Adam Bensman shows how contractors can build a referral machine by asking for introductions at five key moments in a project, sending personalized thank-you cards, and offering a $25 incentive. Infinity Home Services generates $250 million of its $600 million revenue from referrals, proving this approach scales without cold-calling.
At the end of the job, when the job's completed, we'll sit down usually at my tailgate. And by that time it's usually about 5, 6 o'clock. And I ask them straight up, hey, are you friends with any of your neighbors around here? And 9 times out of 10 they'll say yes. I'll say, listen, I don't want you to work for me. I don't want to put you in a situation where you don't feel comfortable in a situation, but I'm not a huge door knocker. I don't like just going to pound on people's doors. Any chance that you could just get to one of your neighbors and just introduce me and let them know that, hey, I was the guy that put your roof on? And if you've done everything correct with that homeowner and you've built that relationship with that homeowner, they should want to take you to the next-door neighbor and introduce you. And people ask all the time when I'm at different conventions talking, it's like, well, how much do you pay for your referrals? I laugh all the time. I say, 27 years, I've never given a person a dime for a referral. They're like, what? How do you not have a referral fee that you pay people? I say, because those homeowners and those people that you take care of, They should want to help you out because by the end of that situation or by the end of their job, you should have such a comfort level with that homeowner that you guys basically are friends and they should want to help you out. And if you haven't built that relationship up strong enough with that homeowner, then that's on your problem. That's, that's something you did wrong. So, and I always ask for referrals 5 times throughout a job. I tell people that all the time. I said, you ask for referrals on the inspection, you ask for referrals on the adjuster meeting, You ask for referrals on the close or on the build. You ask for referrals on collection, and you ask for referrals at the end of your job when you send your thank you.
Boy, oh boy, do we have similarities. I have that all on my checklist. And then of course, after, when you get collected, like, yeah, like, just love it, man.
How many— this is a question to ask all the sales reps— how many sales reps actually send a thank you to the homeowner You know, a month or two after the job site, just with your cards inside and say, "I just want to as personal touch. Just want to say hey, thank you so much for being part of you know the community. Da da da. Just want you know that we built a relationship up. Here's my card. If you have any issues, problems, concerns in the future, I want you give me a call. No question's a dumb question. You know what I mean?
Yeah. You know, Dan, it's it when you mention that you say, "Hey, people don't ask for referrals." How many do do they even send a thank you card? I have been, and I used to do this at the events I would speak at, I'd say, raise your hand with the number of fingers showing me how many referrals you asked for this week. And most people clam up and they sit there like, oh crap, because they're not. So one thing is a pro tip for the owners and managers that are here. It's one of the reasons I wrote the thank you note. It's in the marketing battle pack. I wrote the referral request.
Yeah.
I'm in all the customer project update emails. It's in the Marketing Battle Pack, which by the way is all accessible now, uh, no additional cost to the TAMCO Edge contractors. There's a link in the description below where you can go to rsa.pro. But I put all this together with the checklist to, to bypass and/or support the need for a salesperson to remember because there's systematic requests. But those requests, as you put, which I got, you just got me just like totally amped on this, by the way. Uh, I, you know, I talk with Josh Sparks, who's the chairman of Infinity Home Services. They're approaching about $600 million in sales. And 40 to 60%, which I know is a big range, but around $250 million of revenue from their portfolio of companies comes from, and I'm going from memory, so if you're interested, you can click the link up here and watch that video. But about $250 million a year of revenue comes from referrals and word of mouth, and there's no standard referral system. And I'm sure people are watching like, well, Adam, you have your referral incentive system.
I do.
It's $25 as a thank you for introducing me to someone that I can help, whether or not they buy or not.
Why?
Because you don't want to make people feel like they're selling their friends, right?
Exactly.
It's a thank you just for an opportunity to chat with them. What I love through these conversations is challenging viewpoints. You're like, I've never done that. And that's rich. So thank you for sharing.
Well, and like we talked about, I think the whole, the whole moral of our discussion, everything that we're talking about, You know, and the thank-yous and doing those, doing the little things like that is being different, doing what other people won't do to get that job, to get that service. You know, I literally, I don't have to leave my house to get to $1 million worth of jobs in a year, right? And the reason that is, is because I've built up such a network of people that are willing to, you know, if there's a problem, issue, concern, I got people calling me from 7 years ago I did jobs. Yeah, because they know that they're not going with somebody else. They're going with me if there's an issue. You know, maintenance agreement plans, a whole nother situation that we can get into at some point and talk about that nobody does, you know. But as a sales rep, I offer maintenance agreement plans to different, you know, associations, property management companies. And the biggest kicker is I do maintenance agreement plans with prominent people in neighborhoods, people that I know know everybody in their neighborhood. They're getting a maintenance agreement plan from me. And the reason that is, is because I get them people signed up in a neighborhood, they're giving me everybody else in that neighborhood.
Yeah.
And people don't do that. They don't do the little things that other people won't do. They're so, like I said, they're so hyper-focused on doing what pursues their best interest, signing a homeowner up, getting the job, making the 2, 3 grand off the job, and never talking to that homeowner again.
Yeah.
Where I look at it as, hey, I just built a relationship And I'm, yeah, I'm still going to make my 2, 3 grand, but I just built that relationship that that's going to make me another 20 grand in the next 5 years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
