Your Home-Improvement Business' Secret Weapon: Referrals!

Audio Transcription

[00:00:00] 


Welcome to Contractor Click Podcast
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Hey there, welcome to another Contractor Click Podcast. This is Danny Barrera, your host. And I have my beautiful wife here with us today, our COO at Contractor Click. Mady, how's your day going today? My day's going great. Perfect. I'm having a great day today. Can't complain. 


Creating a Referrable Experience
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We're going to talk about a special topic here in creating a referrable experience.

So if you're a concrete coding. And home improvement business owner. And you're looking to create more referrals and not just have them be passive for you, but be able to multiply every single one of your customers. we're going to go in depth here. 


Guest Introduction and Positive Wins
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And, we also have another special guest, which, man, great to have you here.

Yeah. So good to be here. I'm so excited. What's going on in your world, Luis? man, just giving thanks, man. I'm so excited. I'm glad to be here again on the podcast, get to have great conversations. Great to discuss some good things today. So I'm excited. Yeah. you've been looking at spreadsheets all day long.

Yeah. Numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Feels good. Facebook ads. Feels good. what's a positive? [00:01:00] What's a win in your world? I think we're finally starting to see a bit of a turn. I think the beginning of the year was a little bit. Of a tough start. Yeah, January, February, it's always. Yeah, so the results that we're seeing now have been definitely more on the positive side.

moving in the right direction. again, nothing more than to just give thanks right now. Yeah. Yeah, gratitude. Absolutely. Matty, positives? Man, positives for, it's a great month. It's a great month. We've had great calls with our clients, and it's exactly what Lewis says, like there's a positive turnaround.

We're having great maize all around. I don't necessarily think there's anybody right now that we have talked to that's not having a great maize. So that's a really good, yeah, it's always great to see all the seeds that were planted January, February. March, they started to come into fruition.

April, now we started to see everything just, cost per leap going down significantly. you've been seeing leads in the 20 mark, under [00:02:00] 20. ads are just crushing it. Then that's the funniest thing is that's advertising, right? it's, what we love to do here. something interesting I was thinking about is we get paid to help people out.

and serve them and help other businesses, and grow and multiply. And the beautiful thing in marketing and advertising is we help them create an experience that we hope in what we've been able to master is to help our clients marketing experience be memorable. 


The Power of Referrals in Business
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and this is what, what starts the conversation of, what creates a referable experience.

And if you're looking to get more referrals for your business, I want you to start thinking about Hey, when was the last time I was able to predictably speaking, be able to get more referrals from my current client base? How is it that referrals are happening? Is it passive? Is it an active referral?

Do I have a program in place that's helping [00:03:00] me generate more referrals? And do I know, and can I quantify how much I should be investing into my referral program every single month? So whether you're starting out or you've been in business for some time, I want to be able to dive deep into the conversation.

It's something I'm passionate about. one of my mentors, Dean Jackson, we were just listening to him on, the way here. he's, very big about creating this nine profit activator and he's got the before the during and the after and the referrals is what happens after. Someone has been served with the product or the service and the experience.

And what is that individual doing to either continue the conversation or getting to conversations to promote the business that served them? that being said, I think one of the best conversations starter series, when was the last time you, went into an experience or you were served either at a [00:04:00] business or an event at a restaurant that made you.

Talk about it to other people. What was the most recent experience? when I find out about something new and it like hits all the marks, the customer service was great. The product that was great. If it was a service, the service was excellent. You get almost like a feeling of I want to share this.

I want to spread this, especially if it comes from like a company, maybe it's a small business. You see that and you're like, I want them to win. So let me go ahead and spread the word. Anyone who needs this product or service. I want to help them by, expressing and sharing about them. Okay. So you talk about experience and this is a two way street.

this is like the Bible talks about the double edged sword. This is a double edged sword. 


The Importance of Employee Happiness in Customer Experience
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And he's so sharp because, and this is what I believe. You can't, you cannot create a remarkable experience. Seth [00:05:00] Godin talks about brands that are memorable. They're remarkable. And what is remarkable? It's it really, truly stands out.

You cannot create that remarkable experience. If the person serving you is not experienced that. Experiencing that for themselves. So that's the employee. That's the person facilitating you going, into Disney we can talk about that Mady. I know you're a big Disney fan Are you I don't know that I mean I guess I am but I know Disney but I don't know that I can I don't know.

You want to take us to Epcot the entire company She's talking about taking us to Epcot We are going to go to Epcot back to what you were saying, you're invited to go. Absolutely. Just let me know so that I can get your ticket. I, one of the things that you were talking about right now, which is very interesting, literally right before we started this podcast, all of us were talking about a coffee shop, a local coffee shop near where we live that doesn't have frills, doesn't have fancy syrups, doesn't have but the coffee, the product is good.

The coffee's good. [00:06:00] And we're all literally talking about how we need to go there. so what coffee shop was that? I think I was in the restroom. I didn't get, what was the name of it? What was the name? Dekes. Dekes. Dekes. Download down the road. Yeah. and you guys were talking about the entire, like it was a great experience.

so the referability starts with the experience and I want you to assess that. That's something we are assessing for ourselves at Contractor Click. And, there's been seasons where we've had to slow down, the, acquisition of clients because we don't want to fall. Behind on our experience for our current clients, which is what a lot of agencies like I feel like that's the biggest challenge in the agency space and full transparency is okay Can you maintain the rhythm of excellence once someone comes in through the door?

Consistently and then continue serving clients at the highest possible levels, right? for us there's been seasons why because we want to maintain that experience Not just in the front end, but what happens in the 12 [00:07:00] month, 24 month. and it's super exciting to be able to do that. We just had one of our, amazing clients.

He'd been with us for over five years and it's always great when a client decides to go national. And they're like, Hey, it's time. we're moving in a different direction. We're bringing things in house where, because we want to franchise our business model, we want to do a lot of great things. And I'm like, man, that's an incredible win.

Yeah. In order for us to have that relationship be that long, there had to be that experience where he was getting what he was, not just the service, which is by default, they're paying you so that you could do. Correct. It's that's a given. It's not even yes, you should have a great service. It's not, but what does that relationship look like?

Right month in and month out and I don't know about you but in the agency space five years plus Over five years. It's a long time. Yeah, it's like dude And [00:08:00] that's happened multiple times for us and we're always happy to see kind so going back to this The coffee experience like we're talking about it.

what were you guys talking about? it was recommended to us That's the beauty of it was recommended to yeah, we were just talking about coffee and christian recommended it We got on the same page about coffee and then it was like hey I just had an amazing experience. I had an amazing product.

It's local. You should check it out. And like you said it always started from having that good experience or experiencing a good product. Yes And it would you have the same level of impact if the individuals in that environment were not happy? No, absolutely not. So I believe a referable experience starts with the employees Exactly.

What do you guys know? 


Disney's Model of Creating Memorable Experiences
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Definitely like we were talking about Disney before I talked about the coffee shop Listen Disney's hot Disney's expensive. Disney is line after line [00:09:00] You pay to be in line sometimes. You pay to wait. That's the Disney model. But if you think about Disney, it's so annoying.

It's so annoying. But at the end of the day, you never leave Disney unhappy. It makes you happy. You go in there and you get happy. You're tired, your legs are sore. You're exhausted, but you're like thinking about it. You're sweaty. but you're thinking about it. It rains every minute of the day. It rains in the middle of the day, but you're thinking about, the experience you just had and the memories you made and the castle all sparkly and cute.

So what creates the experience and what creates the memories? And then we'll go into local business and how this applies to our client. What creates the experience? I think, putting time and effort and really prioritizing. I know for a fact, for example, the Disney employee dealing with the disgruntled, customer is always going to have a smile on their face and diffuse the situation to keep the magic alive.

So that, that experience is important. Like having that, that, that. That [00:10:00] demeanor and that you know the way you approach the situation in a joyful manner that creates an experience Yes, and this ties back into What we discussed here in our last podcast episode. If you have not checked it out, make sure you go back and listen to, when we had, pastor TJ talked about leadership, it goes back to the core values.

And are we living our core values? Because that, that glues right into the Riffel. Refer ability of the business of the experience. Are we fulfilling on that one promise at the highest level? And that becomes the game. It, the game becomes, are we winning? Are we like in the middle? Are we losing? How do we get back up?

It's the beautiful thing as you grow in scale. that's an interesting model. It's okay, we did, go about a year ago. It was actually a year ago. We went to Disney with our mastermind group, and we spent time behind the scenes looking at and studying and analyzing their lines and how, the experience is consistent and how you [00:11:00] don't mind waiting online.

So it was actually a discussion like, what does it look like? How are people serving you when you have questions? How are people, Answering the questions, are they irritated? And from the rotations to everything is so calculated right down to the T, that it makes this experience not only, exciting, but it's a repeatable fresh experience.

I can only imagine if you had the same person doing it all, right? Like the whole shift. Yeah. 


The Role of Appreciation in Customer Service
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I think also, I think keyword there is appreciated. Because if you think about it from a home improvement contractors perspective, if it's a client that's maybe getting multiple quotes, if you can find a way to maybe this is actually past or before the, even the referral process, it's making them feel appreciated.

I can't think of how many times that I've walked out of a business and My perspective or my joy from that business or the reason why I returned was because I was appreciated. I was seen [00:12:00] more than just that's a good one. It's another walking dollar sign. I wasn't viewed like that. Yeah. Like you're going to take care of me and you're going to take care of my home and you're going to take care of everything.

Like you're going to take care of my space with your, disposition. that's important. That is very important. that's something I coach other agency owners on. it's like, Hey, when you get on a strategy call or a discovery call, before you even get to a strategy, it's the number one goal is to build alignment and have the person on the other side feel and be understood and what alignment looks like oftentimes it's not always a good fit.

And it starts there. Yeah. And if it's not a good fit, what are we giving? What options are we giving to that person to not make them feel bad? someone reach out to us and he's Hey, this is my business model. He's pretty much what he does. He see us. He runs the marketing and then he sells the jobs to other people.

I'm like, [00:13:00] we don't work with companies in that capacity. we're here to help you build the brand, build a great business, et cetera, build a great culture. we're not here to, brokered cause otherwise we'll be on just list 2. 0 and have other people fight for the jobs. That's not our model.

And where I'm going with that is. That conversation, to leave it in a positive tone, I had to, I, I told him, hey, look, here are a couple of resources. I think these individuals might help you out, but we left with. A good respect in the conversation. And he felt okay, you know what? This guy was not trying to call us.

Me. Could, we run ads for that person? Could we do SE Of course we can all day long, we could go national with him. we would, probably, I don't know that was a $65,000 a year opportunity. If we were to quantify in a pipeline, did I take it? No. Why? Because that is actually caring and making them feel heard and understood.

And [00:14:00] I told him, look, if, this is what you're looking for, this is what you need to look for when it comes to the marketing. and this is the individuals who might as well just start doing it in house to help you facilitate that. So it starts out with. hearing where they're at and that's a customer service in, the home improvement side is, the SDR, the, admin assistant, whoever the receptionist, whoever is calling back those leads, that initial text message, what are you saying exactly in that first touch point when someone submits their information and then what happens after, what is the tone of voice, how are you sound, are you grumpy when you're calling back the leads, right?

You know what I'm saying? yeah. It's all of that. It's not just the one thing. all of that. So we talked about the customer service piece before engaging into the fulfillment. 


Building a Referable Experience Through Quality Service
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What else do you think makes a great experience that is referable? I think [00:15:00] also the, aside from the experience before, right?

But during as well, there's a lot of responsibility, especially in our, industry that we service, like, Mady said, that client is opening up their home to you. So it's I think being aware of the responsibility that you do have from a customer perspective, right? If I was in the position of a client, someone who came in and respected my home versus okay, yeah, let me, I'm just going to come in.

I'm going to do my job and get it done. boom, boom. And then here's my paycheck. Here's the contract, sign it. I'm out. Versus Yes, like we're going to take our time. I understand that you have some expensive things in this home. let's be careful with this. Like valuing the client all the way through to the end and then not just collecting payment and saying goodbye.

It's like the nurturing throughout the entire process, I think is big enough to leave a mark in the client's, thoughts. I'm like, no, I do remember this client. He gave me excellent service from beginning process and end. I would love to recommend them. Cause I [00:16:00] had a great experience with them the whole way.

Yeah. And when it's good too, like when something's good, you're going to, you're that's, that also creates an experience. Creating a referrable experience is not for the commoditized, lowest priced business like that. Do you ever tell someone, I At least I'm not going to tell someone when I'm thinking about buying something, go to the dollar store.

unless you're looking for whatever, like a bag, the cheapest bags that you need to find in town. but here's the thing is when you're thinking about value, there's a steakhouse right here. What's the name? Chops. Is it chops? Chumps. What's the name of that? Steakhouse Christian. Chops supposed to be one of the best ones delicious.

It is delicious top tier pricing, right? Is it more than Morton's? Yes. Okay. So you think about it, right? And now you give me, Mady, you give me different Steakhouses [00:17:00] around here or they're called steak houses, right? Give me, different names here so we can put it into context and perspective. You can go to TJ Fry.

You can go to Longhorns. Longhorns. Or Outback. Outback. Okay. There's nothing wrong with them. There's nothing wrong with them. But it's not Chomps or Morton's or Ruth's Chris Ruth Chris, You're paying more. But what is it that creates the value? Is the steak better? Significantly better like absolutely ridiculously Louis come on.

I think there's two things. I think there's experience and there's exclusivity they have something that a Longhorn or a Texas Roadhouse Probably won't have they have something like a cut of meat that's made a specific way or a dish that's exclusive But also if you exact but that goes with the experience, it's like you feel nicer You can't you can like the bread and butter there.

Yeah Can you walk [00:18:00] into a ruth's crisp Wearing a t shirt and some shorts. Probably not. I think they have a dress code, yeah. Sandals would probably keep me out. exactly. I think the experience is completely different. The service that you receive there, if you have a bad dish, Oh my god, I'm so sorry, let's get this taken care of for you.

Your drink is always full. You never have to even think about your drink being full. you don't have a crumb on your table. Cause they come with that little like pen thing that like cleans up the crumb. So it's an experience. Experience, yeah. how proud do you feel about telling your friends where you went to eat if you go there?

Exactly. you, right? Yeah. It's a status thing. I want you to understand how is my service, how is my deliverable, whether it's a concrete coating or a kitchen remodel or, an entire interior remodel of a home, maybe a paver patio. How is it a status symbol? How can I tie it into that so that the conversation can be about the status that you have, [00:19:00] because that would in itself, just having that in a client's and customer's mind, having that be part of the conversation already elevates you.

Like just that's it. Exclusivity is another one. It's like how many prospective clients do we get that they get upset that they can't be clients because we already have someone in there and how much more valuable does that service become now to those that want to get in the territories open, right?

now of course you want to serve all the clients. You want to grow five, six, seven crews plus. The conversation, the question, like you're building value for your home. You're elevating the value of your home. How are you creating that experience in the conversation in your customers mind so that they can see and value it?

Once they have the floor, have they seen one? do they know what it looks like at the end of the day? how are you conveying that through your website, through the conversations? Do you have video that's been [00:20:00] professionally produced that is helping you educate? Now you're more valuable than the guy that's just chucking the truck.

They don't have their own equipment, you don't know, they just got started last week, they took a class three days ago, now they're installing floors, and they're, selling, three dollars square foot floor. Nothing wrong with just getting started, the point I want to make is, how do you create that valuable experience, right?

It's, everything that surrounds that, the image, your brand. what else would you say, Mady? I think, yeah, like you're saying, like coming in with a truck that's, wrapped and wearing, we have, one of our team members, he has the polos and his shirts that he gives his team is not the t shirt.

It's the, like that, that, that shirt. That material that doesn't, that doesn't fade. That's like a workout material. That's amazing. Yeah. Like a dry fit, because you know what his, people that are doing the, actual job, his [00:21:00] crew never has a wrinkly, even the same Sure, because it repels the stains and he has he actually has in his truck That if like you're gonna take a picture, he's no, that's not a good shirt here have this one That's right.

That's money that you're spending that you're investing in that stuff But you know what those people pull up and they look clean. They look professional They give them, he gives them like a little folder with the estimate inside with his logo I think that client also provides an amazing level of customer service 100 that client is very easy to speak to, easy to converse with, from the moment that he calls you on his phone to the moment that you guys shake hands and part ways.

And you're happy with your service. Mhmm. I think that also comes into play with it too. 100%. Is it, you have, you feel good almost like even like he's the type of client to like the type of, person that shows up and it's not going to bombard you with information, but he's a fountain of information.

If you have it, [00:22:00] if you ask him something, he'll be glad to walk you through it, talk to you about it, and, that's, part of the experience too. Yeah. 


Luxury vs. Used: A Tale of Two Experiences
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So I want you to all part of the homework here is go to a luxury. restaurants, five star restaurant. whatever you want to call it, even just auto dealer and get that experience.

Get that experience for yourself. just be careful when you go to a Toyota, used car dealer, you're going to walk away with a truck, don't take that advice right there, just take your son there and say, Hey, you're not buying anything. I'm just walking in. one of them, they're going to prey on you.

They want to, going to try to close you on whatever, 0 percent down in 27 months with a 40 percent AP, right? so here's the point I want to make is. Go to a luxury car dealer versus a used car dealer and just experience the difference. What does it look like mentally? I'm talking about Rolls Royce.

[00:23:00] Yeah. Where was it that we went the other day? We went somewhere to buy something, like on the, like a nicer end. And they came there would you like some water, sir? And they came with a silver platter with a little like bottle on top of It was Montblanc. 


Elevating Team Experiences: Beyond the Workplace
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Yeah with a little bottle like Whatever go there and he was like here you go Experience it why because you cannot produce that experience and now if you want to take this up a notch And you want to create this and this is something we work very hard on is how do we create an experience for our team?

Our Florida team to experience what does it look like to be served at a higher level? we have the company meetings the right the fun fright there's a lot of things that we do internally to create that culture And we have great stuff planned out here And where i'm going with that is what if you were to take your core Crew your core team to experience.

What does it feel like to experience? Something at a higher level. What does that five star world [00:24:00] class experience feel like look like how can I not be cheap with my? Employees and give them the value so that now they feel value and like I mean we do this You were asking for a LaCroix today. 


Creating a Culture of Value and Appreciation
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I'm like, dude You don't need to ask us for it I think we just came back for a circle because in the beginning of the conversation is perfect because you brought up How would you have felt how would your experience in that place?

Service or that store have been, if that employee was disgruntled, was upset, did not look like they wanted to be there. I think that it all comes into play. It's like when you provide that level of experience for your employees, the value that employee or that your company has held in that employee's heart increases significantly.

And it's like, how much more will that employee want you to win? Especially if you understand it that way, like I am in, I'm working for this company, but I'm investing my time into this company. If I treat it. Like it's just whatsoever. The company that I'm investing my own time in, [00:25:00] it's I'm not giving it the best that it could possibly get.

And again, when I meet with my clients, I hope that they see that. I have joy. I have joy being here. I enjoy having the conversations with them. And it's That comes full circle, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. So quick question. How do you enjoy working with us? I love working. You'll still have a job if you say yeah Christian will still keep you around man.

If you say yeah, I don't like this guys. Come on I love this place christian. We better win that thing. All right, our they're having clients, awards We better get number. Let me know what I need What our followers need to do in order to help us win number one podcast of the year All right, so Referrable experience.


The Power of Referrals: From Passive to Proactive Strategies
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Let's get into some tactical, doable. So we've gotten around the concept of what creates the experience. Now there's a passive, referral experience, which is like someone just happens to know, [00:26:00] Hey, do you know someone that. Knows how to do this or who did your floors? who did your patio? What was the name of that?

And how often does that happen? Versus How do you have the person trained up to talk about your service and there's a multitude of ways now with social media We were talking about this hey does someone sharing your work on social media And producing an inbound call, an inbound lead count as a referral.

Is it a yes or no? It's a quiz time. Oh, I know the answer. What is it? It's a soft referral. It's a soft referral, right? Mady? Yeah, it's a, referral. what, today. We got one of our things was shared by a happy person and that's a referral because he knows other people that are in his industry and in terms, it was grateful for it is grateful [00:27:00] for something, that we provided for him and, He shared his gratitude and did he say hey hire these people?

No, and that's the well That would be like a referral But you know what if somebody that he knows is on his feed and he sees that this person was satisfied with the product Enough that he shared it on his feed then there in turn They will think of us when they're looking for their own marketing.

So yeah, it's a referral It is a referral and Here's something special. It's like anyone that shares our content on their social, on their Facebook, let me say that clearly on their Facebook feed, whether that's, you take a YouTube video and you share it over to your Facebook feed or a Facebook group that is industry specific and you found that you tag us, we're going to take care of you.

And I want you to experience that I want to invite you if you find this content helpful valuable I want you to share it [00:28:00] on facebook and that's the one place that it's easier to track If you tag us on the story, it's so much harder to track because they only last for 24 hours But if you do us a solid and share, some of the content that we produce whether it's this youtube video or a podcast episode and you drop it into a Facebook group or your own feed and you tag us, we'll make sure to, find you and we like to send out goodies.

Why? Because that's a token of appreciation. Now, when you receive that token of appreciation, how do you think you're going to feel next time you find another piece of content? That's exactly, that's exciting, right? Yeah. 


Monetary Incentives vs. Memorable Experiences
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And we talked about giving referral incentives, such as like. Monetary, value versus an experience.

Which one is more meaningful, Mady? Monetary versus an experience. Big time. What do you think? I, the experience is more meaningful, but I have a great story. Go for it. long story short, my father bought a [00:29:00] car from a dealership, used car dealership. but our cousin was also in the market.

Deal went great. The guys were great. Now, mind you, it did all start with the experience. My dad had great experience there. The guys were very educated, very welcoming, very, great customer service. Vehicle was great. Brings my cousin along and he's Oh, by the way, since it is technically a referral, here's a hundred dollars.

When that happened, maybe it's just my dad being Brazilian, but the second that, 100, he's you just paid me 100 to bring you someone. My dad brought seven people, but I'm not kidding. So seven people like back to within the six month period brought them. And again, it's that's awesome.

It all started with the experience, even though there was monetary there. What do you think my dad would have brought them if like the car that we were sold wasn't in great shape and the experience wasn't that great. So it was monetary, but the experience was still there. It's still important. That was the first thing.

I think you got to have both. Yeah. there, there are those that are [00:30:00] driven by, hey. I can actually make some money here and make the introduction. And, you build that relationship, but you got to have a very good sales person following up on the referrals and have a structure of how to keep track.

And how did that, specific relationship elaborate, and some of those will not. go, out now, here's where I'm going at is I want to create at bat opportunities, which means do they become a client fully, in order for them to get some sort of reward system I want to train. So the behavior that you, that you want to get more of you, you got to incentivize it in some way, shape or form and have it be a positive.

So the experience one, whether it's cookies, gift baskets, whatever it is, that's. Might be small, but memorable to that individual, whether it's a gift card to Starbucks, we like cookies. What's the name of that cookie website? And I think it's called Sugar Wish. That's Sugar Wish. So if [00:31:00] you want to get lucky, make sure that you share our podcast episode on Facebook, tag us at constructor click, and we'll make sure to find you so that you can see how that works.

And it's pretty cool. And. I can tell you this, like the person that shared us on social media, just look out for a gift from us. It's coming your way. We appreciate you for sharing. You see when we incentivize that behavior now, it's more likely than not to happen again. It's more likely than not the monetary experience that works great as well.

You put it from a homeowner perspective, and if you're living in a high net worth town, you probably don't want to be associated with Hey, I'm referring so many people because I need to make cash. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So you got to play that specific scenario. And it depends on where you live.

Some people don't want to be associated with Oh, I just referred my friend and then he's going to know about this program. So he's probably going to think I just wanted to make a quick buck out of it. What if you give, what if you, [00:32:00] you give your referral a 100 gift card to an experience? Boom.

That's different. Yeah. Or, we shared. By the way, we shared a specific link inside of our CoatMaster. Shout out to CoatMaster. If you don't know what CoatMaster is, it's a coaching and training community for the copy coding industry. we have a special pricing going on right now, this time of the year.

but in CoatMaster, we shared a specific link where you can actually give away trips for free. And your pay, your cost is like 30. So there's a lot of these, hotels and experiences that they slots open throughout the year and instead of having the rooms empty, they rather have some people come in, and the person that gets the gift, all they have to do is pay for the taxes, they don't pay anything else and that's it.

That's cool. Yeah, that is really awesome. So you get to share that experience. Hey, win a free three day or four day, three night trip over to Cancun, Mexico. [00:33:00] Experience it, Yeah. Wow, that's like an experience. I would love that. Bring us some clients bring us some clients Get us a couple of referrals and i'll send you over to Cancun i'm gonna i'm gonna take him to Disney What are you talking about?

Yeah, that's what i'm saying. And we're still going to this We're stacking it up working here. There you go. I love working here. Awesome. Yeah, action items Okay, so that's one way now you got to train your customers You On how to refer you or when they hear the conversation That someone may be having regarding their project for the spring summer fall what they're thinking about they're complaining about something So you got to train on those scenarios And for that you got to know what that scenario looks like So i'm going to speak to the concrete coding contractor right now That scenario may look like hey if you hear someone complaining about their garage floors or how it's just crack It's developing a crack [00:34:00] like I want you to think of us and make the introduction so that we can take care of them.

Will you feel comfortable on that? So just plant that scenario in that seed. And the second piece to that is you've planted the seeds. Now you got to have some type of monthly nurture to your clients so that they know about your referral program. I learned this from Dean Jackson and Joe Stumpf.

Joe is a great NLP trainer. Incredible. He trains mostly real estate individuals, and that was like, he used to run a program called Referral. I used to have all those books when I first met Mady and this big slide, and I learned how to create referrals. A lot of it from him, but one of the things he's, he taught in his program was you've got to enter the conversation right when it's happening and bring it in, and then have that person create value based on what would know.

Already exists that they can be value [00:35:00] add. Yeah. Because the thing is what you're saying is you're going to be associated by that experience now. Yeah. If I refer you an incredible client, incredible, contractor that gave me great service, great experience. The team was amazing. Yeah. there's no doubt that was one of the extra.

Yeah. And then I can brag about, Hey, they were not the cheapest, but they're, actually pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that, I think the big question here is Am I willing to put my reputation on the line for this referral? And if you go into every job, understanding that it's like the service or the product that I gave this person, was it good enough to where they would put their name on the line for it?

And reputation is everything. And I think that if that approach is taken, I think it might create a big shift. I love it. Yes. Yes. And this is the other thing. It's, it brings us to, to the. 


Nurturing Client Relationships for Long-Term Success
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Opportunity of [00:36:00] how am I nurturing relationships after I've served my clients? So this is your greatest opportunities.

And this is if you're one of our clients a contractor click I want you to lean into us and send us what is it that you're doing for your customers to service them after you've done the job? Is it a paver patio? Excellent. What are some of the strategic tips that you want them to do a maintenance?

Maybe there's a followup six month, later followup so that, they keep you in mind for that next project, or maybe you are going to be doing sealing in winter season and you want to start promoting, your ceilings, concrete ceiling services. what does that look like in your pipeline?

Because out of those conversations every month, you can spark. the initiative for more referrals. So you can have the referral incentives, the referral programs, where people get money. you can create the experiences. And now we're about to go to a dinner. I'm not going to say where, [00:37:00] but we were invited because we're contributing there.

And it's, it's, the dinner, the thing, that makes this whole, it's, is it the dinner? Is it the experience? It's, sitting in the room with the rest of the people. It's, the experience. The experience. It's definitely, it's not the dinner is dinner. It's the who is going to be there.

So what if you were to create a program where you take your best referral clients to the best restaurants in town? To create a great experience for them. and you get to see for example, Rilla, that's, an AI voice recording and training coaching for, the trades industry. What did they do recently?

here in Miami, what they did is they threw a party for their best referrals, the best clients, the biggest clients that they have. Why? Because they want to create the bus and referrals. that's it. And it's a branding opportunity. Now, guess who's going to talk about that experience when they walk out of that dinner or that event?

Everybody [00:38:00] that's there. What are they going to do? They're going to refer. They're going to refer. So if you want more referrals, that's right. You can invest just like what you invest in advertising. You advertise, you generate leads, you nurture your close. And now once you close them and you are in their business, that's your time to multiply them.

And your goal is to multiply and nurture over time and take care of them. what, last remarks you guys have as far as referrals? I think, I'm. Very happy that we touched on, I think, almost all the touch points from actual tangibles to actual experience to monetary incentives. But also I think it is one big cohesive process, right?

Like you have to have a bit of both and I believe you also have to do it well and you have to be good, like Mady said. So knowing that your service or product. Does have to be good. It does have to be in the place to compete, but also, your customer service Your the client's [00:39:00] experience is gonna come hand in hand with that So I think for me one of the best things that I liked about this episode we talked about Was just the fact that we're talking about this when it comes to a home improvement service industry because for example The first time I ever heard about the Ritz right was at my dentist Because my dentist was talking to me at one point about the Ritz experience when I was a young in my 20s never been to a Ritz Never I mean I heard of the Ritz, but I didn't even know Think anything of it and him talking about providing the Ritz experience For his people that he was literally cleaning junk out of their teeth That was like, oh man, you can create that kind of experience in any industry that you want you own you do you're a part of so I love that we're talking about this because you're right There's nothing better than a person that's coming into your house Who is a home improvement contractor who [00:40:00] is giving you that RITS experience, right?

Then the disgruntled guy who comes out of the car. What do you want? okay, where can I start? Is this where I go banging things all around no one wants that people want to feel that RITS experience and In everything that they do. So the fact that we're talking about this referral based culture that is, is to be implemented in these home improvement services.


Cultivating a Positive Workplace Culture
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So a paycheck is not enough to create that experience? No, absolutely not. Luis? No. Absolutely not. Luis would probably not be here. Absolutely not. Why are you laughing bro? Absolutely not. you have to have that's important. How important is the culture to this whole thing? night and day.

Night and day. I, of course, you can have the mentality of it's paycheck, or I'm not there. But I think that, just like in life's reality, what this, everyone realizes this, I feel at some point in their life, and the reality is that the day that you realize that you have the money, and that you [00:41:00] got the money that you worked so hard for, and it still didn't really quite scratch the itch that you were hoping it would.

Yes. You realize wow, I would have, I would give half of this away to have an environment where I feel seen, where I feel heard, where I feel appreciated. But also where I enjoy going to, where I enjoy giving 40 plus hours of my week, of my life a week, that, that is more valuable. Money is important, but being taken care of is so much more intrinsically valuable.

Yeah. Yeah. And, the other thing is, Have I held you accountable? Have I had difficult conversations with you personally, but I'm not an easy guy to work with, by the way, but that Mady is the opposite. She's a good boss. I'm the, but how would you categorize me? no. I want him to be real in the podcast.

Controlled pressure. Okay. But in hindsight, you don't see it in hindsight. You don't see it. Sorry. You don't see it out until after you're out of it because the reality [00:42:00] I told you this morning. This is a real conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Where I came from and, the past company I worked for where I gave seven years of my life to the growth I've experienced in seven months here probably wouldn't have came from those, didn't come from those seven years because it was like, it's the challenge.

I think also, I spoke about this with my spouse. if there's no challenge. What are you doing? At that point you're forced to just be there for a paycheck. We just talked about the next six months and the opportunity. Exactly. That's the thing. It's you got to enjoy the pressure and that there's a healthy and unhealthy.

I've been on both extremes and I produce both extremes for people and the other thing is like right people right seats. you know what I'm saying? Like I can burn down the individual that is not appropriate for that seat. I've learned that lesson the hard way, but to be able to pour into someone like you, man, we're crushing it.

We're moving forward. You're excited. You bring this energy. You're in the podcast. did I need to drag you here? You were excited. You were like, let's go, man. I'm like, dude, let's roll. I love this place. [00:43:00] And we appreciate you very much, man. And I appreciate the impact you have in our clients lives, in their employees lives and in the world.

So you're very valuable. and then Mady on the other, side, man, she's, she brings nourishment. She's I'm the nurturer, like she takes care of us. I make sure the fridge is stocked. Mady holds my hand. Is Mady a good boss? Phenomenal. Mady holds my hand when I freak out. And that's all I could ask for.

If I'm freaking out, that's what I'm saying. Mady's the boss. We're fine. Everything's fine. We'll, find a solution. Don't worry. Yeah. Good stuff. All right. 


The Ultimate Goal: A Referral-Worthy Experience
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So at the end of the day, let's tie it back in. It goes back to in my personal belief in how your employees are delivering the experience. A referrable experience.

Yes. You can put up the playbooks. You can add the hooks, the marketing, the promotions. You can try it. enforce it that way, but it's better if you can actually create the experience from the inside out [00:44:00] and get people excited about doing what they do for a living. and it comes across on social media too.

if someone just barely got any sleep and they're, you got a picture of these guys showing their, and like their pants falling, they're smoking with a cigarette on the side and like, how are you going to capture that great video from that? Or you can have a great culture where you're empowering people, pouring into them, you're feeding them every morning.

they're going to go out there and do a great job. And you take care of your people. They're going to take care of you and your clients. Like that is it at the end of the day. And it's an honor to serve you. It's an honor to serve our employees. That's become my goal here. like I said, I serve two specific, individuals in my business.

Number one is our employees and number two is our clients. Our employees come before our clients because without our employees, we can't serve our clients. And that's become my lesson. Hopefully that applies to you. I would love to hear what your, you took away from this specific podcast episode. [00:45:00] I love to hear the comments, leave us in the comments.

What do you think? What do you think about referrals and creating that referable experience for your business? Leave us in the comment, make sure you follow us on YouTube at Contractor Click as well as Apple and Spotify Contractor Click podcast. We'll see you in the next one. Thank you for tuning in.