A contractor fired the speaker for getting his team too excited about cross-selling duct-cleaning services. The story shows why referral partnerships work: when someone genuinely believes in what they're selling, others want to sell it too. But that enthusiasm can threaten existing owners.
I got thrown out of an HVAC contractor business because I went in and started building referral partnerships for us. It was my job at my home service business to go find partners to refer us. So I strolled into this $10 million HVAC contractor and I got his whole team fired up about cross-selling us for their duct cleaning service. He called the owner of my company and said, never send this guy in again. They're more excited about selling my services than they are our services. And he was not happy about it. All this to be said, if you have someone who's gung-ho about building referral partnerships in your business. Maybe it's you as the owner. You can go into these businesses and get them fired up about cross-selling you services, them making a bunch of money and using you for your service.
