referral fees?

[jmack]

o/a

Some of my best customers are also my closest competitors. We don't really have a referral fee arrangement, but will give eachother jobs when we are too busy, or the other needs the work....Usually we just make sure the primary contractor, or customer contact gets somethng on the job.
Ex. I had a job for 650. and started a long term contract that wouldn't allow me to get it done before snow fell, so I gave it to another company that was hurting for work. He took it for 550, so we both made some money, although he did the work. He kept his crew fed another day, and I kept a satisfied customer,.... and beer money.

hey old and ugly, yeah it feels good to take care of each other.we won a city bid for 500,000 the next bid was 625,000 we knew they were a small outfit so it wasnt that off. the crews started working and were promptly accosted by a kook, the town knew him he had inserted himself as a naturalist, he had enlisted the help of a starryeyed firstyear forestry student for fancy footwork, a couple o science facts and a lot of smoke and mirrors, the guy crossed the line, when he began yelling at crews, distracting the op, and complaining and badmouthing us to the city.powderkeg. conferance call the next day we bought out for a dollar and we were happy to let the other guys have the work because we knew they were slow, we always checked in and found no one seemed to bother them, no refereal needed there, you just entered the world of colusion j

 

[Tree Frog]

customer? no way i still can not belive customers are talking to you this way, "nice job your skills are excellent, if you give me money i will exploit you in hopes of more work from my freinds, and i will let you do all the hard dangerous work" shut it down!j

You have a point jmack, allowing people to know that you give commissions on referals is a problem. I perfer to keep this ace in the hole. I am a firm believer in ethics and the fact that passing people's name around should not be a money producing adventure.

Thus far the people that I have provided anything too never expected anything in return. I enjoy suprising people.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Nickrosis]

Matt, I like your approach. This week we were bouncing around ideas about discounts and offers and such. A referral credit like you're talking could be a sweet thing. Say $25 up to $500 then $50 for any job over that - or whatever.

I normally never give anybody a referral fee. I figure that they will give out my name / number if they like the work I did and want to help my company grow. For the first time the other day a customer asked for a referral fee of $100 for a $1000 job. I said that if I got the job I would knock $100 off the bill he has with me right now.

So how do you guys treat situations like this? Do you give out the money or what?

 

[daveyclimber]

they are not pimping you davey they are activly selling your service for a commision j

They are pimping ME , They are personal friends who offered to pimp me for free , I said thats nice , I will give you something for your time . They said thats great , I said thats great . You take care of those who take care of you . Thatnks for your interpetation

 

[Nickrosis]

They are pimping ME , They are personal friends who offered to pimp me for free ,

Does your family know this? Sorry...

 

[daveyclimber]

Does your family know this? Sorry...

Funny

 

[jmack]

davey whore fer cash

They are pimping ME , They are personal friends who offered to pimp me for free , I said thats nice , I will give you something for your time . They said thats great , I said thats great . You take care of those who take care of you . Thatnks for your interpetation

oh my!

 

[B-Edwards]

I wont pay a dime for referral,,, I'll return the favor but pay NO

 

[market]

doing referrals the way I do generally will net me 3-4 jobs a month , so 150-200 dollars a month really isnt a big deal when your average job is $600 . Your looking at around a ten % fee on a way to get 15-20% of my work . Fine by me and it works

one certainly can build a business model around paying for leads / referrals but i seldom hear of it. Paying say 10% of gross for business would seem like a manageable expense, if the referrer could supply a significant volume of business

anybody ever try online lead generation services like you see when you search for "tree service" or "your-city-here tree service"

 

[woodbutcher44]

the fact are there .ads cost $.If you are in a real competive area and the arangement is made for referal fees ahead of actual time of the est. .Thhen a %5 of the actual profit margin in very reasonable.
How ever if the aproch was made aftre tell the customer that you dont usualy do this and if they would like to help wiht expanding your business you will do so in on the next job.
you may find a very useful lead person.