A short YouTube video (Phil Risher) advising home service business owners that instead of spending heavily on paid ads (Google, Meta, Yelp, Thumbtack), they should pursue local B2B referral partnerships with complementary trades (e.g., epoxy floor companies, garage door installers). The speaker gives a concrete anecdote (garage repair business owner) and recommends offering per-lead referral commissions (suggested amounts: $50–$200) to convert partners into unpaid salespeople; emphasizes referrals are low-cost, effective, and rooted in pre-internet practices.
Chapters
Home service businesses are spending thousands of dollars trying to get leads and customers coming in the door. And they're missing out on the oldest school marketing thing that still generates millions of dollars today, and that is building partnerships with other businesses. I was on a call last week with this guy who owns a garage repair company. We're talking about growing his business. He's like, I tried Meta ads. I tried Yelp, I tried Google. I've tried Thumbtack. I'm like, dude, have you ever just thought about calling epoxy floor companies and saying, hey, a lot of my clients ask for epoxy floor. I don't do that. I'm sure a lot of your clients ask for new garage doors or repairs. You don't do that. Why don't we work together to pass referrals forth? This is the simplest way to grow your business. And guess what? It's free. If you want to give them some type of a referral commission, all you have to do is say, hey, if you send me a lead and I close it, I will give you $50, $100, $200. And now you're paying per customer. And it changes the game because you're not just throwing money at the Google gods or Meta to try to get leads, to try to close these people. You're literally crafting a local B2B strategy that's turning other people, other technicians, other local community members into salespeople for your business lesson here is don't try to overcomplicate it. Before Internet, before running ads, it was referrals, warm referrals, because a great job and you refer people back and forth. That's what you need to do for your business if you really want to grow.
