How I'd Build a Repeatable Referral Engine — Transcript

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1. 0:00I sell management services to board
2. 0:02members of commercially zoned property
3. 0:04owners associations. Think HOA except
4. 0:08for your office.
5. 0:09>> Okay.
6. 0:09>> The company does 1.8 million in revenue.
7. 0:12It pays me 625,000
8. 0:15a year.
9. 0:15>> Okay.
10. 0:16>> Requires me to work at it 90-ish minutes
11. 0:19a week.
12. 0:20>> Okay.
13. 0:21>> I would love it if
14. 0:22>> Look at this guy.
15. 0:24It's like as a male model.
16. 0:26>> [laughter]
17. 0:26>> Yes.
18. 0:26>> It's a very tiring profession.
19. 0:28>> me the rest of my time.
20. 0:29>> Yeah.
21. 0:30>> Um but I would love it if I could figure
22. 0:32out how to keep my same margins and find
23. 0:35a way to 3 million. No, yeah, cut the
24. 0:38time. Yeah. One word, none. But like
25. 0:40I've been at this since 2003
26. 0:43and I've tried so many different ways to
27. 0:46find the prospect that we're looking for
28. 0:50>> in the 90 minutes a week you're working?
29. 0:51>> No, this was I used to work I was
30. 0:53>> was like
31. 0:54>> no, no. I used to I used to do it a lot
32. 0:55more.
33. 0:56>> Okay.
34. 0:56>> And one of the reasons why I work 90
35. 0:59minutes a week right now straight up is
36. 1:01I kind of gave up.
37. 1:02>> Okay.
38. 1:02>> Because I just couldn't uh like it felt
39. 1:04like brick wall here, turn right, oh,
40. 1:06another brick wall, turn left, another
41. 1:08brick wall.
42. 1:09>> Yeah.
43. 1:09>> And so right now it's essentially just
44. 1:11like an annuity. It just keeps on
45. 1:13paying. There's like on the risk side of
46. 1:15things, there was like very, very little
47. 1:17of that.
48. 1:18>> Okay, how did you get to your How many
49. 1:19How many of these HOAs do you have?
50. 1:21>> Uh 147.
51. 1:22>> Okay, how did you get the 147 that you
52. 1:24have?
53. 1:25>> Word of mouth haphazardly from brokers,
54. 1:28from developers sometimes, and sometimes
55. 1:30an owner within an association that we
56. 1:32have.
57. 1:33>> Okay. So, what did you do to like So,
58. 1:36fundamentally for me, this is like a COI
59. 1:38center of influence type play. So,
60. 1:41either if I'm having like a true brick
61. 1:43wall issue with like gatekeeper type
62. 1:45stuff, which happens a lot in like super
63. 1:47high-level enterprise, happens in
64. 1:48government uh contracts, things like
65. 1:50that, I'm going to look for Well,
66. 1:52government this doesn't apply, but for
67. 1:53the the first thing, yes. Um
68. 1:55like the brokers, right? So, it's how do
69. 1:57I become the brokers' favorite your
70. 2:00broker's favorite broker, right? How do
71. 2:01I get How do I get those guys to just
72. 2:03love me and always send me stuff? And
73. 2:04so, then the question is like, "Okay, of
74. 2:06the brokers who have sent you business
75. 2:07in the past, how many of them continue
76. 2:09to send you business?"
77. 2:10>> All of them that have in the past, which
78. 2:12is not a massive number.
79. 2:14>> Okay, that's fine.
80. 2:14>> Yeah.
81. 2:15>> And so, what I would look at is like,
82. 2:16"Okay, what was the process that it took
83. 2:18from this person finding about who I was
84. 2:20to getting them to actually refer me
85. 2:21business?" Number one. Number two, what
86. 2:24communication cadence do I have in place
87. 2:26for the existing brokers so that I can
88. 2:27solicit them for new business or remind
89. 2:29them that I exist so that I'm not just
90. 2:30getting 10% of their business, I'm
91. 2:32getting 100%. So, that's like the
92. 2:33farming side. The hunting side is we
93. 2:35have to look at the cost of acquiring a
94. 2:37broker. I'm just assuming brokers like
95. 2:39let's say the highest likelihood. If
96. 2:40there's other ones, use that. But, if
97. 2:42broker, let's say an activated broker is
98. 2:45going to send me two buildings a year or
99. 2:47three buildings a year, then I'll say,
100. 2:49"Okay, how many broker How many average
101. 2:51attempts do I need to get one broker?
102. 2:53What does it take for the broker to get
103. 2:55me that first referral? Um are there
104. 2:58kickbacks that are allowed?"
105. 2:59>> No, not for them when they're licensed.
106. 3:02>> For them, they cannot take kickbacks.
107. 3:03>> Yeah.
108. 3:04>> So, you're just going to have to get
109. 3:04really creative. No.
110. 3:09My bad.
111. 3:10Okay.
112. 3:11I just like had like nine things in a
113. 3:13row and I was like, "Can't say that.
114. 3:14Can't say that. Can't say that." Okay.
115. 3:20Sorry. He's a good-looking guy. All
116. 3:21right. So,
117. 3:22>> [laughter]
118. 3:24>> I was like, "Use what you got." Uh
119. 3:26so, the cost of acquiring the broker, I
120. 3:28would look at the Basically, I would
121. 3:29want to reverse engineer the process
122. 3:31that the people did. Basically, what
123. 3:32happened on accident with the original
124. 3:34brokers, we need to make happen on
125. 3:36purpose. And so, we have to be
126. 3:37deliberate in that customer experience
127. 3:40and seeing them as the real customer.
128. 3:42So, I think that you need to basically
129. 3:43shift how you see your business. So,
130. 3:46I'll give you the easiest analogy I have
131. 3:47with like the first time I learned this
132. 3:48was with Alan, the the software that we
133. 3:50had. I thought that brick-and-mortar
134. 3:51business owners that we were working
135. 3:52their leads and responding to them, they
136. 3:54were our customers. That was not true.
137. 3:56The people who are customers were the
138. 3:57agency owners who brought these
139. 3:59customers in, who white-labeled our
140. 4:01product to serve the SMB. And so, once I
141. 4:04realized I was like, "Oh, cuz I was
142. 4:06spending the first part of me trying to
143. 4:07grow Allen selling
144. 4:10nail salon what I you know, like in in
145. 4:11in coming in the door
146. 4:13and they would turn out or they have a
147. 4:15they'd be like, "Oh, this is amazing. It
148. 4:17works our leads. How do I get leads?"
149. 4:18And I'm like, "This is not my job. Like
150. 4:19this is the software that works leads."
151. 4:21And so, I thought, "Okay, what
152. 4:22businesses always have leads?" And it's
153. 4:24like, "Oh, businesses that have an
154. 4:25agency that are running ads." And so,
155. 4:27then I think, "Oh, well, why don't I but
156. 4:29like sometimes they leave agencies, but
157. 4:31agencies don't leave agencies because
158. 4:32they're agencies cuz they're themselves
159. 4:33and they have to stay themselves." So,
160. 4:35then I was like, "Okay, so I'll acquire
161. 4:36agencies and see if I just get them to
162. 4:37bring all their customers on." And once
163. 4:39that changed, I realized that the churn
164. 4:42that would exist within let's say agency
165. 4:44A has 10 clients,
166. 4:46the 10 clients logos would change, but
167. 4:48agency A never left. And so, then when I
168. 4:51chunked up how I thought about the
169. 4:52business, my retention on agencies was
170. 4:54amazing. Their retention on customers
171. 4:56changed because SMBs are volatile and
172. 4:58so, they're going to churn for whatever
173. 4:59reasons. But I knew that that 10 guy was
174. 5:02pretty much going to stay at 10. He
175. 5:04would sell one, lose one, sell one, lose
176. 5:06one. Every once in a while one guy would
177. 5:07grow and that'd be great and we'd have
178. 5:08expansion revenue.
179. 5:10So, for you chunking up is like your HOA
180. 5:13dudes are not the customer.
181. 5:16The brokers and your COIs are the
182. 5:18customer.
183. 5:19And that's the hallmark. All of your
184. 5:21marketing is to them. And think about
185. 5:22them as like, "What's their customer
186. 5:24journey? What's their customer
187. 5:25experience? What's the activation point?
188. 5:26How do I re-engage those people um on a
189. 5:29consistent basis? Do I run events for
190. 5:31them? Like what ways can I serve them so
191. 5:32that they always feel reciprocity
192. 5:34towards me?" That's what I would do as
193. 5:35like my overarching strategy. And I
194. 5:37think that if you have an entire week of
195. 5:40hours available to you right now, you
196. 5:41get super aggressive with it. Um and
197. 5:43that would probably be like my like
198. 5:45that's what I would do for 40 hours a
199. 5:47week.
200. 5:47>> Cool. Thank you.
201. 5:49>> 100% If you like this video and you're a
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203. 5:52through your current revenue ceiling, I
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208. 6:00I've used to go from zero to one, zero
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210. 6:04can click here and you can check it out.
211. 6:05Again, absolutely free. And since you're
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213. 6:09enjoy.