Tell me your story,” it makes me want to break into song and be like, “When I was a young warthog.” It’s from the lion king, I don’t know why that always cracks me up. I discovered the value of relationships because, as a kid, I grew up without them. I grew pretty independent. My brother is seven years older than I am.

He was off riding his bike when I was cutting my teeth on a tricycle. I didn’t have a playmate or anything. My mom was a woman who took great physical care for me but she was a victim of domestic violence and was deeply abused by her father. She was emotionally unavailable. My dad’s a grumpy old geezer and workaholic.

I grew up alone with Nancy Drew books in trees. I was a Betty Bossypants. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I didn’t have social skills, because where do you learn social skills as a kid? You learn them in your family. We didn’t do that. I grew up feeling lonely, disconnected and constantly seeking relationships and approval. What has happened is over time, I’ve realized that there is an art and science to being a magnetic human. Being able to use influence without being manipulative.

I work with people a lot when they say, “We want to be persuasive without being pushy when we’re selling something.” You have a different distinction around that as far as connecting in general, which is great.

I believe that there is a bit of a science to persuasion and influence but the difference between a narcissistic sociopath and a CEO is empathy. There are a lot of CEOs that are pretty narcissistic. I’m not being critical about that if you don’t understand what you do, what you say and how you walk in the world inspires or alienates people and you’re running around being the victim of your own bad behavior. I did one of those TTI assessments where they’re like, “Here’s your DISC and motivators.” There’s this like skill-based thing and it comes back. I have a 10 for influence and I have a 0 for empathy. I burst into tears years ago. I was like, “I am a sociopath. This is horrible.”

The guy who did the testing said, “The simple fact that you can understand that influence untempered with empathy is a problem. It means you’re probably not a narcissist. You just don’t have a skillset.” I started coaching. Believe it or not, there are coaches who teach you empathy. It’s a vocabulary. I started realizing that understanding empathy was the key to quality selling, quality referral partnerships and, quality friendships. It’s that ability to understand, listen for and have some curiosity about, “What is John feeling in this moment and can I name it?”

I love that you said curiosity. That is one of the most underrated characteristics in a leader and people because it requires you to get the focus off yourself. You need to be interested in what’s going on in the world and learning a new skill. “I’m curious to learn about you. How did you get to where you are?” Any of those things lead to people saying, “You’re taking an interest in me. That makes me feel connected to you.” Ideally, the situation is reciprocal. There’s one thing you wrote in your LinkedIn profile. I’m a fanatic about reading those. It’s a great opportunity for people to tell their stories in a way that either pulls people in or pushes them away. How did the Referral Diva come up?

I was starting out in my coaching practice. It was 2010, 2011. I had purchased the Referral Institute Franchise, which doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s not a thing. The franchise rebranded and then got sold off. I realized the need for differentiation. You get behind a brand but you also need your edge. A friend of mine who was a mentor and an investor in my early coaching practice took me to this agency and said, “We’re going to take you to this agency. We’re going to brand you personally.” It’s going to be great. They’re way ahead of their time. They’re trying to give me a QR code and they’re like, “You need to be on Twitter.” I’m like, “I don’t do social media. It’s a time suck. I don’t want to do it. I’m not interested. I’m not going to Twitter.”

The owner of the agency walks through and goes, “Could you stop being such a diva?” The branding person that was assigned to my thing goes, “That’s it. Referral Diva, that’s you.” I was so incorrigible at the time. The definition of a diva is a woman of extraordinary talent. Not to brag but I’m extraordinary. I’m talented at the things I’m talented at, not much at the stuff I’m not but I’m talented at what I do. I started trying to embrace that side of the Diva brand. We are going forward and officially rebranding to the Referral Alchemist.

I love the book?The Alchemist . That’s the name of your process, the Referral Alchemy. This concept that you talk about, we’re lucky sometimes we meet a couple of referral archeologists who keep us in mind, referrals and take the time to think about who’s a smart connection. Most of us don’t know how to hang out with those kinds of people, let alone how to be one. It seems to me that you’re solving both problems. You teach people how to become an alchemist in terms of being able to tap into the network in a meaningful way and then how to find others so that you’re spending time with the right people. That helps your own network, which makes you a better referral.

If you look at the Master Connectors logo that I have, it’s a Buckminster Fuller Geodesic like the Epcot globe. The idea here is, first of all, the triangle is the strongest geometric shape. Geodesics are built out of triangles and the best relationships are three-way. I gain influence when I introduce you to a third party. You’re connected to me. They’re connected to me. You’re connected to them. That strengthens our relationships all the way around. The other thing about a geodesic that is unique is that it is the only geometrical structure that gains strength and durability as it gets taller. That has to do with the fact that it’s round and dome-shaped. The taller it gets, the wider base gets. It makes it more stable.

The key to the whole alchemy piece is being able to hub enough connections that you can get anywhere around the geodesic because you have a point of connection somewhere. I’ve got an alchemy epic fail and then an alchemy epic success. The success story is?Rob Goyette ?was on my show and I asked him, “Who do you want to know?” I make it my business to introduce the people I meet to the people they want to know who do you want to know. He said he wanted to meet John Lee Dumas.

It happened that somebody in my network had coached with him and had presented me to John to have him on my show. It was a brand new show, so I was terrified to have this conversation with John Lee Dumas. I didn’t schedule him. If somebody hands you, John Lee Dumas, on a platter, I don’t care how unprepared you are. He’ll make you look good, just say yes but I didn’t have the confidence to say yes.

I ended up calling Zach, telling him, “I’ve got this guy, Rob. Do you still have a connection?” He said, “I don’t but my friend does because my friend lives in Puerto Rico.” Zach introduced Rob to the friend, the friend introduced Rob to John Lee Dumas, John Lee Dumas introduced Rob to someone at this party and those two inked a massive deal.

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