In this episode of Building Great Sales Teams, Doug adds chapter 13 to the playbook with breaking down referral partners.
How do you create other sources of income for yourself or your sales team when sales aren't where we want them to be? Referral partners. Doug breaks down the concept of referral partners and how you can use them to supplement income in times where business is slowing down.
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Speaker 1
Great experiences, build great leaders, great leaders, build great teams. This is building great sales teams.
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Speaker 2
All right, guys, We got a solo episode today. I want to talk to you guys about the power of referral partners. So this is going to be a little playbook on referral partners. So the idea behind the referral partner to an effective referral partner is going to be in a kind of a linear industry that you're in. So if you're a realtor, if you're in mortgage, if you're in pest control, if you're in roofing, if you're in solar, if you're in AC, if you're in plumbing, these are all integrated referral partner opportunities, right?
00:01:20:18 - 00:01:37:18
Speaker 2
And so there's a lot of different ways that you can approach this. It can be the simple, Hey, you send me business, I send you business, which is old school. And to me really isn't effective anymore unless you have a strong relationship with that individual. Right? It's family, it's a friend, It's somebody that you have beers with on Friday night.
00:01:38:04 - 00:01:58:11
Speaker 2
They're always going to send you all their business because you're you, not necessarily because you have a program in place. So there's that type of referral partner. And then there's one that you approach and pitch on becoming a referral partner for you. And there's a program in place that is going to bring them extra revenue. And that's kind of what I want to focus on today.
00:01:58:11 - 00:02:17:22
Speaker 2
And so where this where this came from, first of all, Ryan said, Hey, we need to do. And Ryan Wayans, my producer, said, we need to do an episode on referral Partners. But also a couple of weeks ago I was on a call. Ryan's doing direct impromptu call for the Apex Group and anybody could jump on this call that was in Apex.
00:02:17:22 - 00:02:37:24
Speaker 2
So I went ahead and jumped on, and probably a pivotal moment for me during that call was when one of the mortgage loan officers asked, Hey, interest rates are high right now. We aren't able to obtain as many customers as we did, say six months ago, because we all know in the real estate industry, you were eaten good six months ago.
00:02:37:24 - 00:03:01:22
Speaker 2
If you were a realtor, if you were a home inspector, if you were part of that real estate transaction, you were eaten good, right? And so he's like, How can I bridge this gap, you know, of the income I had six months ago to the income I have now. And Ryan said something that just clicked really well and it was, Hey, you just spent the last year signing up new homeowners, right?
00:03:02:03 - 00:03:24:00
Speaker 2
So you have a basically a lead database now that you can partner with other home services and get them fresh leads. Right. And one of those that can get you paid like you do in the mortgage industry is solar, right. So when you think about it, if somebody brings me a lead in general, I'm going to pay anywhere from 1500 to 20 $500.
00:03:24:08 - 00:03:47:04
Speaker 2
If that lead closes right in commission. So the idea was, okay, I just signed up all my mortgage customers. I'm going to reach out to my mortgage customers that just bought their home. They're living in their brand new home. I'm one of their favorite people because I made that happen. Hey, by the way, Mr. Customer, I partner with Argent and Solar and Argent.
00:03:47:04 - 00:04:09:09
Speaker 2
The solar put solar on your rooftop. You take control of your energy. You get cost savings year after year after that. And as energy rises, your cost stays the same. So that's the concept of solar in general. Would you like a free custom solar quote on your home? They'll they'll come out, they'll evaluate your home and they'll give you the numbers As it comes down to the numbers.
00:04:09:09 - 00:04:44:17
Speaker 2
Would you like to see the numbers? Right. And so in the in the mortgage industry, you're able to do this and it goes across the board. Right. And any home services, you're going to be able to do this. Right. So whether you're in pest control and you're getting solar referrals from or I'm sorry, you're getting referrals from a solar salesperson, whether you're in home inspections and you're getting referrals from a realtor, you know, there's so much cross-pollination that can happen around the transaction of a home and then the maintenance of a home right?
00:04:44:17 - 00:05:07:17
Speaker 2
And so you should have at least four or five referral partners at any given time that are feeding you fresh leads because no matter what, they're going to need these things for their home. So it just makes sense. And if you can be that connector of people, not only can you get paid for it, but people will see you that way and they'll come to you for other things.
00:05:07:17 - 00:05:38:10
Speaker 2
Right? And that's just good business in general. So I wanted to show you guys a presentation that I did that you can copy and the inspiration for this presentation. Nothing's original any more, guys. The inspiration for this presentation came from Devin Oakes, so he's got the Primitive Solar is his company, but he's also got a solar mastermind. And so he showed us his presentation and one of the apex zoom calls, and it was really cool because it empowered the referral partner.
00:05:38:10 - 00:05:58:15
Speaker 2
And let me show you what I mean by that. I'm going to share this presentation for those of you that are watching or listening on YouTube. If you're not able to watch on YouTube, just hit me up and I will send you the presentation and then you can check it out. So we'll walk through this real quick. The beginning of the presentation is is pretty simple.
00:05:58:15 - 00:06:26:24
Speaker 2
It's a referral partner opportunity. So if if I'm in AC and I want a home inspector to refer business to me, this is something that I would send to them. Now, I know there's laws around the real estate transaction and whether or not that you can take referral fees. So keep that in mind. Obviously you don't want to solicit a realtor and pay them commission for giving you a new solar customer or a a new AC customer or a new roof customer you want.
00:06:26:24 - 00:06:48:06
Speaker 2
What do you want to do is pay for their marketing, right? So that way there's some separation in between there and that's the best way you can kind of get around that. But let's go back to this. So our Gen2 solar RPG referral partner opportunity, right? That's so one of the things that I was going to do to scale the solar division is create a referral partner division.
00:06:48:18 - 00:07:12:10
Speaker 2
And so all these sales reps did was go to referral partner opportunities, pitch them with this presentation, and then they would bring in referrals to themselves based on that. They wouldn't doorknock, they wouldn't call each leads, they wouldn't do any of that stuff. All they would focus on is their referral partner relationships. This is a division that you can create within your company to get more leads coming into your company.
00:07:12:10 - 00:07:37:24
Speaker 2
And this just this is for a business development type salesperson, right? One that is very good at creating relationships. William Vineyard in my company, he's one of those people. He's very good at creating relationships. So I created this model in order for him to execute in solar. So again, you know, the first page is pretty simple. That's the opportunity.
00:07:38:08 - 00:07:56:10
Speaker 2
All right. The second page. Okay. If you're going to have a referral partner, you've got to make it easy for them to refer you business. And I mean, like easy. Okay. And one of the ways that you can do that is called get the referral. If you're in the home service industry, it's expensive, don't get me wrong, but you need to invest in this.
00:07:56:10 - 00:08:22:17
Speaker 2
If you're serious about having constant referrals coming to you from your referral partners. So this get the referral app, it gives you a white label app, particularly in solar, in white labels, it gives you your own app and then your customers are able to refer you business too. Through this app. You sign them up for the app once they get installed and then they're able to send you their neighbors and their friends and family for referrals and it tracks it that way.
00:08:22:17 - 00:08:42:15
Speaker 2
They can get the referral fee and they can even get paid through the app. And I should self forget the referrals apparently, but I love their app. It works beautifully. And then I can say, you know, our agents, the solar, we have our own app and the beautiful thing about what they've done with this is you can actually monitor your solar system and see the efficiency of it through the app.
00:08:42:24 - 00:09:03:21
Speaker 2
So as far as the customer's concerned, Argenta Solar has their own app and they're able to monitor the efficiency of their solar system through it. So that's really cool. All right. Referral partners, in-home service businesses that will offer potential solar customers exclusively to us. And that is a very important word exclusively. I don't want you sending me every other referral.
00:09:04:02 - 00:09:25:14
Speaker 2
I want every fucking referral you have because my company is that amazing. And I give you that easy of a system to do it with like this. And I'm going to get you paid. Right? All right. So there's a few ways that you can refer me business, right? The whole point of this is to bring you more bottom line revenue.
00:09:25:14 - 00:09:48:16
Speaker 2
Revenue that all you have to do is give me the referral and then you don't have to do any work after that. Right. So there's two ways that we can do this. You provide us with the leads using a simple lead input access, and then we set the appointment. And if you do that, you get paid 500 to 1500 dollars or close referral.
00:09:49:03 - 00:10:07:20
Speaker 2
The second way is you set the appointment. We have a county that you can use for our solar closers, our company actually, and it distributes to our seller closers. We have a calendar you can use for our solar closers and you can set the appointment, right? And this is if you don't have the get the referral app in place.
00:10:09:00 - 00:10:33:16
Speaker 2
And so what that allows you to do if you set the appointment, then you're going to get 1500 to 20 $500 for referrals. When you think about a referral and you think about closing rates, a closing rate on a referral is probably 50% higher than a closing rate on a organic lead or a lead that comes from marketing shoot, a leader that comes from marketing.
00:10:33:16 - 00:10:55:03
Speaker 2
It's twice as high conversion rate on a lead. The comes from marketing. So you should be willing to pay more in commission for those referrals because you're not. Your conversion rate is going to be so much higher. I will pay for these referral leads all day because my conversion rate is going to be 75% versus 50% of a doorknocked lead, right?
00:10:55:07 - 00:11:16:14
Speaker 2
And then it's going to be 75% versus like 30 to 30% of a online generated lead because the competition factor. Okay, So these are two ways you can structure this. You can do this if you're an AC company, you can do this. If you're a roofing company, you can do this if you're a plumbing company. This is very easy and very similar.
00:11:16:24 - 00:11:46:07
Speaker 2
Now, don't get me wrong, you don't have to pay for referrals every time. Sometimes it's in the referee's best interest to refer you because it creates a better customer experience for their customers. So, for instance, my boy Yellow say does countertops that specifically what he does, he he designs cuts and installs countertops. Right. So a general contractor that remodels homes has yellow say as one of his subs.
00:11:46:12 - 00:12:08:00
Speaker 2
Right And so that is a referral at the end of the day, you know what I mean? But he knows that yellow he does good work. So, yes, he doesn't have to pay him in order for him to use him. Right. And so he's part of the project. So that that is an instance where you're not paying your refer e for referring.
00:12:08:00 - 00:12:29:04
Speaker 2
You. Okay. All right. So the next piece of it is, okay, so you've set up the concepts. You know, I want you to be a referral partner. I've shown you how you can get paid. But you know what's more important than getting paid? Customer service and customer experience. So why us? What makes us different? And so we go into basically what is our difference maker flier.
00:12:29:04 - 00:12:47:12
Speaker 2
We actually use this at the door with two customers. And so we're going to do the same thing with our referral part. So we're going to be talking to a referral partner and the first thing we can say is we're local and that's important, just like your local or local. And so your customer is not going to be talking to someone in Kansas or California or Florida.
00:12:47:12 - 00:13:11:05
Speaker 2
They're going to be talking to someone here and in person. We we do a tax consult. You know, we have this amazing company called STC Solar Tax Consultants, and they're going to do a tax consultation for your customers so they can take full advantage of depreciation on this residential solar system. And so if you guys don't know about that, hit up Drew Haugen, head up jury.
00:13:11:05 - 00:13:32:01
Speaker 2
Mack, They're the ones that started that company as a side company from Jory Mack Solar Business because it made so much sense that we were able to get depreciation for our customers. This is a value add. I think we pay 400 to 800 per tax consults out of our pocket as a value add to our customers. Okay. The third thing is solar insure.
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Speaker 2
So we go through, you know, I can go through all these things. I think I've done the difference makers. I think I've gone through these difference makers on an episode before, so I don't want to go too far into it. But basically we have six things that make us different from every other company and you need to sell your referral partner on that too.
00:13:47:04 - 00:14:07:14
Speaker 2
So they have confidence in referring you. And then if they have to do a little pitching now they have something to do that pitching with, you know, when their customer asks, well, why, why are. GENSER okay, this is why they got their argent to energy drink. So whenever you get installed they send you two cases of argenta energy drinks or your sales rep actually drops them off directly to you.
00:14:07:23 - 00:14:27:00
Speaker 2
They've got the origins of the solar app, so whenever you refer someone you can make a little commission on that 2000 1500 bucks, whatever the case is, this is them talking to the customer, right? And then most importantly, they are partnered with Champion Shoes. They donate 25 shoes a month to kids in need. They can't afford them otherwise.
00:14:27:08 - 00:14:49:02
Speaker 2
So that's massive. That's what makes us different. Right. And so you also want to connect your referral partner to your executive team and you want to walk them through That is Doug Mitchell, the CEO. Wayne Skinner the vice president. Cheyenne Wells is the project manager. These are the people that are going to be taking care of your customers and making sure that they're satisfied.
00:14:49:02 - 00:15:07:05
Speaker 2
At the end of the day, I can't tell you how important that is to somebody that's referring their customers to you. And then, yeah, I'm going to cover my mission statement and my core values too, in that presentation. So not only do you know who is taking care of your customer, you also know what they believe in and what's important to them.
00:15:07:11 - 00:15:27:24
Speaker 2
And the second core value is probably one of the most important that I pitched to my referral partners, which is we operate with integrity. That shouldn't need to be said, but it does need to be said this day and age, and that's it. It's a six slide presentation. Very easy. So how do we go through that? Who we are, right?
00:15:28:14 - 00:15:46:21
Speaker 2
What we do is, is solar. And then how do we execute the referrals that you're sending to us? How do you get paid for them? Right. And then what makes us different? Why would you refer us over someone else? Well, this is why and this is who we are and this is what we believe. And then that's it, right?
00:15:47:05 - 00:16:14:22
Speaker 2
And so there's a third piece to this, and it's a little more technical, right? So if you're working with a CRM or a go high level system or something to that effect, this is going to be really good for you. Okay. And so there's the data. Okay, This is a lower commission structure, right? So this is like a $502,000 referral fee or this is like a probably capped at like a thousand referral fee because we're doing all the work.
00:16:14:22 - 00:16:50:12
Speaker 2
So the idea behind this is you integrate into their CRM, whether you're using Zapier or you're using an open API. And basically every time they sign up a new customer, that new customer gets imported into your CRM and then you market to that customer as a valued partner of X company, which is your fir E, Right. You market to that customer as a value partner, whether it be a phone call, a text message, an email, or a social media message, and you let them know, Hey, we're partnered with X, Y, Z roofing.
00:16:50:23 - 00:17:10:21
Speaker 2
The reason they partnered with us is these six difference makers and functionally the reason they partner with us is because the best time to get solar is when you have put a brand new roof on You guys just put a brand new roof on. So we would like to get you a custom solar quote so you can review the numbers.
00:17:10:21 - 00:17:34:07
Speaker 2
When would be a good time for that? Tuesday at 2 p.m. or Thursday at 4 p.m. So this would happen, this messaging would happen, the the mediums that you use in order to market. And so the idea behind this is they literally don't do anything and they getting checks every week from closed deals, you know what I'm saying?
00:17:34:13 - 00:17:55:11
Speaker 2
And when it comes to a referral partner, get them paid fast. I get it. Solar doesn't install for a while, roofing takes a little while to install. But if you have confidence in your system and your fulfillment process, I'm paying my referral partners almost right away. And the reason that I'm doing that is, is because when they get that check in their hand, what are they going to do?
00:17:56:10 - 00:18:13:20
Speaker 2
Oh, shoot, I need to do this again. And guess what? Now they got me another customer and another customer. And by the time the solar installs, they've gotten me four customers and we've only installed one. Right. Versus they're they're probably going to wait for that one to install, see if they got the check, you know what I mean?
00:18:13:20 - 00:18:39:13
Speaker 2
And then we've just wasted three weeks of prospecting time that they could have been sending us more customers. Right. And so that's the most important piece with the referral partners is to get them paid fast. So there's levels to this, right? Like I said, it may just be a friend or family member or peer that you're referring to and you'll have that give and take relationship.
00:18:39:13 - 00:19:12:21
Speaker 2
But those typically don't go anywhere because there's nothing to grease the wheels, right? So we want to get them paid in something that we can afford and something that makes sense. And again, if my legion cost $100 with Internet mark or with digital ads and my Legion cost $100 with door knocking and my Legion cost $100 with my next door or some app that gives me leads that I need to pay more for my referral partners because those are high quality leads.
00:19:13:07 - 00:19:35:09
Speaker 2
They have a know like and trust factor and I'm grandfathered into that no like and factor in that. So guys, hopefully you've gotten a lot of value from this. This is the playbook on referral partners and you can get really deep into this but I trust you guys that know how to get into it. Will And I just wanted to cover the basics of that in this episode.
00:19:35:22 - 00:20:01:02
Speaker 2
Now you guys know we don't run any ads. We just ask that you share the episode and maybe your sales manager needs to hear this, maybe your VP of sales, maybe the owner of the company needs to hear this. You guys need to start investing in referral partners because as the these markets get more competitive and stronger, a lot of people are moving to the home service markets as they get more stronger and more competitive.
00:20:01:09 - 00:20:28:10
Speaker 2
Your traditional form of lead generation is not going to continue to work as efficiency and as well and take it from me. So one that's had hundreds of people working for him. And then the market changed and then I had 50, you know, take it from me. You want multiple sources of leads coming in. And this is a this is a zero investment upfront way to get that source of leads.
00:20:28:10 - 00:20:56:16
Speaker 2
It's only your time that you spend prospecting for referral partners, which I would venture to say you're better off depending on where you're at in your company. If you're a sales manager, you're better off prospecting for referral partners than you are prospecting for individual customers because you're spending a lot of your time managing your sales team. Then you want to make sure that the time that you do spend prospecting is crazy effective.
00:20:56:16 - 00:21:25:13
Speaker 2
And one of the ways that you can do that is to get referral partners instead of individual customers. Is now your your legion is coming in passively instead of actively, right? We always talk about passive income versus active income. Let's get some passive lead generation happening. Our guys help you enjoy the show. Have a great day and let's get building.
00:21:25:13 - 00:21:46:17
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning into this episode of Building Great sales teams. Be sure to execute on what you just heard and let's get building. As always. Remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you consume podcast, You can also head on over to building great sales teams dot com and sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with everything that's going on with the podcast.
00:21:47:05 - 00:21:49:23
Speaker 1
See you next time.