Episode Transcript
Adam O'Leary (00:01.406)
If you're business owner struggling to build referral worthy business in a market that no longer responds to a transactional mindset, then our guest, Laura Sprinkle is about to give you a simple win you can implement today. Laura Sprinkle, founder of Routable, has been an affiliate partnership strategist for nearly a decade and specializes in working with digital course and membership creators.
Her approach to partner programs has helped everyone from budding entrepreneurs to seven-finger industry leaders, creating more than $50 million in affiliate revenue. Laura, a big welcome to the show. So excited to have you here.
Laura Sprinkle (00:42.574)
So excited, Adam. Thanks for having me.
Adam O'Leary (00:44.992)
So many business owners focus on building large, impersonal affiliate networks. You mentioned shifting towards Keystone Partners and what you call pollinators. Can you explain who these pollinators are and why they are so important for building trust in brand exposure?
Laura Sprinkle (01:03.596)
Yeah. my gosh. I love diving into Keystone and pollinators. So I mean, for me, it's, it's not impersonal at all. Neither of the, neither of the directions are impersonal. Like when I survey affiliates, like, why do you promote things? It's because they know, love and trust the product or the creator.
that they're sharing. So to me, Keystone affiliates are those with big aligned audiences. They're complimentary, they're doing complimentary work. They're going to take a long time, it's kind of like enterprise sales, like the cycle is going to be longer. But they're really, really important to the lifeblood of your affiliate program.
And then when it comes to pollinators, these folks are often your customers. They're your clients. You know, they're, they may only refer a couple of leads or a couple of sales, but en masse, they can really make a big difference in your brand equity and in people talking about you in rooms that you're not in, in brand awareness. So I think about pollinators as really like pollinating, right? If you think about a bunch of bees in an ecosystem, like individually, they might not do much.
but collectively they're really gonna grow your brand. So that's how I kind of differentiate keystones and pollinators.
Adam O'Leary (02:17.972)
I like how you're talking there just about how it adds brand equity. Can you actually go a little bit more into that?
Laura Sprinkle (02:24.054)
Yeah, I mean, so much of what I love about affiliate programs is that it's leveraged time, right? Like if I'm going out and I'm trying to find individual clients, you know, each hour of time that I spend with each individual client, I could potentially get one individual client or customer. But if I'm spending time talking to an affiliate partner, whether they're a pollinator or a keystone, like
Again, they can be in rooms that I'm not in and talking about me. And that's what really your brand is, right? It's like what people are saying when you're not in the room. And so if you have 10, 100, 1,000 people talking about you, that's 1,000 rooms you could be in that, yeah, that are sharing your message, that are spreading, are evangelizing, is that the word, about what you're doing without you needing to be there yourself.
Adam O'Leary (03:18.976)
I love that. And for our listeners who are just starting out with affiliates, they might not have a huge budget for an elaborate affiliate program. What's one simple, actionable step for a business owner looking to start building a referral or the network?
Laura Sprinkle (03:33.134)
I mean what I love about affiliate programs is like you absolutely don't need a budget because it's guaranteed ROI, right? Like you're not putting in a bunch of money upfront like with ads and like hoping that you get it back like you're only sending out commissions on money actually received for a traditional affiliate program. So what I did and how I started my business was I made a list of what I call your ring for categories of people that serve
your audience in a complimentary way. So if you, you know, talk about design, then maybe they're doing development or they're doing business coaching or whatever it is. Like think about the categories that serve your audience and then just go start to build relationships, have coffee chats, get on podcasts, start a podcast and invite them on like you're doing here. Right. Just start building those relationships with folks.
that are aligned with you, start referring them customers, right? It's gonna take some time, but when you build up that network and then you have something to promote, it's gonna be just like fast tracking to success with
Adam O'Leary (04:39.103)
That's fantastic response, actually. And you said, you said before that the biggest thing you've had to learn the hard way is how to ask for help. So what is a practical way for a business owner to confidently ask their customers in connections to share their work without feeling pushy or awkward? As I know that is a huge question on people's mind.
Laura Sprinkle (04:41.87)
Thank
Laura Sprinkle (04:48.087)
Hmm.
Laura Sprinkle (05:00.142)
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is like you wouldn't ask somebody to marry you on the first date. And I see so often people, you know, I get cold pitches every single day to be an affiliate partner for things. And like, I just don't even reply to them because I'm like, I don't know you, I don't know your product. You know, I'll get pitched like, can you promote this like children's book? And I'm like, what?
What about my business and my audience makes you think that they're excited to buy a children's right? They clearly haven't done their research. So I think like build relationships first, participate in whatever that person has going on. And then right down the way is that it's a win for that person. And it's a win for their audience. Because again, that same survey that we did, where people shared folks and products that they know, love and trust.
The second, or no, actually even more important than that was them feeling like the offer was relevant to their audience. Right? Like I'm not going to go promote a children's book, even if I love that children's book, because I talk about affiliate programs, like it's such a mismatch. but I will share, Hey, here's someone who can help you create your course, or you're someone who could help you with your marketing. Cause it just makes sense. It's what my audience is looking for. So always frame.
your invites in that way of like why it's a benefit for them but also for their audience to take part.
Adam O'Leary (06:29.1)
I love that. And one question I have about that, as I know some people are going to be asking this, is so if you are going ahead and approaching an affiliate, okay, or potential affiliate that you would like, one of the struggles that kind of happens is almost sure, you can send, hey, look, this is how it's compared. This is how you kind of, or this is what we do, and this is how it aligns with your business. sometimes it's a lot of noise, right? So people will see that and they might not respond.
especially if it's a big partner that they're going through. So how do you typically go ahead and kind of cut through that noise and make sure that your message is heard by the person that needs to hear it?
Laura Sprinkle (07:10.03)
Well, I think that, mean, and also based on our conversation before, I've talked to some people who are doing affiliate programs and really they're playing it as a numbers game, right? Like they're going to invite 200 affiliates and expect.
a few to reply. And I've played that game with clients before and that's, that's like not how I personally like to do business. So for me, I'm probably not going to send an email to invite someone to be an affiliate. Like I'm going to get to know them on a call. I'm going to like be part of their course or program or become friends with them, meet them at an event enough so that like I'm getting their phone number. We are talking on Voxer.
So like I'm sending a voice note, I'm sending a quick video. it's not coming out of the blue. So that's definitely like my preferred approach. so would say like, I'm already talking to them about other things and like a personal capacity or asking them for help about my business or what I've got going on, or I'm supporting them in some other way. So it's very much like we're already in conversation and then it's like, and by the way, I think this would be a really cool thing too.
Adam O'Leary (08:24.215)
I love that. are you, you're looking, so you're like, okay, this is the partner that I think would be a good one. Which conference are they going to or what community do they have? And you join it so that way you can be a part of their environment, correct?
Laura Sprinkle (08:39.054)
Totally. Yeah. And it could be a specific person that like, I'm just like, want to get to know them better. So, you know, I remember I joined, my friend Kate Northrop's mastermind because she was like, Tarzan K is joining. And it wasn't like, I like in this like shark attack, like targeted way, but I'm just like, my God, I think Tarzan is so cool. I'd love to get to know her better. I already love Kate. Like, let me join this mastermind. And not only did it become friends with Tarzan,
and she's promoted me as an affiliate now, but like I met so many other cool people too. So I'm just like, how can I get in rooms with not only my ideal client, but more so my ideal.
Adam O'Leary (09:20.546)
Let's go. I love this. That's the exact way. That's the exact way as we were talking before this, I always talk about how cold emails is just trash. It is garbage. And the fact that you just said that made me so happy. I want to jump up and down right now because that is the truth. That is how it works. It's just about getting in the same room with somebody, being able to make friends with them and being able to, to make sure. And for me, I've realized it's to make sure that you vibe with the other person that you're
you're in because if you don't connect on a personal level, it just comes across as pushy or it just doesn't work, you know? So no, I love this. And one thing I wanted to talk about now that we kind of understand how to get a partner on board, what is a way that we can encourage a potential pollinator to organically talk about and refer business to you?
Laura Sprinkle (10:12.686)
Hmm. So many ways I would say that this is the part that, you know, when people come to me and they're like, Oh, I have an affiliate program, but it doesn't work. And I, and I, you know, I ask what they've done and really it's like, they just have a link available. Uh, like that's not, that's not what an affiliate program really is, right? It's making it as easy as possible for whatever type of affiliate, whether it's pollinator or a keystone, like making it super easy for them to share.
So like if you want them to be at events talking about you, like can you have sample scripts of ways that they could share? Could you remind them, hey, here's the kind of clients or here's the kind of customers that we'd love an introduction to. If you want them posting on social media, give them ideas for posts, give them exact posts, give them the copy, give them the graphics. Stay top of mind is what I would say. Like I think oftentimes we
I don't know, we sort of like expect people to promote us and then get disappointed when they don't. And I would rather us like expect them to share because we've made it really easy and then also be grateful when they do and follow up and love up on them and just stay top.
Adam O'Leary (11:30.178)
I love that. When I was working with lot of affiliates, hundreds and hundreds of affiliates, it was wild. I needed to make sure that they were going to do the promotion because it's always hard trying to get a slot on somebody's calendar because the question in their mind is it really going to get me the higher return versus promoting something else, for example, or is it going to be, especially more importantly, is it going to be valuable to my audience over this other type of option that's there?
So we would go ahead, we would create videos for them, like literally, here's the video, it's done for you. We would create special onboarding videos for the affiliates. would, I mean, we did everything. We wrote the scripts for them. We would even design webinars and build a custom webinar just for them and their audience. Whatever it took basically for us to go ahead and do it. So I love the fact that you're talking about that. And I wanna make this super concrete for our audience.
What's the single most important thing a business owner can do right now to turn their existing customers into powerful brand advocates who will generate referrals for them?
Laura Sprinkle (12:37.006)
Ooh, the single thing I would say pick, pick a why now. And by why now, I mean, pick one thing that if every single one of your customers tomorrow did just one thing to refer you business, that it would be super awesome, right? It'd be maybe not a game changer, but like, it would be really valuable. So is that one thing like to introduce you to one potential client is the one thing
to make a post about you. I typically don't find posts that effective, but side note, is the one thing to send out an email, and they might not do it tomorrow, but whatever that one thing is, exactly what you were just saying of design it for them, write it for them, and then invite them to do that, and then incentivize them. The other thing I didn't mention was contests and prizes can also be really helpful.
But that's, you know, now we're adding on two things. So I would say the one thing is pick one thing you want them to do and then make it really easy for them to do that.
Adam O'Leary (13:39.106)
I love that. That is amazing. And Laura, where can people go to learn more about you? Because they absolutely have to.
Laura Sprinkle (13:45.582)
Well, they can find me. I'm Laura Sprinkle with the I am. I'm Laura Sprinkle on all the social platforms. And the best way would be to go to rootable.com, R-O-O-T-A-B-L dot com. And that's where all my stuff lives.
Adam O'Leary (14:04.034)
Well, thank you so much Laura. was a pleasure to have you on. Signing off for now, have a wonderful rest of your day and looking forward to seeing you on the next episode of Simple Wins.
Laura Sprinkle (14:08.12)
Thank you so much, Adam.
