Build a Referral Machine: Unleashing The Power of Referrals for Carpet Cleaning Success

The best way is to ask directly after you’ve delivered a great service. Handwrite a thank-you note that says, “If there’s anyone you know who might benefit from our services, I’d truly appreciate a referral. Your trust means everything to us.”

Brian Durkin [00:00:00]:

Talk to two people a week. If you talk to two people a week and 100% of them say, yeah, you’re something isn’t right, there’s something wrong one, you’re not talking to the right people. So you gotta find the right people. That’s the most important thing. No agency on the planet can figure out who your perfect referral source is. You have to know. John told us, hey, my a referrals were interior designers, property managers and realtors who sold houses that were over a certain value. And my B1s were the guys that were the dealerships.

Brian Durkin [00:00:26]:

And you’re going to have the same ones in your community because you’re going to know who they are. And if you don’t, shame on you. You need to do it because no agency can run ads to try to figure out who your customers are. And if you do that, you’re going to burn a hole in your American Express card like no tomorrow.

John Clendenning [00:01:21]:

Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting, exciting episode of the Carpet Cleaner Success podcast. And this one, I say that every single time it’s exciting. This one’s going to be really exciting because I talk fast. Brian talks fast. My good friend Brian Durkin from Referral Team Pro and a whole bunch of other stuff that I’ve known him from for a while now, a couple of years now, and we are going to talk about the exciting world. One of those things you hear me talking about all the time about strategic partners, referral partners. Um, Brian knows this stuff cold. This has been his, his, in his brain, in his life for, for, for, for decades.

John Clendenning [00:01:57]:

And he has now got a service and a product and everything else around this because of how important it is and how many, how everybody kind of messes it up and doesn’t do it right. So I thought we could have a really good strategic conversation about, about this whole topic and, and kind of unpack it a little bit, give you some really good strategies to take away from and this is the best person for me to reach out to, to have this on the call. So welcome Brian, thanks so much for jumping on the podcast.

Brian Durkin [00:02:24]:

Hey, thanks, John. And in fact, true disclosure, John was on my podcast. We recorded it a week ago. So depending on when it gets dropped, I warned them, listen to this. At 0.8 speed. So normally, like all these productivity hacks, they listen to the 2x speed. That’s not possible. But here’s what we’re going to provide.

Brian Durkin [00:02:41]:

Ton of value, A ton of real stats, actually. So John and I have known through some mutual connections in our Dan Kennedy world for a couple years now. I think I smacked my truck in Miami, meeting him at one of his Mastermind meetings on a rainy night in Little Havana in Cuba. I do have a good memory. I am a sales guy first. Just remember that. But I think the idea was, is that I’ve been doing this referral component where other people have brought me into huge deals. I’m talking, I’ve done hundreds of millions.

Brian Durkin [00:03:08]:

Like, I’m not. It’s not a BS blown. I’m not puffing my chest. I sold enterprise technology. So a deal could be 5 million, it could be 3 million, it could be 50,000, it could be. They’re all the same. My biggest one that ever signed was 32 million. That was the best thing ever.

Brian Durkin [00:03:21]:

It also took me two years of my life. I almost went broke trying to get it. But the reality of it is, so they do happen and they’re all the same. But the one thing I realized probably a year ago was I just do this naturally. And not everyone does it. Seriously, they do it. My wife spoke at an event just yesterday. This is August of 2025.

Brian Durkin [00:03:40]:

And she asked many people get business through referrals and how do you money do? Like the network and like three people raise their hand. There’s a room of 125 people. And then how many of you guys don’t want to do it, but know the value? And they all raise their hands. She’s like, I think we’re onto something. So the reality of it is, is that referrals matter. But. And they are. If everyone you know, and John, I’m sure will tell you, if you’re in the CCLP world and you’re using his systems, he’s going to tell you, you got to have referrals.

Brian Durkin [00:04:03]:

Your customer referrals are your first source to do that. And there’s lots of great ways to do it. And you need to train whoever’s in front of your client to ask for referrals help. Our cleaning company that cleans my house every once a month, they leave a Little note. Thanks very much. Do you know any neighbors that you could recommend to us? If you do, we’ll do whatever.

John Clendenning [00:04:23]:

And that’s. And that’s the one to one, right? Your real estate agent or your insurance agent sits down with you, leaves a couple of business cards and you feel nice. You leave them on the, on the, on the coffee table for three or four days before you throw them in the garbage. But, but that’s the one to one. And again, if you, if he wows the socks off you and somebody actually asks you at a dinner engagement, hey, I’m looking for a new insurance agent. Do you know anybody? Oh, you know, again, my guy Andrew is a good guy. You might want to give him a call. Do you have his number? No, I don’t because I’ve already thrown out the business card.

John Clendenning [00:04:52]:

That’s the real reality of the world. But you want to make sure that the odd maven, as they call, can go out and tell everybody. But what we’re going to be talking about is that one to many, which is the Chet Holmes Dream 100 Conversation, the Russell Brunson Dream 100 Influencer. If you read Traffic Secret, any of those traffic experts book stuff like that. So that’s what we’re going down. That rabbit hole is, is the one to many where that one part I’ve told all you guys about, like, you know, the real estate agents that we worked with, Faisal being one of them, where I sent a shoe. I learned it from Dan Kennedy, I was a kid. I sent one shoe in the mail, called his gal up and sent a leather shoe.

John Clendenning [00:05:29]:

Cost me a couple hundred bucks, like twenty some odd years ago and said, yeah, this is cheesy. I get it. I want to get my foot in the door. I literally do have the other shoe. It is the right size for you. I already called your gal. Can I sit down and have a meeting with you? He was just a junior ReMax agent. He now runs like a massive office with teams and stuff like that.

John Clendenning [00:05:45]:

And he turned into being a guy that we cleaned a couple hundred square feet of his home to prove that we did a good job and had a great experience. To somebody who generates 10 to $20,000 a year. And many other referral partners have done the same thing. Our chiropractors and stuff like that. But 10 to $20,000 worth of residential cleaning because he recommends us. So we have that endorsed relationship. But it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t get out of my comfort zone and try something at the beginning, which as Brian will tell you, 99% of businesses don’t do they. They just want to hide behind an ad and try and get great leads.

John Clendenning [00:06:18]:

And this is, this is just another pole in the water that can generate massive value to your company. So. So yeah, let’s talk about referral partners. So referral partners, what’s the problem about getting them? Why, why are they so hard?

Brian Durkin [00:06:28]:

One is everyone says they have a referral system, but they don’t. So that’s. Everyone says, yeah, oh, I have a.

John Clendenning [00:06:33]:

System is the key word there, right?

Brian Durkin [00:06:34]:

And so when I wrote my book Stuck on First I talked about process oriented marketing. I didn’. What that meant, right? Because that was a term I coined like 20 years ago because I was like. When I had my tech business in New Jersey, I had a telesales person that would qualify people. I had an inside rep who would put together packages of stuff. And then I became a magnetic marketer. What did that mean? I sent articles about their industry to those people. Why did that matter? Because that allowed me to get deals that were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars while my competitors were going for scraps because we came valuable, really, really valuable partners.

Brian Durkin [00:07:06]:

So that’s how that was the system. Right. I didn’t know it was a system. I was just like hungry and I wanted to make money, so I did that. And so I realized that. So systems, by the way, systems don’t need to be complicated. They just need to be identified and followed like, to the magnet to like the core of like, almost insanity. But.

Brian Durkin [00:07:24]:

So I’m insane. Because I truly am insane. I’m inventing stuff like crazy. If you want to listen to the working genius. And I’m an id, I’m an inventor discerner. So I already, I want to invent something, but I already know it’s the right stuff. So just beware everything I’m telling you 100% true. Because I’m 100% right.

Brian Durkin [00:07:39]:

You can disagree with me, by the way. But so what we started to do over the last year and a half was I have a team of. I’m known as the VA guy. I’ve been working with virtual teams for almost since 1997. Whatever the math is going on 30 years. So when I did it 30 years ago, it was scary. When you do it now, it’s kind of like, well, everyone’s doing it. It’s like a race to the bottom.

Brian Durkin [00:07:59]:

So what I found was, is the more concise we can do like the all the things that everyone should be doing and Just make it easy for them. Right Then that’s what’s happening. So I’ll share with you some stats. So let’s just talk about referrals. So in John’s world, we talk about old customers coming back and then partners referring back to you. So that one on one model, we worked with a client about two years ago, a little over two years ago now, they had a big list so that their average sale was about 500 bucks, maybe $600. They didn’t, they weren’t in the cleaning business. They were in another.

Brian Durkin [00:08:28]:

They were in the wholesale printing business. So they were counting on their retail partners. The retail shops you and I walk into all over the country and all over Canada. And when they have a need for 500 banners for little league opening day or for the football season, the local print shop can print Joey’s baseball picture that says you’re great and the birthday banners, but they can’t do 500. So these guys were like a massive scale one. So we reached out to 2500 of their old clients, said, do you remember us? You haven’t heard from us in a while, right?

John Clendenning [00:08:57]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:08:57]:

So I think it was around 3,000 clients. John, guess how many people said, hey, I, I remember you guys. Keep me in the loop. What’s going on, on specials.

John Clendenning [00:09:05]:

Any idea how 3,000 you said that you reached out to. Yep. Would it be 10? 300?

Brian Durkin [00:09:11]:

Yeah. Good. That would be good. But we sent emails and followed up on them and so we got 800. We got 833 because we were following up.

John Clendenning [00:09:19]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:09:20]:

So I, I’ve talked to John privately. Like when you do multi channel, it doesn’t necessarily always, it’s not always the same. You’re going to get three times the results. Right.

John Clendenning [00:09:29]:

So let’s pause on that for a second because again, we love these to be coaching sessions as a training for people to get in their head. And not everybody has the marketing pedigree that you and I have where we just tried to pick this up. So, so what? There’s going to be some people in the audience are going, okay, so you send an email and all of a sudden you build this massive business. Okay, I get it. And we all, we both know it’s multi touch, multi channel, drip like crazy. Like when I say even your reminder, your annual reminder, at least a send it out notice, hey, two weeks later, by the way, did you get this? Maybe handwritten all over and then a third, one final notice kind of idea. And you can extend that to insane levels anytime you’re doing any marketing, you should be chasing them with unawareness, a second awareness and then a final call to action. FOMO moment and stuff like that.

John Clendenning [00:10:19]:

And then layers beyond that. And you test every, every iteration and you give it to them on different. You don’t just pick up the phone, you don’t just email. What if the email only gets open 30% of the time? You just lost 70% of your potential. You don’t just text message because if you do that all the time, they’re going to just do stop and then you’ve lost that channel. You’ve got to do multi touch, multichannel. Warm them up, let them know who you are. From cold to warm to hot to I’m interested.

John Clendenning [00:10:46]:

And let them funnel themselves down. That’s the marketing mindset that you and I both know when we’re doing marketing that maybe the average business owner goes, oh, really? I just thought I had to email once and nobody answered my email. I guess referrals don’t work.

Brian Durkin [00:10:58]:

And so here’s the scary part. So here’s the first scary thing. I use a very scary word. 3,000 past customers. So okay, great. I started with their first because, okay, that’s scary. I don’t have 3,000 customers. I’m just starting out.

Brian Durkin [00:11:09]:

I’m in a. I mean, my business has. I have handfuls of clients. Like I go, I have, I go on vacation. Relationships with my clients. I’m really blessed. Okay, so, but the idea is like, okay, well, that doesn’t make sense for me. How do I do that? Well, once you go B2B referral.

Brian Durkin [00:11:22]:

What do we mean by B2B referral? You’re both talking to potentially the same customer. Your complimentary businesses and you help each other grow. So all of a sudden you can go from like, okay, I need 3,000 to I’ll share another. These are all true numbers. I can’t share names, but another one. And I’ll share two home services ones that are. They’re similar businesses but different. Highly targeted groups of 2, 5, 300.

Brian Durkin [00:11:47]:

Perfectly. They’re perfect future customer. Right. PFCs or I’m gonna call them. Right. So what do they look like? So a business I’ll use. Let me try to. So let’s just say they’re.

Brian Durkin [00:11:56]:

They’re perfect Customer is an insurance agency in Naples, Florida that has between three agents and 10 agents that are locally owned. You cannot buy a list that has a list of that. That does not happen.

John Clendenning [00:12:08]:

Yeah, right.

Brian Durkin [00:12:09]:

So now when you go to the local BNI meeting, which is we all did when we started. You can find out, do I work for Marsha McLennan, which is a big company, or do I work for a small company? Small companies, like other small companies, it’s easier to do business and refer to each other. Start from there. Great. Well, what do you do? Well, you met them, they’re a target. Hey, John is an insurance agent for Clendenning and Clendening Insurance in Naples. Great. What do you do then?

John Clendenning [00:12:32]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:12:32]:

And so how do you do that? So the first step is identifying your target. The second time is saying, hey, we like each other. We talk about Dan Kennedy, we geek out about this stuff. We had a long preview meeting. That’s probably as long as the podcast is going to be. But we geek, we geek out on this stuff. And by the way, don’t be intimidated that we’re going too much too fast. Pick one or two things that you’re going to hear and, and implement it.

Brian Durkin [00:12:51]:

It’ll make the world of difference. Our little, my little business that my wife and I own is a seven figure business. 100% of our business is by referrals. Right. We have, it’s her and I and a team of. A team of staff that does our work. So I’m just telling you, this is not some un. This is not unobtainium.

Brian Durkin [00:13:09]:

I’m not going to sell you crypto. Like, there’s no, like, I’m not going to sell 2.3 million books today to give you access to stuff. Right. So we just survived her mosey launch.

John Clendenning [00:13:18]:

If you haven’t done it, Hermosi launch on the weekend. Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:13:20]:

And by the way, he did a great job. And John and I agree, he just repackaged other people’s stuff. He took the best of this guy and that guy and that guy and that guy and that guy. And he still, if you looked at the audience, the people behind the screen, they were probably people from the gym business, the supplement business, the opportunity business, under the age of 30, which is his niche because he’s under the age of 30. So he did a great job.

John Clendenning [00:13:39]:

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:13:40]:

So anyway, great stuff. So, all right, geeking out. So let’s just say I’ll use two locations because they’re two different niches, similar industries, about 500 different perfect future clients. Right. About two and a half, 3% said, yep, come and meet me. I’m ready to meet you right now. That’s important.

John Clendenning [00:13:57]:

Yes.

Brian Durkin [00:13:58]:

And because again, we position them as, hey, we’re in the same industry, we’re servicing the same client. We’d like to. We should know each other so that we can refer each other. Business. That’s important. Because I don’t. You don’t want them to give you business. You want to be giving first.

Brian Durkin [00:14:11]:

If you give first, you’re going to get later. Right. And you have to actually stay good with that. You can’t just. That’s. They will smell that from 10,000 miles away.

John Clendenning [00:14:20]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:14:21]:

Do not do that. Just be careful that doesn’t do that. But here’s what’s crazy, and this is why I’ve been talking to all my friends is like, almost 28% of the people we talked to said, yep, that’s great information. I’m not ready right now. Yes, please keep me in your list. And they’re like, well, we’d like to get more appointments. And our response is marketers going, you got almost a third. So almost 80 people out of 250 people are saying, either I have an appointment or I want to keep in contact with you.

Brian Durkin [00:14:45]:

Because just because you want to sell doesn’t mean they want to buy, right?

John Clendenning [00:14:48]:

Yes.

Brian Durkin [00:14:48]:

It’s incredible that. And then you realize that because they’re not acting that way, because they’re looking for the 1% of people walking around, plugging their umbilical cord in that. That’s a huge opportunity for you as a small business. Right. Trying to get more referral businesses. Right. Because if you. In this case, I’ll do the math.

Brian Durkin [00:15:06]:

The average customer deals about 7,500 bucks. I did some math. Let’s call it. So let’s say their average deal was $7,500. If they had four report. If they had four referral partners, just four, giving them four jobs a year. So basically one a month. That’s $125,000 business.

Brian Durkin [00:15:23]:

I mean, that’s just like saying, so now you’re gonna. You can go run ads and you. How. And John can tell you, I’m gonna build the audience. I’m gonna spend X amount of dollars. Your average lead cost gonna be X. Your close rate’s gonna be Y. You should do that as well.

Brian Durkin [00:15:36]:

I’m not saying. Stop that.

John Clendenning [00:15:37]:

It’s polls in the water. It’s. This is just another pole in the water that you. You scale to the point where you. It’s. It’s. It’s all of the above. Not.

John Clendenning [00:15:45]:

It’s not. It’s not. It’s. You need to do.

Brian Durkin [00:15:47]:

You need to do personal events, you need to do your personal referrals. You need to do all that stuff. This is Truly Abraham’s Parthenon theory, right? You have to have at least five pillars to hold up the capital. So you should never have one. One’s the scariest number of business. One customer, one channel, one thing that is the scariest thing. So this is meant as a supplement to it. Right.

Brian Durkin [00:16:06]:

But when you think about it, I had, I had a big agency owner saying, well, that business doesn’t scale, you’re right, but it’s just profitable as hell because not all of your channels are going to fail simultaneously if it does.

John Clendenning [00:16:16]:

So. So when somebody is. So you reached out to somebody. We call the core four. We talk about in, in cleaning world, it’s interior designers, real estate agents, made services, and flooring store owners. Those. That’s the core four. And then beyond that, anybody who’s in front of your audience.

John Clendenning [00:16:33]:

I realized Mercedes and BMW dealerships were in front of our ideal client. Most of our clients, when I went to stop by, drop off rugs, meet the team, do that kind of stuff because I wasn’t in the truck the first year and a half, I saw that they had Beamers and, you know, and Mercedes and Jaguars and all in their driveway. So I started chumming up with the general managers of, of those places and eventually got a referral relationship from a couple of them as well to mail to their database and in exchange for free cleanings in their office. And, and so because I’m like, I’m not referring somebody to buy a car, but I am giving them give to get, give to get. Let me, let me come to your home and do a whole bunch of free cleaning.

Brian Durkin [00:17:11]:

Come and do a test drive, get a free cleaning of your office.

John Clendenning [00:17:13]:

Like they’re going to get exactly that stuff, right? So, and then you can expand it from there once you get past the core four. But when you reach out, and again, as Chet Holmes says in the Ultimate Sales Machine and stuff like that, and his daughter, now that runs the service, that 3% is ready right now. The next group is interested, they’re just not ready right now. So you stay in touch. And that just sounds great. You and I know, oh, I’ve got a whole bunch of ideas. What stay in touch means the average business owner going, well, how do I stay in touch? What do I do?

Brian Durkin [00:17:40]:

So one is right, so one’s being relevant. And then because I am an id, I said that earlier, I invented a series of assistants to help out because you could sit down and say, you can say, hey, like I always tell people, the simplest thing to do is talk about what you what you’re what you’re known for. If you know Brian, he talks about baseball, his kids, family and travel. That’s what, that’s what I’m about. You talk about your community. I love where I live. I live where you vacation. And then oh by the way, if you need some help with some referrals, I would love to be able to help you.

Brian Durkin [00:18:10]:

And so we created an assistant where you just talk to it in English. I want to talk about my trip to Springfield, Missouri.

John Clendenning [00:18:17]:

Okay.

Brian Durkin [00:18:18]:

I want to talk about the great canoe race that just happened a month ago. It’s just like this idiot race. We have season in the. So it’s a tour. It’s the thing at the end of the year where all the service people get together, drink a lot of beer and race canoes to see who has the fastest canoe race. So the servers for this hotel and this restaurant, they all have. It’s a big blow off thing. Right.

Brian Durkin [00:18:35]:

So and then, and then. And oh by the way, here’s my call to action. Right. So not only do we get good. I use that personally. But only do we, do we not get. Not only do we, we not get good engagement, but when they’re ready to buy, they’re always talking about whatever you’re cool, whatever you’re known about. Brian, I follow you on social.

Brian Durkin [00:18:53]:

I know you talk about your kids and I’m watching your kid go through the baseball ranks.

John Clendenning [00:18:57]:

How so Real authentic storytelling messaging going out in the mix. Just stay. It’s hard to see because nobody wants.

Brian Durkin [00:19:03]:

To talk about themselves. That’s why we created the assistant. Right. And there’s some magic. There’s some magic.

John Clendenning [00:19:07]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:19:08]:

Makes it better and better and faster. But that’s one of the key. The key rubs and then stay in contact with them consistently.

John Clendenning [00:19:14]:

Then where do you. So where do you stay in touch with them? They get emails, but sometimes emails if they are value.

Brian Durkin [00:19:20]:

So. So we talk about multi touch depending on the value. Right. Because this is where the, the owner comes in. Hey, these five are my kind of. They’re my dream 100. I really want to do business with these five people.

John Clendenning [00:19:30]:

Okay.

Brian Durkin [00:19:30]:

What else could we do?

John Clendenning [00:19:31]:

Well so sorting your list. There’s another sorting your list. Everybody write that down.

Brian Durkin [00:19:35]:

Google things. Hey, could you send them a little, a little thank you card. Go go to the, go to the bookstore and buy. Buy a little print thank you cards. Hey John, it was. I’m looking forward to get to know you. I hope we get a chance to have coffee soon. Here’s my business Card.

Brian Durkin [00:19:49]:

Boom.

John Clendenning [00:19:50]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:19:50]:

Drop it in the mail a week later. Drop a phone call, drop an email to them you’re going to get.

John Clendenning [00:19:55]:

And one of the ones I’ve suggested that I used to do is when I read a really good book back in the day, I would go buy 10 other copies, write a little note on the inside sleeve, and send it to the ones that could be huge for me. Like, the bigger. Like. Right. So I would just. I learned that from a good friend of mine that’s been on the podcast before, Sean Barrett. And that was. Again, it’s a Dan Kennedy strategy.

John Clendenning [00:20:15]:

We all kind of learned from there. He was ahead of me, and he would do that. And it was. And I go. And that’s amazing because that’s that property manager. That’s that, you know, the maid service that has, you know, you met. You met them for lunch, you had a conversation. You may talk them on the phone, and you found out they have 500 customers in the local marketplace.

John Clendenning [00:20:32]:

Why would you not send them a book for 20 bucks or 15 bucks and pop it in the mail and say, hey, I read this book and just. You popped it. Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:20:39]:

Right. I talked to you about what I did 25 years ago. I had no idea. I was lucky enough to work with guys that were writing articles that were in magazines.

John Clendenning [00:20:46]:

Yes.

Brian Durkin [00:20:47]:

Whenever they publish something, they would say, hey, I’m publishing this next month in Network Journal, whatever. Why don’t you send this out to these 10 people you’re talking to again? CIOs, Fortune 100 companies. How do we stand out? And so we would go to meeting. We went to one meeting with a massive insurance company, and they said, okay, guys, I want you to know that we have the people in the room that wrote the book. These two guys wrote a textbook that. There it is on my shelf. And then here are their articles and the other stuff. And here they are speaking at conferences.

Brian Durkin [00:21:15]:

Right. So.

John Clendenning [00:21:16]:

And that’s. So that works so well that even. Who was it that is in the Kennedy world? Like, so Gary Halbert talked about ripping the headline off of a. You know, in your. In that news trade magazine and sending it out as if you. And put a sticky note on it. But do it in mass. Right.

John Clendenning [00:21:29]:

Do it. Do it. Because you’re, you know. And there became a company. I can’t remember who it was, but even in the Kennedy world, that. That’s exactly what they did. They would actually print on newsprint. Looks like you ripped it out.

John Clendenning [00:21:40]:

But it became a product because it’s that good. Right. So These are the things you need to think of like if, if somebody doesn’t answer a message, like you don’t want to send an email, send a piece like a mail in the mail to them, like the thank you card, but also, you know, something else. And then if you don’t hear back from them, what we did is we bought those little trash cans and we’d crumple it all up a second and put it in and say tape it and, and they get a trash can in the mail and they go what the heck’s it? They rip it off and it’s like they pull it out and it’d be the same sales letter but with a notice on the top. Hey, I found this in your trash. I’m not really sure you wanted to throw it out.

Brian Durkin [00:22:10]:

There you go. No, I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to pause for a second. That sounds hard, John. That sounds.

John Clendenning [00:22:16]:

No, again, again that’s what we hear from everybody is oh my God, that sounds. I don’t have time to be that deep of a marketer. I don’t know how to do that yet. So again, how do you shortcut that?

Brian Durkin [00:22:28]:

Five, five people a month. In a year you’ll talk to 50 people. If eight people give you jobs worth X amount at that’s the whole. So we’re trying to simplify it.

John Clendenning [00:22:38]:

So 10 to $20,000 from a referral partner should be your goal per year. From a quality like a real estate agent, interior designer, maid service, they should hand you 10 to $25,000 of or 10 to $20,000 of first time customer transactional jobs that we all know you turn into the lifetime value of another 5, 10, $20,000. Because half of them you retain for the next 5, 7, 10, 20 years in your company. And there’s your million dollar carpet cleaning business right there. So right, we’re trying to get you to a million.

Brian Durkin [00:23:09]:

Right. So the rob 90% of companies, 93% of people never get to a million, whatever the number.

John Clendenning [00:23:13]:

Exactly.

Brian Durkin [00:23:14]:

Massive. Right. So we’re trying to get you from the hobby, get you on the truck, whatever it is, get you off.

John Clendenning [00:23:18]:

And it takes work and it takes.

Brian Durkin [00:23:19]:

Effort, it takes work. And these are the things. And by the way, the reason why this sounds hard, it’s well, if you want help, we can help you. But the reality of it is is you can do this all yourself. And so I’m literally not hiding. This is a console, like you can do this yourself. I have an enterprise client. I will tell you that he has a big list that we’ve been working together for years.

Brian Durkin [00:23:39]:

Our best performing campaigns are thank you cards.

John Clendenning [00:23:43]:

Yes.

Brian Durkin [00:23:44]:

Thank you emails. And you know what the email, guess what the email says. Thanks for the opportunity to help you with your recent project. I saw that Joe was there on Tuesday. And then they get a, they get a little handwritten card. We use some tech.

John Clendenning [00:24:00]:

Hey.

Brian Durkin [00:24:00]:

Hey Joe. I didn’t hear back. If there’s. I’m assuming no news is good news. If you need anything to help, here’s my card. Right. Sending this as a 20 million dollar services company, sending it out. So it works at all levels to all types of clients.

Brian Durkin [00:24:13]:

This is an industrial company selling to factories that make.

John Clendenning [00:24:19]:

Nobody gets it. Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:24:20]:

So it doesn’t.

John Clendenning [00:24:21]:

If you’re not.

Brian Durkin [00:24:21]:

It’s no different.

John Clendenning [00:24:22]:

Nobody gets a handwritten note anymore. So if you’re not sending out a A to every customer you’ve just cleaned first time, repeat. Thanks for coming back. Is good, better, best everybody gets. Hey, thanks so much for having my text over. Blah blah blah. And it looks handwritten or it is handwritten. Choose better.

John Clendenning [00:24:36]:

Actually thanks for the first time. Thanks for coming back. You know, even a little bit more of a nuance. That’s one to one Again, one to many is us. You know, again, whether you reached out to them, you stay in touch. And every now and then it’s a thank you card.

Brian Durkin [00:24:53]:

So it definitely works. It doesn’t matter what it is. You got to be a little different because here’s the deal. Your competitors are giving up after one, maybe two emails. Right? So everyone’s asking for referrals, they’re giving up. Right. So that’s one set. So think about it.

Brian Durkin [00:25:07]:

250 people. Just a highly targeted list. You can start with 25 yourself. Right. I just want to talk to two people a week. Because if you talk to two people a week, after a year, it’s 100.

John Clendenning [00:25:16]:

You’ve, you’ve landed referral partners that are worth 10 to 20,000.

Brian Durkin [00:25:19]:

But you have to do it.

John Clendenning [00:25:21]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:25:21]:

And you have to consistently. Another. I’ll share another stat. So we have a, we have a member who’s in the overflow CPA business. He has an outsourced kind of bookkeeping business. And so we were going after property managers and end user clients. All this stuff. What we found was, is that CPAs need overflow work, but they don’t need it all the time.

John Clendenning [00:25:40]:

Okay.

Brian Durkin [00:25:41]:

So. And so we found that out because we experimented with our offer and said we’d like to be able to help you. And so we found a little niche. And so it’s, it’s. It went from projects to now consistent people to now small teams of people doing overflow work and regular work for CPAs. And we literally started realizing, hey, there’s a, there’s a market for this. It’s a hybrid model, whatever. And so we learned.

Brian Durkin [00:26:01]:

You talked about your core four. We picked three markets to go after. And after two months, we figured out that two were just garbage.

John Clendenning [00:26:09]:

They were just so most people fire kickers, never engaging.

Brian Durkin [00:26:12]:

Yeah, it’s great. But we already have some. Somebody great. But we already have. So I’m like, so. Because what we thought. And I said, well, if you think it’s right, I don’t have any knowledge of your business. I can’t tell you.

Brian Durkin [00:26:22]:

But we’ll test.

John Clendenning [00:26:23]:

No.

Brian Durkin [00:26:24]:

Guess what the magic number was. We used to test it 250.

John Clendenning [00:26:29]:

Okay.

Brian Durkin [00:26:29]:

When we got 250 people. And we. Because, you know, we call email other stuff. So your response rate’s going to be somewhere between, you know, 10 to 20, 25, whatever the. You get a hold of and when.

John Clendenning [00:26:40]:

You’Re getting that number. Statistically, yeah, it’s just the way it works.

Brian Durkin [00:26:43]:

Right? Any niche, any industry that’s. Yeah, you’re gonna have them do something. Some of them, they’re gonna either open the mail, they’re gonna like whatever it is when we.

John Clendenning [00:26:51]:

So that’s again, that’s another magic lesson because a lot of people think, oh, I sent out a couple of emails. It didn’t work. I. That’s good to know.

Brian Durkin [00:26:58]:

Right?

John Clendenning [00:26:58]:

Because yeah, like, you know, I’ve had people say, john, can you turn this off? Because I had a customer call me and think it’s too many messages. I’m going, that’s interesting. So we’ve sent over to that. Over to over 500 customers of yours so far. In the first three months. You’ve had one come back and complain. You want to turn the whole system off. That means 499.

John Clendenning [00:27:17]:

It’s a good pace. They’re not overwhelmed by it. So absolutely. Yeah. You need to have statistically significant data. So you have to have enough interactions that you can. You’re not making a decision based on time of year, weather, politics, war, like. And then you also have to understand that what is.

John Clendenning [00:27:36]:

What is an acceptable Karen rate, if you want to call it that, what is an acceptable rate? Where it’s. And 15, 20% of people complaining means you’re probably pushing pretty close to a good part. 5% of people complaining. You’re probably not pushing hard enough. There’s probably more you could do because it’s not enough people going, okay, now you, you now that’s too much because the rest of them are keeping up.

Brian Durkin [00:27:59]:

So I’m going to stop John again because he’s already gone to like big percentages. Talk to two people a week. If you talk to two people a week and 100% of them say, yeah, you’re something isn’t right, there’s something wrong. One, you’re not talking to the right people. So you got to find the right people. That’s the most important thing. No agency on the planet can figure out who your perfect referral source is. You have to know.

Brian Durkin [00:28:17]:

John told us, hey, my a referrals were interior designers, property managers and realtors who sold houses that were over a certain value. And my B1s were the guys that were the dealerships. You’re going to have the same ones in your community because you’re going to know who they are. And if you don’t, shame on you. You need to do it because no agency can run ads to try to figure out who your customers are. And if you do that, you’re going to burn a hole in your American Express card like no. Tomorrow.

John Clendenning [00:28:40]:

Yes. So that’s why this is hard is because it’s not only am I staring at a screen over here of referral team pro system that you’ve set up and again, this isn’t a sales pitch for that, but it’s five touches, five different mechanisms. So postcards, emails, phone, social media and things like that. So there’s 25 alone. Have you. Can you think through 25 interactions? And when you need to start talking about success stories, when you need to start talking about other people who are already referral partners getting wins and, and, and, and your again your little family history and, and what you’re all about because people, at the end of the day, people connect with people, not brands. You’ve got to stand out. There’s a reason why you said that somebody who is running the mom and pop business is, loves and respects other mom and pop business owners versus the one that’s hiding behind the fact that they own a franchise or a brand and only want their face on it.

John Clendenning [00:29:34]:

They are not as engaged. They’re hoping that other marketing will work for them because they’re not engaged in the community as much. Right.

Brian Durkin [00:29:41]:

So saying franchises are bad, we’re not saying.

John Clendenning [00:29:43]:

No, not, not at all. But some, some franchise owners are smart. They go, I own the franchise. But here’s why I bought it. Other guys go, don’t even talk about me. My general manager runs it. I’m on the golf course. I don’t even want to be known.

Brian Durkin [00:29:53]:

Right, Right.

John Clendenning [00:29:53]:

And there’s a difference. So one of them will be a great referral partner. The other one couldn’t care less about you. So.

Brian Durkin [00:30:00]:

So I’ll. So I’ll. I’ll mention someone that. John. John, I don’t think you know Ben Glass. Ben Glass is. He’s a person. He’s a personal injury.

Brian Durkin [00:30:07]:

What do you know about Ben Glass?

John Clendenning [00:30:09]:

I know the. Vance introduced me to me. To him. Him. Me. And I talked to his wife at the 1. The event that Vance and I went to.

Brian Durkin [00:30:16]:

So here’s what you don’t know about him. He has been a soccer referee for 50 years.

John Clendenning [00:30:19]:

Did not know that about Ben.

Brian Durkin [00:30:21]:

Right. So. And when he got sick, he had a. Had a heart problem. Dan Kennedy sent a note around that says, oh, yes, I guess lawyers do have hearts because there’s only one good one. I know. And his name is Ben Class. Right.

John Clendenning [00:30:32]:

That’s awesome.

Brian Durkin [00:30:33]:

So anyway, because Ben is known for his commitment to. He’s over 2.

John Clendenning [00:30:39]:

Soccer.

Brian Durkin [00:30:40]:

Because he’s been roughing his kids. Ref. He does his grandkids. And then he has, I think 10 children. He has four of his own. And he adopted four or five kids out of China and has been raising them. So he’s in his 60s. I don’t know how old he is.

Brian Durkin [00:30:52]:

Sorry. Ben, if you’re listening to this, I think he’s got teenage kids. And even though he has grown, he has grown kids with grandbabies. And I’m pretty sure some of the kids he adopted are now having their families too. So. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:31:03]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:31:03]:

So, yeah, that’s his core.

John Clendenning [00:31:04]:

He’s got a lot of stuff to talk about. That personalizes him. This is the point of that is personalizes him with his audience. Because again, and the agent, like the tools that you’ve built. It’s part of that is how do you get those stories out of your head if you’re not a good writer, if you’re not. How do you actually tell people your story? Create the personality, the authenticity, and then still be able to sort of casually, ethically turn the corner into the business relationship you want to build. So you build a rapport relationship when you’re not face to face. Try and do it face to face, but this is before that and then.

John Clendenning [00:31:38]:

But you’re building it the right way. You’re not going. Our company is great. And we have the color blue on our logo. And, like, it’s not that. It’s like, hey.

Brian Durkin [00:31:48]:

Yeah, you know, on.

John Clendenning [00:31:50]:

The side of every truck.

Brian Durkin [00:31:50]:

Been in business since 1992. We aim to please.

John Clendenning [00:31:54]:

Yes. 100 satisfaction guarantee. Because your competitors say that we only satisfy you 99% of the time. That doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, exactly. But.

Brian Durkin [00:32:03]:

So, all right.

John Clendenning [00:32:03]:

Yeah. So we’re building. You’re talking about doing it authentically. Building rapport at scale with the right testing. So these are. These are the things that we’re learning from. This is the right testing. To get.

John Clendenning [00:32:14]:

To test the sequence, you got to test the audience. You got to. And all that kind of stuff. So there is a. There’s a value to this. We know that you should be doing this at a very grassroots level. If you’re not doing it every single week and outreaching and talking to. And sitting down, having a coffee date with a real estate agent or an interior designer or any of the core four every week, you’re not doing your basic job to grow your company right.

John Clendenning [00:32:35]:

You’re. You’re trying to do other things that aren’t in your wheelhouse. When you want to get it to scale now, you need help.

Brian Durkin [00:32:42]:

That’s another story.

John Clendenning [00:32:43]:

You either got to learn it or you need help. You know, it’s something.

Brian Durkin [00:32:47]:

We’ll do it for you.

John Clendenning [00:32:48]:

Who not how. Who not how? So, Right.

Brian Durkin [00:32:51]:

And so let’s just talk about. So you said something a couple times. So scale in. In my book, which you can get on Amazon, I don’t even use as a lead magnet anymore, I talk about meaningful scale because it’s not everyone. I realized this weekend I had one of my friends going. I said, I don’t want to be Alex Hormozi. I don’t want to need to sell 2 million books to get a Guinness Book of World Records to affect it. Because he said he wants to help more people.

Brian Durkin [00:33:13]:

I just want to help more people. Whether I help 50 or 100 or a thousand, whatever.

John Clendenning [00:33:18]:

We don’t all want to be billionaires and all that.

Brian Durkin [00:33:20]:

Well, not even that. He’s just. He’s got no kids. He’s got no family. So to me, family is more important. He seems to work all the time, which is great. I work a lot, too.

John Clendenning [00:33:28]:

He’s a part of the hustle culture, for sure. If you can get up earlier, you’ll be more effective.

Brian Durkin [00:33:33]:

Yeah, yeah. But it’s just like. Well, yeah, I’m trying to create legacy.

John Clendenning [00:33:36]:

It’s not a balance family.

Brian Durkin [00:33:37]:

So I Don’t know. You need to do that. So that stresses a lot of people out. So I’ll tell us a true story about our business. We have an interior design business. We got our business 100, 100 by referral. Last year, three referral partners brought in $800,000.

John Clendenning [00:33:50]:

Yep.

Brian Durkin [00:33:51]:

So, exactly. So. And what were they?

John Clendenning [00:33:53]:

So your marketing expense is treating those referral partners. Right. Your marketing expense is, is those people are gold to you. And so they don’t get ignored. They get, they get, they get the bulk of the budget of, of your marketing. And a lot of times you’re meeting them, you’re taking them for dinner, you’re doing the things that you need to do. Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:34:10]:

And by the way, your budget is just being genuine and present and saying. Exactly, we should go out to dinner. We like, enjoy hanging out because if you solve their problem. And by the way, two industries, property managers and remodeling contractors that get hired through referrals to property managers. Huh?

John Clendenning [00:34:25]:

Yes.

Brian Durkin [00:34:26]:

Shocker. Now, Pam does a lot of work in high rises. That’s just how it works. But amazing. How about that? Two different referral sources. 800,000 now. Oh, it must be nice. You live in a wealthy area, you’re average.

Brian Durkin [00:34:37]:

No, there’s wealthy people in every community. I guarantee you there are people in John’s, within 20 miles who have a $3 million house and their vacation home somewhere else and their place in Florida, Arizona, wherever there’s somebody there in every community on the planet, they are.

John Clendenning [00:34:53]:

And the brutal truth of that, and I did that on the, the Issa cleanfax, the joint two day symposium that we did in March. I opened the opening address. The brutal truth. And the brutal truth is quantitative easing is done. Money printing is the way we got inflation. The middle class is being pinched. And this isn’t a temporary transient problem. This is a systemic problem that was seen before the pandemic even showed up.

John Clendenning [00:35:19]:

The pandemic just increased the money printers and created the crap that we’re dealing with. The ideal customer, as Dan Kennedy said 20 years ago, and it’s more true now than it ever was, is the affluent, the upper middle class. And the upper class buy discretionary services like carpet cleaning, cleaning service on a regular basis, find their people and use them for life. The middle class is losing that discretionary income and they are deciding between the discount guy or renting the machine themselves. More often now than a year ago, more often a year ago than five years ago. So this, this strategy, not only is it something that should have always been Done. And it’s been, it’s been a great strategy for Time in Memoriam. It’s nothing new.

John Clendenning [00:36:06]:

More for it now, right?

Brian Durkin [00:36:07]:

It’s nothing new. And this is funny. Poor people ask for discounts and rich people ask where they can wire the money. I can tell you I have direct experience with that. Hey, I’m just going, I’m going on vacation. I’m just gonna send you $75,000. Is that okay? Yes, yes, please. You can send me $75,000.

John Clendenning [00:36:25]:

Yes, exactly.

Brian Durkin [00:36:25]:

Figure it out later. So don’t be afraid to work with. And so as you, as you progress through this referral thing, don’t be afraid to go to the high end person in your market. John talked about Guy when he started was X and then he became 10x later on. Don’t be afraid that. And also align with people that have. That align with your goals. Right? So if they have, if there’s some.

Brian Durkin [00:36:45]:

Because that personal connect. I have referral partners from 20 years ago. Like we might fall out of touch for two years. And it’s like we feel like, you know, I had someone on my podcast.

John Clendenning [00:36:53]:

But they still feel like a friend from high school, they still feel a.

Brian Durkin [00:36:56]:

Brother from another mother. Like, where, where have you been? I haven’t talked like, it’s just like you literally. So you’ll find referral partners and hopefully customers that feel that way because those, you know, they talk about penetrate and radiate is like this sales crap that, you know, got to get in and get there early and just give them a nubble, a nibble and then keep up selling them. No, just provide real value, make it about them. And once you make it about them, everybody’s a winner. And so I mean that’s just.

John Clendenning [00:37:20]:

And even on the back end of that, make sure that again as you’re finding referral partners again, it’s there. It isn’t just like, oh, there’s the magic key. On its own, it is a piece of the puzzle because if, if you are got technicians and they’re showing up smelling bad, spitting out the window of the truck, sitting, texting the girlfriend, getting pissed off and screaming before they walk in the door, don’t have a routine, they don’t deliver a client experience. The thing I’ve been flown around the world to teach for 20 years now, how to deliver a client experience, how to craft one, how to build one, the Walt Disney process kind of idea and all that, if they don’t have, if you haven’t sort of delivered a great client experience, then if, if somebody, you generate a referral partner and they refer you and that first or second person that you clean for has a crappy experience or it’s not consistent. One person said they’re amazing. The next person said, I don’t know really if I like those guys. It was kind of really rough. You’re never getting another referral again and you broke the relationship.

John Clendenning [00:38:17]:

So understand that again, all of it still sits in the same sandbox. It’s all little pieces of the same pie. And you’ve got to make sure that you’ve, you’ve got your, your, your shit. In order to be blatantly honest, you’ve got to do deliver a great experience that’s consistent. Every single time that you’ve choreographed, you’ve got a process so that it feels great to the end user and they go, I have no effort referring you. And then as soon as you do that referral job, you get feedback from them. You might not get a Google review. Sometimes you will, sometimes you will.

John Clendenning [00:38:46]:

But get feedback from all of them and send that feedback back to the referral partner and go, look, thank you so much. And they were so happy. I really appreciate it. By the way, here’s your referral reward if that’s what you’re doing or here’s whatever we’ll get whatever the end game is on that, how you’ve built your program, you tell them about this happy customer story back to them again as well. So you create case studies out of the people that they referred to you and you do, that’s a little piece of it. But because it’s like the dog treat, if you want the dog to sit and pee on the pee pad, every time it goes to the pee pad, give it a treat, give it a treat. Eventually the dog doesn’t need a treat to go to the pee pad. And I’m not saying our referral partners are dogs, but what I am saying is if you can reward the relationship, then you get a chance.

John Clendenning [00:39:26]:

You get the grace, the period to build it. You get the grace period to cement it into these lifelong friendships, you know when they appear. But if you didn’t get past go because you screwed up the very first referral, you’ll never, you’ll be somebody that you wave to in the drive through because you’ve seen them and you took them out for lunch once and they have no interest in talking to you ever again.

Brian Durkin [00:39:47]:

So yeah, John had a couple, a couple good points. So once you get to higher dollar values once, the average job is 2, 3 5, $10,000 for a single project. Right. The, the reward mechanism isn’t dollars, it’s recognition and experience. Right. It’s going golfing with them, if that’s their golfers or supporting their favorite charity or whatever. So they’re not necessarily so coin operated, not the affiliate.

John Clendenning [00:40:13]:

Yeah, and we’ve noticed that as well. Some people want that 10% of it. The Howard Partridge one on one, other people say, you know, I don’t want the 10%, just give my clients the savings or whatever. But you do start to realize that they don’t need the cash. They want the they again, they want the relationship, the experience, they want the.

Brian Durkin [00:40:28]:

Resource because they want the help. And you should be also saying, hey, like if you’re, maybe you’re not in a position to refer clients them. I have a lot of clients where it’s just a one way street, but they may have access to training, they may have access to events, they may have other stuff. My brother has a client who sells a commodity pipe and the guy says, I only have one thing. That’s an American Express account with a really big limit on it. So just tell your clients where we go. Every year they do a trip. They went to Costa Rica this year.

Brian Durkin [00:40:56]:

He took 10 people to Costa Rica. Yeah, because he said, I sell a commodity item, it’s sold by the pound, it’s sold by the foot. My stuff is no different. Everyone else’s. The difference is last year he’s outside of Philadelphia. They went to the Philadelphia Eagles game in Dallas. Yeah, the year before, two years ago this year they went to Costa Rica fishing. This summer they went on a fishing tournament in Atlantic City and they won second place.

John Clendenning [00:41:21]:

Yeah, my buddy Sean, that was on, we talked about that on the, on the, on the interview. Like he had the, the, the charity golf tournament every year. And then he would also take guys out golfing, but he also took them, pick them up in a limo, it’s about two hours away from Maple Leaf to go watch Toronto Maple Leafs game. And he would in a limo pick up agents, adjusters or property managers and they would all go down. It was, you know, he would get the gold tickets. He would, why would he spend that much money for one night, you know, drop five, $10,000 for a night of, of schmoozing? Because these guys would be handing him in mass. They, they, he’s developed, developing the relationship. They don’t need a referral reward from the jobs that they’re getting.

John Clendenning [00:42:04]:

They just want to know that he’s doing a great job. For their customers. I’m going to keep referring you and oh, thank you for taking me to the, the, the Leafs game. I haven’t been one to one since I was a kid and that’s the memory. So there’s some people that want, you know, the transaction. But again, as you said, as you upscale, if your referral partner is giving you 10, 20, 30, $100,000 a year worth of work, they might like it. They probably don’t. They don’t, probably don’t want the 10% they want again.

John Clendenning [00:42:33]:

They just want to have a great relationship.

Brian Durkin [00:42:35]:

So we take. We just did this. This is the second time we’ve done it this year. We created. My wife and I created. She has her client side of mine. We created the Naples experience. So we had customers come in for two and a half days.

Brian Durkin [00:42:46]:

As long as they. They flew in to get here and they paid for their hotel. We took care of everything else. We took care of the food, we took care of the event, like, everything. We had a sunset cruise. And you know what everyone says, when are we doing this again?

John Clendenning [00:42:58]:

Yes.

Brian Durkin [00:42:59]:

So we spent a fair amount of money, but we. And every single customer was like, when are we doing this again? Because I happen to live where you vacation. Sorry. It doesn’t suck here. And so we’re like, why are we not taking advantage of our home for our home court advantage? And so I’m going to do a smaller event for prospects and kind of in the fall, at some point, we’re just going to get together for a couple days. I have an office to use. I work at my house. Sorry.

Brian Durkin [00:43:20]:

And we’re going to take advantage of having home court advantage because it’s like, I live where you vacation, so don’t every community has something. Maybe you are. Yeah, maybe you’re giving to the local chair, the local church, or not the church or even a church thing. Whatever you can do. If they have a fundraiser event that has a comedian come in or if you’re doing the local hospital and they have the. One of my friends and a Mastermind member, he’s associated with a hospital charity, a medical charity, and he’s like. And he, he does a customer’s event every year, which is some crazy thing. But then he brings other customers who are sports nuts to the hospital because the Ravens are aligned with the hospital and they all want to meet Raven players.

Brian Durkin [00:43:57]:

So he.

John Clendenning [00:43:58]:

Yeah. So there’s two great. Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:44:00]:

So he pulls in, everyone gets their picture with their favorite Raven.

John Clendenning [00:44:02]:

Yep.

Brian Durkin [00:44:03]:

And they put it on their desk and now they have something memorable to talk about.

John Clendenning [00:44:05]:

Hey, two great strategies there. One, having a customer event, once you get to, you know, scale a couple of trucks on the road, stuff like that. Having an annual customer event in, you know, in the park or wherever in the, you know, and flip burgers and do all that kind of stuff and bouncy castles and all that is a great thing. And then we’re back to what we’re talking about, your referral relationships. Yeah. Do like, you know, write, send out the book, but also invite them to the thing that you’re going. Give them a free ticket to the, you know, the theater. Like, in our area, it’s the St.

John Clendenning [00:44:33]:

Jacobs Theater and it’s pretty well known. Or the Stratford Festival. Have a night where you got, you know, hey, would you like to come with us? We’ve got. We’ve. We’ve reserved a row. Right.

Brian Durkin [00:44:42]:

More. You’re gonna get more memories out of that. Yeah, right then. And that. And that for a lot of people will be like, well, what if they don’t refer to me? And I was like, well, if you don’t make them feel like you’re a part of the same team, they’re never going to refer to you.

John Clendenning [00:44:53]:

It’s like, and what would Robert. What would Robert Cialdini say on that? If you. If you brought them to that event and they were one of the slacker referrals and they’re sitting beside the guy that refers to, you know, how do you know John? Oh, my gosh. Yeah, he. He services all of our clients. I think I probably sent him 50, 60 clients last year. Oh, I only sent him one. Right.

John Clendenning [00:45:11]:

Robert Cialdini, the, you know, like influence and persuasion, whichever book you want to read or both of them obviously, is. That’s reciprocity. All of a sudden. If you give. Or Bob Berg, the go giver. Like, again. Exactly.

Brian Durkin [00:45:24]:

To a reading Florida guy.

John Clendenning [00:45:25]:

You give to get.

Brian Durkin [00:45:26]:

Beach Florida guy.

John Clendenning [00:45:27]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:45:28]:

So anyway, great stuff. So anyway, so I don’t want to overwhelm everybody because John and I could talk about this. We could for four days. So I just. So remember, you don’t need to start big. Right. So just find the right people, start touching them. If you need help, go to referralteampro.com I have a case study that talks about a little bit about what we’re doing.

Brian Durkin [00:45:45]:

And then I’m gonna have a secondary video put out probably by two or three weeks after this podcast drops, where we. We are going to kind of show some of the secrets of, like, how we do it. I’m going to show you behind the scenes of kind of what the tools we’ve created to help make like, hey, what is this person really a good fit for me or could I have my assistant do it instead of me? So kind of like this done with you kind of program where you don’t necessarily have to do that because that’s where you should start. You should totally start on your own. Find 10 people, go do that. Then we’ve got some magic to help you kind of make that a little bit more scalable. And if you don’t want to do it, hey, we’d love to help you too. We don’t have to, but it certainly, it makes it easier and it certainly gets you out of the, you know, once you know what to do, give it to someone else.

Brian Durkin [00:46:28]:

Remember that question that said, yeah, ask the question, you don’t know the answer.

John Clendenning [00:46:31]:

And this is, this is something really in your wheelhouse and you normally, like we did talk ahead of time. You Normally charge like 500 for a consult. Because this isn’t just oh, I want your business.

Brian Durkin [00:46:39]:

This is like, no, this is a real consultation.

John Clendenning [00:46:41]:

Even if you go off and do it yourself. There is a, you know, if you, if you’re brand new and started, just work on it. We’ve got some systems and stuff that we teach you. Meet with Gerard or whoever your success coach with us is and get started. If you’re at that point where you’re now ready to find the who, not how and, and, and do the testing, there, there, there is no sort of light switch in marketing. It is, it is a process. You test, you roll it out and, and everybody stops because they, the ones that stop, 99% people stop because they didn’t run the test long enough. They didn’t find the, the minimum viable.

John Clendenning [00:47:14]:

And Brian will talk to you all about that. So if you want to jump on a training with Brian, just again, referral team pro, go chat with them. And for our listeners, you’re saying that you would, you would waive that initial consultation because it’s not a sales call. It’s like it’s a, it’s a, it’s.

Brian Durkin [00:47:30]:

Not a sales call. There’s nothing to buy. All you have to bring is your brain and a little bit about your customers. Right. And then we’re going to try to brainstorm together on using all my experience and kind of these site. I love finding, we love finding that third door, the other door that you’re not expecting. John’s door where he went to the BMP saw that they were driving BMWs. We’ll help find those in our interior design business.

Brian Durkin [00:47:50]:

I will tell you this. 90% of our clients drive European cars that are four years older. Except for when they got flooded. They, a bunch of them got flooded. So they’re all, some of them are driving like. So they’re not driving the latest, whatever. They’re driving three or four year old, you know, very lovely seven, seven series Mercedes or S class Mercedes. But they’re 10 years old.

Brian Durkin [00:48:12]:

They’re. They’re driving a five year old seven series BMW or a 10 year old five series. But they do have a little Porsche or a Bentley in the back room that you don’t know about.

John Clendenning [00:48:20]:

Yeah, exactly.

Brian Durkin [00:48:21]:

But they all. So, so we learned about like, and we thought they were golfers. They were not golfers. They all have, by the way, they all have three homes.

John Clendenning [00:48:27]:

They have their insane.

Brian Durkin [00:48:29]:

Yeah, they have their main. So when you ask them, say, hey, what do you do? So what would we say? Hey, where do you spend your summer? That would be part of a qualifying conversation, right? Oh, well, you know, we have a place in Connecticut, but we love going to our beach house. Oh, yeah. How can you identify if they have budget without asking if they have budget? Because people that have means don’t want to say, well, have you budgeted for this? Right.

John Clendenning [00:48:49]:

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:48:50]:

You know, Joe Polish talks about him and Kennedy driving around going, why are you advertising in this neighborhood? Nobody in this neighborhood’s paying for carpet cleaning. Don’t drive around and understand your customer. All right, they may be driving whatever. So even when I bought a house, I told the realtors I want to be able to get into these gated communities at night. Well, why would you do that? I want to see who’s here, who’s living here. You can’t tell me who those demographics are. Right. So I’m looking for basketball hoops, I’m looking for things in the yard because I wanted to be around families as referral owners.

Brian Durkin [00:49:21]:

Yeah, people business you can certainly see. Go to an event, you know you want to one, you want to be the one. You can identify who your people are just by conversing with them and by identifying them because you. Everyone’s going to the networking events, which is why people like us, because they don’t have to go to that someone’s there to be. There’s a financial advisor who’s trying to find out, have you secured your financial future? Because he wants to sell life insurance. Right. The coffee guy’s there. Hey, who Brings your coffee in, right? But the ones that are there, that are connectors, they’re the ones you want to meet with because they’re connecting.

Brian Durkin [00:49:52]:

And so yeah, there’s a business and there are businesses that kind of do this on a national scale. We’re trying to basically dumb it down. Put wheels, put, put, put basically wheels around, they’re not wheels, lanes around it. So you know what you’re working with. So it’s not so big, it’s not attainable because the average could be your.

John Clendenning [00:50:10]:

Next 100 to $200,000 growth in your half million million dollar cleaning business. The next 100 to $200,000 hole in the water. If you don’t have a system around, you might have a couple of referral partners that are just got lucky because it was the guy you went to school with. He’s now a real estate agent. He refers you because it’s like, you know, I like Joe, Joe likes me, off we go. But again, that’s not scalable. That’s that. So this is the opportunity to say, hey, I’ve done the basics.

John Clendenning [00:50:36]:

I’m now ready to go to the next level. I need some help.

Brian Durkin [00:50:40]:

And it does work at scale because one of our clients is a big company. And now each one of their sales reps has identified their kind of dream. They’re not dream one hundreds are like dream twenty fives or whatever. And they’re applying to those, to their territory. So it’s the same exact, like the same. I said, whose else is there? Right. And so we had to get really granular and say take pictures of the parking lots. These are again facilities like who’s there? So you can kind of identify.

Brian Durkin [00:51:07]:

They couldn’t. And so we started asking the clients, hey, what engineers do you guys use? We’re looking for some, literally, we are looking for some process engineers.

John Clendenning [00:51:15]:

Who do you use?

Brian Durkin [00:51:15]:

That’s good. Hey, we’re looking for electrical engineers. Who do you use that good? We are looking for mechanical engineers. Who do, who do you work with? That’s good. I mean, so if you’re a mechanical engineer and you’re servicing the diaper factory, you’re certainly servicing the peanut butter factory, right? Yeah, those are. So I’m just saying like all of a sudden that doesn’t become a scary. That does. That’s not a scary thing to ask.

Brian Durkin [00:51:37]:

But yeah, I’ve been doing this for so long, I’m like, I just go, oh, what about. And so that’s what this consulting is about. Like you’re going to find these Third doors you never even thought about because they’re, to me, they’re fun because it’s fun.

John Clendenning [00:51:50]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:51:50]:

And two, they’re work because again, yeah.

John Clendenning [00:51:54]:

And it’s part of the, I always say, like, so a lot of people in, in, in, in the industry, the reason why people get stuck, 95% of all small businesses fail after 10 years. Only, you know, less than 93% ever make a million. All those kinds of stats that we know of, a lot of it is because they identify as the technician, the doer. Go back and read the E. Myth revisited. They don’t identify as the marketer of the services they’re providing. If you’re thinking, if you identify as the marketer, you’re going, dang, I got to go out and clean today. When you’re, when you’re small and just starting out, because I don’t have.

John Clendenning [00:52:25]:

I, I go to go. I’m going to refine my process. I’m going to refine my scripts in front of Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Smith. But I don’t get to market my company until after I’m done doing the technician work. I’m going to hand that hat off as quickly as I can because you should be the marketer of your services and thinking, how do you market every single day? And this is that mindset of that as well as now. This is that third door.

John Clendenning [00:52:45]:

Can you. How can you find another way to get through that door? Learn a few more things. Learn to get, get the marbles out of your mouth. Learn a little bit of lingo and a little bit of stuff. Get the right messaging in front of the right people. Dial it in. And all of a sudden you are now the best known cleaner in your marketplace because you’re, you’re also not just visible everywhere. You’re also the most referred by other businesses, not just mom and Pops, right? So it was one of the ways I would go into a new neighborhood.

John Clendenning [00:53:13]:

I would start by back in the day, the early 2000. I would drop 5,000 flyers a month, up to 50,000 flyers a month back when before postcards, even flyers were out and big pink flyers, if we remember the Joe Polish I was, you know, days and stuff like that. We did yellow one. Jim Wolverton that designed it became a good friend of mine. And we would split test a bunch of different things. But that was just to get awareness. I knew that months would go by before I’d even break even. Right.

John Clendenning [00:53:36]:

It was a new territory. I would be putting out thousands to ten thousands within the first couple of months after those drops went into the ideal neighborhoods, I would now in that new territory meet every real estate agent, interior designer, go into every single flooring store and meet and meet the maid services. And I would just start meeting those people joining their chamber. Sure that again just that hangout or a bni. But I would do the one on ones, meet them, offer to clean their house for free, show them, bring my team in to do it while I stood around and talked about it. And there’s a whole strategy to do that and today and get the ball rolling. So now you got referral partners and you’ve got awareness in the right neighborhoods. And then every time you did a cleaning job, you did your 20 around door hangers and yard sign.

John Clendenning [00:54:16]:

Now you’re starting to build this brand position that the competitors who’ve been in town for 30 years knew nothing about.

Brian Durkin [00:54:23]:

Right.

John Clendenning [00:54:23]:

In the modern world that is Brian and age and and agentic agents and stuff like that, helping you do the heavy lifting that was.

Brian Durkin [00:54:32]:

You don’t want to do that. You’re not going to cold call yourself. You’re not gonna.

John Clendenning [00:54:34]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:54:35]:

You need some help. Right. And so the idea, that’s why one, you want to start small because we can’t. Nobody can amplify what they don’t know. So that’s one.

John Clendenning [00:54:41]:

Yes.

Brian Durkin [00:54:42]:

And two, like because we have to know what success looks like and we’re not in your business business. Right. So as third parties like my job especially is like, I mean I own a home service business. I know by the way the reason why I know what our customer thing is like we do everything we talk about. So we still have a client audition. So people say well you were oh, are you taking jobs? And Pam’s like okay, wait a second. We have a process we go through. I want to make sure we’re going to be a good fit for each other.

John Clendenning [00:55:07]:

Yeah.

Brian Durkin [00:55:07]:

So that we can do that now you can’t. You’re not going to do that in carpet cleaning. You’re going to.

John Clendenning [00:55:10]:

Well there are. We have got some clients that actually do that. Every job has to be a quote and, and they audition the client to them because their average job is $801,000 residential. In a market where the competitors are three rooms in the hall for $99, they’re getting $1,000 because identifying the right client, making sure they’re a good fit. I had George on the podcast recently. His, his biggest refer or his. Sorry his biggest lifetime value client. Single residential client.

John Clendenning [00:55:34]:

He’s went back and checked. He’s been business 19 years. This guy wasn’t customer number one. $200,000 residential client, not referrals, actually jobs in the fellow’s home because he only works with the right people. And one of the right people have spent $200,000 so far in cleaning in their home. Ducks, carpets, tile, you name it, multiple times a year because they entertain, big house, all that stuff. And, you know, again, because George identified the right neighborhoods, the right people, the right. And so you don’t need to be thinking about 5, 10, $20,000 lifetime value if your average job with a client is 1000 bucks.

John Clendenning [00:56:09]:

So there is. Yeah, there is. That is you can interview the client. There’s also. There’s a model for that as well. So. Okay, so I think we’ve gone through a lot of stuff.

Brian Durkin [00:56:16]:

I think we’ve gone through a lot of stuff. So if you’re crying after this, it’s okay.

John Clendenning [00:56:21]:

It’s. It’s okay.

Brian Durkin [00:56:23]:

When I talk to my wife, she just tells me to stop, stop. What do I do? So we’re gonna tell you.

John Clendenning [00:56:30]:

So what do we do? What’s the. What’s the good next step other than re listening to this and taking notes and popping the transcript?

Brian Durkin [00:56:36]:

Certainly this is a writer downer one. So if you have to go back and listen in the office, Absolutely do that. Check the show notes, check out referral team Pro. We’ve got some case studies there. We’re going to talk about a little bit about what we did. And then I’ll have in the contact form, just put a note in there. I put a note in there. So how’d you find us? Just put a note in there that you’re on the pod, that you.

Brian Durkin [00:56:51]:

The Cleaner Success podcast, or, you know, John, whatever it is. And then reach out to me and then we’ll get back to you and we’ll let you know what the next step is and see if we can’t figure out a way to give you some new ideas on how to build your referral part of your business and compliment all the other great stuff you’re doing.

John Clendenning [00:57:07]:

Yep, Sounds brilliant, man. I appreciate you jumping on. I know this is a topic that we could both talk on for forever, but I think we’ve given the value that people can take away and say if they’re already start doing some of this, they’ve got a lot of, oh my gosh, light bulbs. If they haven’t even started doing this. Hopefully we’ve hammered in the reason why this is just a very valuable pole in the water. Even more. So now get started and then start thinking about your who, not hows as you grow your business.

Brian Durkin [00:57:33]:

And if you don’t have 10 books to read from this one, you’ve lost your mind.

John Clendenning [00:57:39]:

That too, Josh, thanks for having me. I appreciate you jumping on by everybody. If you make sure, as always, comment whether you’re watching any of the podcast episodes, or on YouTube or anywhere you’re consuming this, put your comments in, let us know what you think. Any shout outs to Brian, I’ll share them along as well. And definitely, by all means, go to referral referralteampro.com and just check it all out and ping them if if it makes sense. Appreciate it.

Brian Durkin [00:58:04]:

Thanks guys.