Here is a secret that will make you lots of money. In fact, is one of the best I’ve ever seen. If you have a lender you work with on a regular basis, the technique I’m about to show you can work even better when doing cross-referrals. Try it out and let me know what you think. I believe you’ll find it to be one of the coolest ideas you’ve ever heard when it comes to doing referral business.

I first discovered this technique quite by accident. I began as a solo practitioner and after learning how to generate tons of business — more than I could personally handle — I started building a team. Soon the team got pretty large (about a dozen agents) and we were working over 2,000 leads every single month.

One of the things I noticed very early is that everyone wanted to talk to me. I was “the man” since I was the team leader. The problem is that I didn’t want to be the man! I just wanted to make money. And every time somebody just had to talk with me, it took me away from making money.

Now real estate is a business of super-egos. Everyone wants to be “the man”. That’s why every agent you know has his face plastered on every card, brochure, yard sign, magazine ad, flier, etc. I like to call it “I love me” advertising. I made a conscious decision early on that I would forgo building my name in favor of building a brand (hence, the FavoriteAgent.com Team as opposed to the Matt Jones Team).

But as we got busier and busier, the claims on my time became unmanageable. Something had to give. Instead of being the “super agent” I wanted to be the “invisible agent”, so I could get my own work done. To make that happen I had to get my team to step up and take more of the load. I tried a number of things, and then I had a bright idea.

I decided that when I spoke to a customer, I would underemphasis my importance while overemphasizing my team member’s importance. It was like magic! Everything changed overnight! Here’s an example. “Mr. Smith, I’d love to help you, but the fact is, we have an agent on our team named Doug who specializes in properties in that range. He knows the inventory much better than I do. Now I don’t know if he has room in his schedule to take on another client, but if you can get him to help you, there is nobody better in this entire city.”

I’d go on to say, “I can’t make any guarantees he can help you, but I will promise you this: I’ll get him to call you. If you can get him to work with you, there is absolutely nobody better.” Guess what happened? The client that previously wanted me to help him, now couldn’t wait to work with my team member. Notice I didn’t call him my assistant? Or my agent? Or anything that would make him sound of lower rank? I promoted him and made him seem exclusive and hard-to-get.

When I referred the customer in that manner, the client was happy to let Doug help him. In fact, he couldn’t wait to work with Doug. Now instead of Doug never being able to live up to my “super-agent” image, he was the “super-agent”, and I couldn’t live up to his larger-than-life persona. Now Doug could do no wrong in the eyes of this client. It changed the entire game.

Try doing that with your lender. Instead of a typical referral, say something like this: “You know, Mr. Brown, I don’t know if you’ve found a mortgage yet or not. If you haven’t, I know a woman over at Wells Fargo named Sarah. She is the absolute best I’ve ever seen. Now she stays absolutely swamped with business so I don’t know if she’d be able to take on another client, but if you can get her to work for you, she is the best. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I can’t make any guarantees, but I will get her to at least call you. If you can talk her into working with you, you will be amazed!”

When Sarah calls, your client can’t wait to work with her. Now have Sarah return the favor. She can say something like this: “Wow! You’re working with Matt! I don’t know if you realize it or not. He has so many people trying to seek him out, he turns many of them away or refers them to other agents. He must have really liked you! Wait until you see what a great job he does in negotiating for you.” Now your client is predisposed to love you.

Why did it work so well? Because people are always more interested in hearing how great we are from someone other than us. It has much more credibility. People naturally want to feel like they’ve made a good decision, but when you blow your own horn, you make them suspicious. Instead, let someone else do it for you, and you do it for them.

And if you are trying to unload some of your extra workload by delegating to your team, try this technique. You’ll be amazed at how they don’t have to talk to you any more after you’ve made somebody else the “expert” in some specific area. You can still be the boss, but you have empowered them, and they’ll love you for it. You’ll find that the referral sticks better and your life gets much easier. And that’s Max-Bang!

Matt Jones is the founder and CEO of FavoriteAgent.com and nationally syndicated author of LCM: The Secret to Success in the New Age of Real Estate, The Ultimate Listing Presentation, Traffic: How to Sell Fast and Net More, Becoming a Mega-Producer, and 20 Questions: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Real Estate but Were Afraid to Ask. Jones’ North Carolina-based company has been profiled by major media outlets as an innovator and a pioneer in the industry, and CNN’s Pulse on America claimed FavoriteAgent.com is “changing the way real estate is being done in America.” This content is cross-posted in the following locations: BlogMattBlog.com, RealBlogging.com, NewsGeni.us, and now Amazon Kindle.