How He Did It: DOUBLED (2X) His Sales Using This Referral Strategy

Mitch, welcome back to the channel. And everybody, welcome to the Restrategist YouTube channel and podcast. I'm super pumped to have Mitch Deskas here. You may recognize Mitch, he's in our playlist on interviews with successful sales reps. And today, Mitch is here to share a gem on referrals, how and why we're going to get into. But everyone here is going to leave with some tactical advice and tips to start using, because all the interviews that I'm doing now with reps are designed to help you take their strategy that's worked and use it in the field. And Mitch was generous enough to share his. So without further ado, Mitch, would you mind just sharing why we're on this, the message you sent me on Facebook with this really powerful win and some fun numbers to tease our people and then we'll jump into some logistics. So welcome Mitch, and I'm going to turn it over to you.

Well, first off, Adam, I appreciate you having me on the show. And like I said last time when I was on the show, you know, we appreciate everything you do. Funny story, it's quite a few of the guys I work with, they tap on YouTube. Who comes up, it's you. And it was funny. They even said, man, I saw your interview. That was great. But no, appreciate everything you do. And I definitely make sure everybody who's in the roofing industry knows about you and what you do. So, yeah, to go into what why we're here on the show is I want to talk about how I generated referrals. So last year I think I did 177,000 and referrals. This year alone, I did 140,000.

That's income. Let me clarify for everybody. Mitch is giving you his personal income, not top line sales. That 140,000 of cash in his pocket from referrals. Sorry to interrupt, Mitch. I just wanted to clarify that for folks.

Yeah, 140,000 from referrals. 24 referrals. And I'll do almost 60 roofs this year. So almost was that almost half my business came from referrals.

That's huge. And you're in a market for everyone listening. I know there's a lot of folks that are in markets that don't pay nearly the commissions that you're getting with your company with the type of homes that we talked about. So for everyone listening, your gas mileage may vary. And the point is the referral system that we're going to be chatting about is what we're. You will use, you'll generate those deals and you'll get paid as you get paid, so. Which everyone handles it differently. And just so we don't open that can of worms, I did another video on commissions and the different structures and how to factor in those numbers. So let's. No one reacts, but. Awesome. So, Mitch, 140k in referrals. And is it okay if we get a little personal about kind of what you were dealing with at the time, going through this? Because you were facing arguably the. One of the most stressful times of anyone's life that often interferes with salespeople, especially in this industry that drags us down. We got stuff going on at home. So I know you mentioned being comfortable with this. Share with us what was going on in your life that was. Had the cards kind of stacked against you, so to speak, and how you rose up to the occasion.

Yeah, no, I totally don't mind. So the past conversation we had, I was obviously building what it seemed like a dream home for my wife and my daughter and I. And that was in March, and closing on the house was June and May. My wife at the time decided she wanted to separate and then divorce. And to be honest, you know, when I look back on it, yes, it's upsetting. And a lot of the times people will take that and see that as a negative or not want to produce the business that they want to do. And. And quite frankly, the way I look at things is there's always a positive to something. And what I looked at it was, is, okay, yes, I probably was way too focused on work. And I'm a very driven and ambitious person. So whenever I have a goal, I always want to attain that goal. So sometimes I put things and people on the wayside. So that allowed me, when that happened, unfortunately, that the next time maybe I'm with somebody, I can't do that because this is what's going to happen. So I only had two things. Adam, in that scenario was, okay, I can kind of feel bad for myself and, oh, my gosh, have a pity party. Or I can look in the mirror and say, hey, look, you did this. You got to just kind of man up and go take care of business because I still have a daughter I have to provide for. I still have the goals I want to achieve. And I just kind of took it as more of a positive spin than a negative one. Where in this kind of a scenario, I think a lot of people, when that happens, a life event, a divorce, a death or something, it can derail you from your path of what you're doing and it takes so long to come back and to actually do what you were doing, which was going out doing, taking care of business. So thankfully that didn't happen to me. And. And I just would say for anybody who might be dealing with that, maybe they're going through a divorce or separation or things like that, I promise you, if you just stay focused on what you're doing, it gets better because there's. They always say, like when it rains, the sun's going to come back up eventually. And even though you're going through a tough time, I promise you, eventually good will come out of it. You know, thankfully her and I are amicable and we're great co parents. We found that's probably the best situation. So, you know, you got to take the good with the bad. And luckily I learned from this and I actually have put that into practice with my work and my business, communicating better and things like that. So honestly, I would say it's a blessing in disguise, to be honest.

Yeah. Mitch, thank you for sharing that and getting real because I know that so many times everyone tunes in, especially social media. You know, he's like, this guy's doing great, this guy's doing great. And like, you go home and things are falling apart in some way and. And the carryover impact drowns us and we'll take a top performer and knock him or her down to the very beginning like that. And the fact that you're able to keep that mindset is so important and kudos to you. I'm glad to see you doing well now and happy and turning a new leaf, so to speak. The reason that I wanted to touch on that was just to highlight so many people have this internal dialogue. It worked for Mitch, but it won't work for me. It worked in this one, but it won't work for me. It worked in that market, but it won't work in my. And there's always excuse itis. And I wanted to lay this out to be like Mitch had some really crappy stuff going on. Like that's probably the worst of all of it and you were able to push through and do this. So thank you for getting real and inspiring others because I know many people listening have gone through it now without lingering on painful things. Let's move into the exciting and fun things on referrals. I haven't heard this yet. For everyone listening, Mitch reached out on Facebook just sharing this and saying, hey, I want to pay it forward and share this with other people. So thank you again for initiating This I want to hear from you, how you got these referrals. I'm going to take some notes so you'll see this up on the screen behind me. Lay it on me, man. How does the system that you're doing work?

Oh, yeah, totally. So, Adam, let me ask you a question. Why do you have a favorite restaurant?

Because I get the same thing all the time, and I can count on a good experience.

Okay, so food is one great experience. Good environment. Right. All right, so what happens after that? What do you typically do with that restaurant? What do you do?

I tell people, I say, hey, you got to go check it out. I love to share the things, like the place I go to. I'm like, oh, have you guys been to Cork yet? It's like our go to. And I always use the name and I mention it.

Yeah. So that's essentially how you want to operate your business. So from our last interview, I talked about how I was in the personal training space. So to give you kind of context, whenever I got into personal training, I don't know if I said this, but I started in a studio. So when I started in a studio, there was no foot traffic. It wasn't on a main road where people would walk in and say, yeah, I want a personal trainer. I want to spend hundreds of dollars. So the way I built my business was I got on Facebook and I said, hey, I'm a trainer. I would love to train you for free. Let me know. I got six responses. They were hairstylists. And Adam, I trained them for a whole month for free, three times a week in a group setting. Now you're probably thinking, mitch, that's pretty crazy, man. You're giving away all of your time, your efforts, your energy, for what? Well, let me tell you, this is when I'm giving my energy, when I'm giving my attention, when I'm showing somebody value and I'm giving them results before they've paid me, what do you think they're gonna do? They're either one. They're gonna refer me somebody else because they realize, okay, Mitch has got me a result. And I feel. What's that? Basically where you. You feel like you owe somebody something. A law of reciprocation. Right. So I want to give you something for giving me something result, or they want to just start paying me. So out of those six, five stayed. And over the course of one to two years, that five grew into 50 clients. And if you've ever been in the personal training space, you know that it takes a Lot of time to do that. But not only that. Where I worked, we never had contracts. So at any point in time, these people could always leave. Why didn't they leave? Well, because I provided results. I built a relationship with them, and I was giving them an experience. Right? So people stayed because of these things. When you build a relationship with somebody, they're gonna want to stay with you. They don't want to go anywhere else. They don't care if they get results anymore. It's about the friendship. It's about the relationship you have now. So whenever I got into roofing, the first thing you have to do is obviously what you got to master sales. You got to be able to get on the roof. You got to be able to come down and close somebody. Right? So when I started that and I was able to start closing people, I then was thinking, okay, how can I take what I did in the fitness space, and how can I do the exact same thing here in the roofing space? Because, let's face it, yeah, it's great to go out and knock, and you should always knock, and you should always make sure that every interaction you're doing is providing even more business for you. Right. Well, I was thinking, well, why can't I just get people to become raving fans of mine? And they want to refer their family, their friends, their co workers. They want to talk about me, not about just getting a roof, but it's the experience and how I made them feel throughout the process. Right. Because you have to think about it, Adam. You're with somebody for at least two to four months. From the time you sign them up to the time you get the last check, you're with them for a long time. And I think a lot of the times when we have so many projects going on, we don't necessarily become a person to them. We are their contractor. We're the roofer. That's it. That's what they think of us as. So I wanted to say, okay, well, how can I make this person become my best friend in this process? Not because I want something from them, but because I want them to have such a great experience that this is like a wow factor. Because the biggest compliment to me is not the amount of money I can make on a deal. It's the fact that at the very end of it, somebody says, who's a CFO or somebody who works at a grocery store is like, mitch, I've done a lot of business with people, but I have to say that you are one of the best at what you do, which is managing projects, managing, creating relationships. That to me is what I want at the end. And it may sound selfish, but that's what I want. Yes, it's great to make money and we all have to make a living, but that right there is my driving force. Every time I sign somebody up, every time I'm working with somebody, anytime I'm inspecting a roof, any interaction, that's what it's like. So to give you context, that's how I wanted to create my business. From training to roofing.

Sure. So on that, I've summarized these key points. Reciprocity. People want to do nice things for you. That, that if you do something nice for them, creating an amazing experience. Which, by the way, was the. I don't know if you've seen on the new videos, but that's like the addition of my just cause. Help every sales rep smash their income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. I love that, man. That's great. And then create that relationship. And then I put that sub bullet of making them your best friend. And you do this, you create raving fans. So we got the groundwork laid. Now, I know everyone's thinking this. I'm gonna have to ask because I know they're thinking it. Did you pay anything on these referrals? That's what I thought. And now let's get into it. So.

So this, this comes into three things. What I've realized for this last year, creating referrals comes down to three key things. The first thing's going to be customer service. So whenever I think about what I do for a living, I don't necessarily think I'm in the roofing industry. Yes, we put roofs on, but we're here to help people. We're here to address a problem they may not know they have and become a solution to that problem. Right. Let me ask you a question, Adam. If you go to a restaurant and the food's bad, the experience is bad, you don't like the environment, it's loud. What's going to happen? What are you going to do?

I'm not going back. And I might write a review.

Exactly. You're not going to go back. You're going to write a review, and you're also going to tell your friends, man, that place was terrible. So because of that one experience, that business now has just had maybe 50 to 100 people just decide without ever going, they're not going to go do business. It's like when somebody tells you about somebody else, you automatically have, like, A subconscious thought of this person, even though you don't know them, you know, so what we do comes down to customer service. So this is what I trained on. So I actually did this with our organization. I got up and I told all of our salespeople how it generated this much money based off referrals. So we're all in the roofing space. We're in customer service. Now. When it comes down to customer service, the biggest thing you want to start doing is you want to know what's going on on every single project. Whether you have 1, 5, 20, 50 projects at any point in time. If a homeowner gives you a call, text you, you're with them, asks you a question, you need to know what's going on at all at any point in time. When the roof's going on, when the gutters are going on, when the fence is getting stained, when the window screens are happening, when the standing seems happening. You need to know what's going on at any point in time. You know why? Because that homeowner now thinks, man, Adam knows what's going on in my project. He knows exactly what's going on. I can count on Adam to know what's going on in my project. That's a huge thing, because you have to think about, you just took this person, you signed them up, you said they have damage. Now you're taking them along the process. Now they're asking questions. And you don't really know because you're in la la land. You're thinking of going to get different deals. You're thinking of what you're going to have for dinner, what you're doing for the weekend or whatever the case is, but you're not truly engaged with the person you're doing business with. And the next thing is, and this is what I got from when I was training clients, is you want to make them feel like they're your only client. So whenever I was training, I wanted to think about, why is it that the people I have, why do they stay with me? Well, they stay with me because I'm very observant. I give them all my attention. It makes them feel like I care, because I do. And it's like, I always thought about this, whether I'm charging $30 or whatever. I wanted to make it seem like if somebody paid me $500 an hour to train somebody, how would you react? How would you act? You wouldn't be on your phone, you'd be very attentive. And that's the same thing with Your with your customer. So anytime they're giving you a call, I don't care what you have going on. Either answer the phone call or you shoot them. Text. Hey, I'm busy right now. Let me give you a call right when I'm done. Don't make them think in their head, okay? You know, I always call Adam, but he never gets back to me. I always call Mitch or text him, but it takes him hours to respond. I know he's not that busy. Maybe he is. But anytime a homeowner calls me, I answer the phone. I step away from whatever I'm doing, whether it's a lunch and people may sound. May think I'm crazy, but I take a step back and I'm like, I need to answer this phone call. Or if it's a text, you know, it can wait. Can wait maybe 30 minutes to an hour or something, unless it's time sensitive. But if I'm with a homeowner, doesn't matter what's going on. I am attentive. I'm with them. But not only that, I'm getting to know them. I'm getting to know them throughout the process. And then the next thing is, you want to be seen throughout the process. So I know a lot of guys who, some of the guys I work with or some of the guys that I know that are in the roofing industry, you know, we have a lot of projects going on. You know, we might have two installs in one day, or we have an adjuster meeting, or we have this going on. But let me ask you a question. Are you so busy to not go to your install? Are you so busy not to show up at the very end and show that you're cleaning up, that you're magnet sweeping? See, for me, I like to be fully involved throughout the process because my thing is this is if somebody is working with me, they're not working with my company, they're working with me. They're working with Mitch. They're not working with IFC Roofing, they're working with me. So I need to show that I'm there throughout the process on anything that's happening. When the roof's going on, I'm there in the morning, I. I meet the crew leader, I knock on the door, I say, hey, Mr. Jones, just want to let you know we're here. We're going to start setting up the property. Okay? If you have any questions, let me know. Our field manager is going to be by here shortly. He's going to get in the Attic. Check the lines, make sure we're okay. Okay. If you have anything throughout the day, give me a call if you don't see me, but I'll be here throughout the day. I'm setting the expectations for the homeowner. Right. I want it to be so crystal clear in the communication that they're like, man, this guy's on it. I feel trust I can entrust this guy with my property. My biggest asset. Right. When gutters go on. Hey, Mr. Jones. The gutter's gonna go on this day, this time, just so you know, I'm gonna come out there with the gutter crew. I'm gonna make sure that we're doing everything properly. The tear offs well. But at the very end, just so you know, I'm gonna stop by and I'm gonna do a magnet sweep just to see if I get any other nails, debris, just so you know. And this is not a tactic to say, oh, man, I'm just trying to show him that I'm doing this. No, I truly do care because I do care about these people. These people are trusting you throughout this whole thing. So you want to care the whole time. Right. So my whole thing is this, Adam, is everything that's happening is another interaction with this person.

Yeah.

Every time, whether I go there during the installation, whether I go get the gutters done, whether the fence is getting stained, whether the chimney caps going on, I come to the property. The reason why is because every time I show up, what do you think they're thinking?

He's on it. Oh. About passing along. But while you're here, I love what you've done. You should go talk to so and so.

Yeah. That or just like what you said, man, this guy's on it.

Yeah. Which service so hard, like, that's not thing people say service is dead. So when you do this, you are. Which, by the way, I'm going to be. I'm going to be a butthead for a minute. Other roofers make this really easy. Like, all you have to do is just do this is a good job. You just do this and you care, and you're already at the top.

Yes. You're. You're 99% better than most. Yeah.

This is clearly above and beyond, by the way, which I super appreciate. That's not to diminish that part. The big thing you said that the T word. Trust. When you're on it, people trust you. They don't look for it when you're not on it. And you don't pick up the Phone. And then something goes wrong. Now, instead of that being a smooth thing, hey, Mitch. Something went wrong. You're like, oh, it's cool. I've been here every step of the way. There's this inherent trust. There's not this emotional reaction. It's like, oh, he'll get taken care of. Whereas, like, the smallest little thing, like a screen getting torn, the homeowner's like, well, Mitch has been gone. He never answers calls Gaga. And then they call you up and it's like the house burned down. You're like, it's a screen and I'm going to take care of it. But they're. They're basing that emotion based on the past experience. So you're essentially, you're laying this just incredible relationship and trust foundation by doing a great job for them, which I love. So is there more you need to share?

Oh, no, I do. I got a bit. I got it. So it goes up to everything we just talked about. What do you think that does that goes to number two? It makes them feel like they're your number one client. I always tell my homeowners, the very moment we decide to work together, I say, hey, look, there's two things that are going to happen. One, we're going to become best friends. Two, you're going to have a great experience throughout this entire process. Because I know construction can be crazy, but I just want to let you know that I'm going to make sure this is handled properly, and I'll be here throughout the entire process, just so you know. So I always set the clear expectations of what they can understand and see throughout the process with me. And I think just the whole customer service part, if people can just understand, if you just do this, you're literally ahead of the game. You're probably in the top 1% of roofers, because most people depends on some companies. I know some companies where they just have salespeople that just go out and sell. You never hear from them again, and they're just giving to the company and they're working with somebody else. No, no. I want to make sure that that person works directly with me the entire time because they trusted me the entire. Throughout the entire process. Right. So the next thing we're going to go into how to build a trusting relationship. So going back to training, the reason why people never left me was because I created such a relationship. I created a relationship, like, to the point where somebody want to go have lunch with me or have a beer with me, they're just like, man, I like Mitch as a person. He's now not my personal trainer. He's my friend. And if people can start thinking of stop being someone's roofer or general contractor, become their friend. Because once you become someone's friend, they know like and trust you. That whole thing is just done. It's done. You know what's funny, Adam, is this last year, I'm going to give you kind of a story. So I knocked on this guy's door. He got hit with Hale and Keller. It actually took me probably like three months to follow them to finally get him. So I finally get them, get the roof, bought everything like that. The roofing crew were using pipe Jack just falls into the the attic, hits the AC line, they shingle over the PVC pipel okay, this is not how we do business. We fire these people, just so you know. But anyways give you context. Yeah. Created a leak in one of their rooms. Whole room was destroyed. But guess what? He gave me a referral. Why?

Took care of it.

He said, right as it happened, he gave me a call. He said, hey, Mitch, water's coming into my room. I said, hey, don't worry. I'll be there in 10 minutes. I left what I was doing. I was actually eating lunch. I threw it away, drove to his house. I said, hey, don't worry. We're going to take care of this. Brought the field managers in. We started doing demolition. We started to humidifier, everything like that to make sure there was no mold. We had to tear out to some of the ceiling, had to rip up the carpet. Gave me a referral the next day. I said, chris, you didn't have to do this, man. We obviously destroyed your house. Why? He said, mitch, look, you've worked with me this entire time. You've been prompt, you've been trustworthy. And he said, look, I know you're going to take care of it. And it was just, it was crazy to me that somebody, you damaged their home where they live in, and they still give you somebody that they that's a friend of theirs and still trust you even though you damage their property. So my thing is, this is no matter what's happening in a project, maybe, maybe a project's going to go into crap, and you're just like, man, this person's not going to refer me. I beg to differ. If you just continue to become very customer service oriented, making sure that you're catering to their every need, making sure that you're doing above and beyond things, you're going to turn that Person who was pissed off to a raving fan. And it's happened a few times with me. So just for context, building a trusting relationship. What can actually happen when you do that? So how do you build a trusting relationship? Well, like I talked about, it's every interaction you have with somebody. Don't always talk about the roof. Don't always talk about the project. Get to know that person. Get to know what do they do for work. So my background being in personal training, you got to think about it. When you're in a session with somebody and they're dying, you know, you want to kind of get them out of thinking they're dying and throwing up to, like, have conversation. Right?

Yeah.

So when. When it came to roofing, I wanted to get to know the people. I wanted to know what you did for work. If you're working on a massive house. What do you do for a living? How do you, like just. I just want to ask.

Yeah.

And get to know their hobbies. Do they have any kids? What do they do for fun? Where do they go for a restaurant? All these things. Vacation spots. Because what do you think happens when. When. When I ask that, what do you think then happens? Adam?

They ask you questions back.

They ask me questions back. Right. Then what happens when that occurs?

You're throwing. I don't. I'm not able to play along as well right now. More conversation. When you build a relationship.

Exactly. You start building a relationship now, you've become. Not just their roofer, you're now becoming somebody. Wow, this guy. There's commonality now. There's not this. He's just my roofer. He's doing the roof. This is man, he likes. He likes to go to basketball games or man, he likes to snowboard, too. Or he likes to go to the same vacation spot. We got the same amount of kids. They go to the same school, actually.

Yeah.

And I think when you can start to build the relationship with somebody and not think of them as a project or money that you're going to make, but you truly care. Because think about it, man, people aren't dumb. They become smarter. They know if you're just trying to ask things because you want to make more money from them or make money off of them. Right. So I just say, truly care about somebody, get to know them. Because everybody has a story.

Everybody. Everybody does. And. And when people. What's. What was Dale Carnegie? I think, unless I'm butchering it, the sweetest word in there in the English language is the sound of their own name. Is that Dale Carnegie or did I butcher. Did I misappropriate? Appropriate. Who said that?

We'll go and say that. That's Dale Carnegie.

If it's not someone drop a comment, please correct me with. With misquoting someone. But what. What's interesting, There's. There's a book that, if you haven't read yet, called the Charisma Myth, and really, really good book, by the way. She talks about people who will say, you're an amazing conversationalist after a conversation. I do this a lot on airplanes. You ask someone a question, and they'll talk at you for, like, two hours and be like, it was really nice having a conversation with you. It's like I said, like, three words, you know, and. But they think that's the bond. So I want to fast forward a little bit in the interest of time for everybody listening, because this. This question's been nagging me. Referral requests. Do you ask for referrals? And if so, how do you ask?

Great question. So anytime I'm doing an install, right, and I notice the neighbors have older roofs, I say, hey, by the way, do you know these neighbors? Mm, more than likely, they know their neighbors. Hey, you know, I'm gonna be here in the neighborhood. Is there any way maybe you can just walk me over there? Or maybe shoot him a text, say, hey, look, my roofer, Mitch, you know, he's. He's working. He's amazing. Hey, by the way, he's gonna stop by later today. He just wants to let you know what's going on or something like that. But typically, they can walk me over there, or they'll just let them know, hey, Mitch is going to stop by, open the door to that, right? I never. I never ask, hey, can you send me people? Can you tell me. Can you. Can you tell your friends and family about me? The reason why I don't do that is because I feel when you do that, it almost comes off as. I'm not gonna say begging, but I feel like you're kind of put yourself in. I guess it could be good if you're putting yourself in a vulnerable position. But I don't do that. I never ask people for referrals. I say, do you know anybody around here? I'll go knock them. And that's. That's literally it. But I'll tell you one thing. I'll tell you one. The reason why I get referrals. The cherry on top is right here. I know we talked about. I don't give them money or I don't pay for referrals. Like, I know some people will say, hey, look, if you give me a referral, I'll give you 200 bucks or $500. Right? This is what I do, and this is why I think I've received the amount of referrals I have. But you have to do everything we've talked about. You have to have customer service. You have to build a relationship. This will not matter if you don't do that. And it's called a post transactional gift. You have to think about this when you go pick up the last check. Sometimes it's awkward. Hey, John, let me know whenever you get the last check. I'll swing by and I'll grab it. Okay, great. But there's nothing at the very end that ties the knot that makes this whole and complete. So what I do, Adam, is I give them a thank you card. And in that thank you card, I'll say, hey, Mr. Jones, thank you so much for allowing me to work with you on this project. Your house looks amazing, by the way. I hope Jimmy has a great first semester at tcu. I know he's going to freaking crush it. But guess what? In there, I give them a gift card to their favorite restaurant. Why? You just told me the very beginning. Yeah, why? Because it's a great experience. It's great food, and it's great, you know, it's a great environment. So think about it. If I gave you a gift card, $200 to Corks, what are you going to do when you go with your wife?

Yeah, I'm going to tell everyone that Mitch sent me to Cork and I had a baller meal.

You had a ball or meal. But at the same time, when you're there, you're gonna say, man, not only was that thank you card amazing, but he gave me something that I told him I like. He listened. And I'm going to my favorite spot that I enjoy.

It's great, man. That's really a fine touch. A really fine touch. And you got to pay attention to the details. So you. You ask, it sounds like every time, what's your favorite restaurant?

Well, the thing is, and it's not. It's. It's. It's. You got to think, two to four months with somebody, the very beginning, when I'm getting to know them, I write this down. It could be. They could have told me two months ago. They could have told me whatever. It's not like the day before. I'm going to go grab the check. Hey, by the Way. What's your favorite restaurant? This is deliberate. And you know what's so crazy is when I go pick up the last check, sometimes I'll let them know, hey, John, I have something for you as a token of my appreciation. Or they give me the check. I give them the thank you card, and they say, what's this? I say, hey, this is just my appreciation for allowing me to work with you. You could have worked with anybody else, but I'm glad you chose me. And I always tell somebody, hey, look, the relationship doesn't end here. If you ever need anything else, I'm here for you. I want to be your roofer, your general contractor for life. So I give them that. And guess what? Typically they. They're either going to open it there and they're going to be just amazed and want to just hug me, or they're going to shoot me a text or give me a call right away and say, wow, that's awesome. That's amazing.

Man. I love it. I got the notes written up behind me, so I want to summarize this. People have asked for the summaries to hit the bullets. You send a personalized thank you note at the end of the project. In the beginning of the project, as you're building this foundation, you get to know people, your friends. You build a great relationship. You're taking notes, casually bringing up what their favorite restaurant is. You document that so this can come back later. You're delivering an incredible service that's memorable, that builds trust, that creates an amazing experience by keeping it fine. Details, you know what's going on. You're there every step of the way. You're holding their hand. They love you. You're 99% above the rest. And then at the end, on the surprise gift that they're not expecting, upon final payment, this personalized thank you note, which, by the way, anyone, there is a thank you note in the battle pack. Do the custom, the customizing, if you're using it on there. The personal detail. I love that touch. That personal touch. You're pulling something that you've talked about with them. I hope your kid does great at this. Enjoy your next round of golf at your favorite country club. The detail. The devil's in the details. And then including the gift card to the restaurant, that's solid, man. And you know what? Is there anything else that you wanted to share? I don't want to transition to anything here too prematurely. I wanted to summarize this. Turn it back to you. Did we miss anything? I know we're going a hair long. Did we miss anything on referrals?

Oh, I would highly advise. I know the time has passed, but send out holiday cards. I send out holiday cards for every past current homeowner. But I also send out for any inspection, any annual inspection people I did not close. It's, it's a thank you card, whatever. But then it also, it's a, it's a photo of me and my daughter. It's those personal things I think is whenever you. Again, if you can differentiate yourself to be a human with this person and show them that you are human, you're not just a roof or a salesperson and you can make them feel a certain way, you can give them an experience. You can give them such great service. Right? The big keyword service that is going to be so referable that you don't have to ask, hey, John, can you just tell your friends and family about me if they want a roof? Roofs aren't sexy, you know, it's sexy experiences and creating relationships. So that's why I've been able to build a referral business of 140,000 this last year. And I know we talked about this, but I'm going to hit about 275 this year. So increase my revenue by a hundred thousand under K and almost did in referrals what I did my first year.

That's awesome. Which by the way, everybody with the referral side, they're the easiest deals in the world and also the most fun. The customers that appreciate you the most. Mitch, thank you for coming on. I want to bring up one thing and the reason I'm bringing this up is people have said, hey, you got to lean in when you need to lean in. And I've been hesitant to do it, but I'm going to do it right now. What you shared is gold, absolute gold. The emphasis on the customer experience is so overlooked and it's not sexy. So many people want to skip to the fast track now. This is where I want to lean in. I agree with you. I don't, I don't believe in the 200 or $500 referrals, period. I do believe in the sometimes it is appropriate to incentivize. I do. My System is a $25 gift card, ideally to each person just for the opportunity to chat with someone who you think it might be able to help. We give the gift card as a way of saying thank you. That way you're not throwing your friends into a sales pitch. It's just like, hey, no Obligation. If we can help them, great. If we can't, we can't. Versus we'll pay you 200 bucks or 500 bucks if I refer them. And then they do the roof. And then four months later we get paid, and then we pay a bunch of money. It just doesn't go so well. So at any rate, that's besides the point. What I want to do is table. You're in sales. What happens when you ask for the business? You close it. What happens if you don't ask for the business? You can't close it. You ask for the business. These referrals come organically. I'm very curious. What would happen if you became more direct in asking for the referrals and you can do it in a tactful way without sounding desperate. The way that I like to do it is just to say, hey, again, priming them. Hey, listen, I take my feedback really close to heart because my mission is to deliver the best experience possible. How have I done so far? And they're like, oh, great, we love this. Excellent. I don't want you to throw anyone into something that they're not comfortable with. As you know, we do roofing, siding, windows, gutters, blah, blah, blah. Who do you know? Any friends, family members, neighbors, or coworkers that I might be able to help the same way I've helped you. And then that way, just that ask primes them. But you're not being. You're not sleazy. You're not greasing their palms. But I just wanted to leave everyone with this because you, I'll say, are a purple unicorn. Your ability to get these referrals. There's other things, I'm guessing, that are occurring in this interaction that it's like the magic secret sauce of Mitch. And I'm wondering what would happen if. And I don't know, this is the joy of testing. But if you leaned in and even just mentioned it to plant the seed as a request. Because the numbers you put on the board, by the way, 140k in referrals is insane income. But I did want to lean into that of you're in sales. Try leaning in and asking, because you might be able to double that.

You know what's funny, Adam? Go ahead, say that. So going into this next year, what I'm going to start doing is the very beginning, like you kind of talked about, is going saying, hey, look, you know, these are the two things I'm going to focus on. You're going to be my best friend. I'm going to give you great experience. All I ask is if I'm doing a great job. If you know anybody throughout this program process that is looking or needs a roof, I would love if you would send them my way so I can see if I can help them. Like, I have you. So I'm definitely thinking of that going in. I'm definitely going to do that next year. I know you can't necessarily always rely on what I'm doing. I wouldn't say, I don't know if it's purple unicorn or if I'm just great at building relationships instantly. I don't know. I think everybody can do this or it will at least give you an opportunity to start making more money. I will say, though, the goal was 300 this year, obviously it was 25 short. As we talked, you said, hey, if you set the goal and you don't hit it, obviously it was high enough.

We came close.

Yeah, I came close. But next year the goal is 400. So the only way I can do that obviously is knocking. But it's going to be talking to people and say, hey, blah, blah, blah.

I love it, man. And I want to just reiterate, I am really grateful that you shared this. This is going to be one of our longer episodes. But the groundwork, it's very hard. You can't say, get referrals by doing great things. You have to walk through the philosophy. You got to walk through how that service. I really appreciate the tactical level of detail. The proof is in the pudding. And when I said you're a purple unicorn, there's things. The reason I say that everything that you gave is golden. And there's a lot of insight into everything that was up here of I can learn this, I can do this. Hey, Mitch said build a relationship by having authentic conversation, ask questions. What do they do? There's a tactical strategy. Give good service.

How?

Show up every step of the way. There's a tactical strategy. Set the right expectations from the relationship out of the gate. Tactical strategy. Okay. Write down their favorite restaurant as you ask. Tactical strategy. Send a thank you note at the end. Personalize it, include a gift. Tactical strategy. These are all things we can implement and I really appreciate it and I hope that next year you hit that goal. I love you. Got to go to the moonshot. I got to say though, honestly, like, I think there's something magical about setting a goal here and coming in short, because that is the fuel that keeps you going. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for being receptive to me leaning in because I don't want everyone here to just sit back and hope because we've all made this mistake in sales, and there's a way to blend the two of being direct. And I'm very curious. I'd love to hear next year, stay in touch. Be like, hey, dude, your advice sucked. I tried it. It didn't work. Or maybe it does. Either way, let's have some fun and play with it. But, Mitch, thank you again so much for just, like, opening up the books, your personal life, and these strategies. Is there anything that you want to leave people with in terms of people getting in touch with you, following you? Anything you can ask of the attentive folks who you've helped or me? Before we call it a wrap today.

I would say my biggest thing, man, is, you know, whatever. Wherever you are in your business, just know it's dependent upon your efforts and just know that you can always change it. Again, going back to my personal life, that's a catastrophe. That's something that could demoralize anybody. But it's the fact of all right, it happened. I have two choices to make. I can either be upset and whine or whatever, why me? Or I can make sure I put my head down and I take care of business. And I just want to say, wherever you're at in your business, whatever's going on, whether you're getting deals, not deals, just know through your efforts, staying positive and making sure that you're staying consistent with your efforts, I promise you, your business will skyrocket. You just have to stay consistent. So that'd be my biggest thing.

Awesome. Mitch, thanks a ton for being here, man.

I appreciate it.