Turning Happy Customers Into Your Best Sales Team with Get The Referral

Referrals are every contractor’s most valuable — and most underutilized — lead source. In this episode, we sit down with Jamey Vumback, founder of Get The Referral, to break down how contractors can transform their customer base into a scalable, predictable referral engine.

We cover why most referral programs fail (hint: lack of process), how to systemize referrals across your team, and how top companies are generating 20–40%+ of their revenue from referrals alone.

If you're tired of rising lead costs and want higher-converting, lower-cost opportunities — this episode is a must-listen.

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Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.

Transcript

Intro: Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors, a podcast for home improvement contractors to help you crush your lead goals and take your business to the next level. Join us each episode as we give you powerful insights and practical tips on the best digital marketing strategies to help you grow your home improvement business. Let's get started.

Caitlyn: Welcome back to Digital Marketing for Contractors, the podcast where we help home improvement companies grow smarter, generate better leads, and build more profitable businesses through digital marketing.

Meredith: Yeah, so today, we are here talking about something that contractors always say they want more of but they often struggle to actually generate consistently, and that is referrals.

Caitlyn: Mm.

Meredith: Because let's face it, referrals close faster, they cost less and they usually come from your happiest customers.

Caitlyn: That's why we're excited to have today's guest with us. Joining us is Jamey. Jamey, your last name? Pronounce your last name.

Jamey: Vumback.

Caitlyn: Vumback.

Jamey: Yes.

Caitlyn: The CEO and founder of Get The Referral, a platform built specifically to help contractors turn their customer base into a scalable referral engine.

Meredith: Exactly. So Jamey actually created the platform after experiencing the pain of rising lead costs while he was running a solar company, his solar company and realizing that the best marketing channel was already sitting right in front of him in his CRM, you know, happy customers. So...

Caitlyn: Yeah. we've had our own clients use this tool. We absolutely love it. We're so excited to share more about it with you guys today. So I'm just gonna jump right in. Jamey, welcome to the show.

Jamey: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Love talking about what my passion is, and my passion is, is helping, you know, companies just find a different way to look at a channel that I think is so

Caitlyn: Yes.

Jamey: when it comes to lead generation. So excited to kind of share a little bit about myself and then kind of how we got to where we are today. And, and what we do at GetTheReferral to help you know, contractors across all of home services do this. We have hundreds and hundreds of clients across the country.

Caitlyn: Awesome.

Jamey: We recently pivoted into enterprise, so we're now working with a, a lot of large enterprise home service businesses, especially with what's going on with the private equity roll-ups and such.

Caitlyn: Oh, yeah.

Jamey: that has been a a really eye-opening opportunity for us, so I can share a little bit about that and how that works at as well, because it is a program where we put our money where our mouth is and it's a pay-for-performance. So I know that in marketing a lot of times, you know, performance marketing is, is critical. So, we, we have a solution for that as well.

Caitlyn: That is awesome. I I, I'm gonna jump right in. I want to tell everybody about the product. We're gonna get into that, of course. Tell us a little bit... I know Mira teed, teed this up. So you, you were an owner, you worked at a solar company. Give us little bit of your background.

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: Yeah, so I spent a bunch of years working at AT&T.

Caitlyn: Okay.

Jamey: I was in sales and marketing and VP of sales, and, you know, got out of there in 2008, excuse me, 2008.

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: crossed the country a few times with them and landed back in... I'm an east coaster, but I landed back in California and looking for my next thing, like, what was I gonna do? I was at AT&T for 25 years, so it was time to go do something different and you know, came across this opportunity in 2008. Solar was starting to really take root and growing dramatically, especially in California.

Caitlyn: Okay.

Jamey: And there was a, a new franchise company out there called Solar Universe and it kind of matched my sales skills and I actually met my future partners not too long thereafter Solar Universe and we formed a corporation and purchased the Central Valley territory for Solar Universe, and we ultimately grew that market from zero to about 30 million in annual revenue.

Caitlyn: Wow.

Jamey: So, you know, I certainly understand all of the things that, you know, all of the contractors that are listening to this today go through on a very

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: personal level. And as you mentioned, you know, really enjoy, you know, reacting and, and interacting with our customers and it's all about customer service, right? You do a good service, you're gonna get more reviews, you're gonna get more referrals, and that all works together. But how do you capitalize on that? And so there's a lot of issues that came came along the way with, with referrals, like how do you track them?

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Jamey: You know, how do you get your sales reps? How do you, how do you make sure that's part of the process? You know, how do you pay, you know, these folks? So, there was a lot of things that came up along the way that were, you know, still worth my time and effort but it was just really difficult. You know, have a Google Sheet and track everything there, send it to accounting, get a phone call three months after an install and say, "Hey, you know, my sales guy said he was gonna give me a referral fee." "Well, no," you know, you know, you know? So you had to deal with all of that. So just came up with the idea one day, "Let's... Why don't we just build an app to give to our customers?"

Caitlyn: Yes.

Jamey: "And have them send those directly, right? Then we can track it."

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Jamey: And so that's kind of where the idea was born. That was in 2013 and you know, convinced my partners to go out and build this, you know, app, you know. Back then, there weren't as many apps as there are today,

Caitlyn: Yeah, you were cutting edge.

Jamey: You know, convince them that the money we're gonna spend on building this thing from scratch we would certainly get our return on investment. So, we did that and quickly realized that it was something that the market needed.... and the industry needed. And so pivoted in 2014 and, and created Get The Referral as a SaaS platform.

Caitlyn: Awesome.

Jamey: And just from there started working with, obviously, a lot of other solar companies that we knew and continued to grow the business and over time I kind of stepped away from the solar and electrical company and wanted to go all in on Get The Referral. So I left behind the solar and electrical company, made a deal with my partners and said, "You know what? This is my passion. This is what I love to do." And I went all in on Get The Referral back in 2017. And then since then, just really developed, I think, you know, one of the most unique products in the marketplace today that allows for not only the ability to communicate and engage with your customers but to really interact with them and, and a lot of the things that you see in our, in our program now came directly from our customers. "Hey, what do you think about doing this? Can the app do this? Can the app do that?" And so the version that that I started with back in 2013 is a lot different from what we have today. And I, and I thank our customers for that and the feedback and, and, you know, going from solar to roofing to home improvement, you know, each industry vertical has a little different nuances in how they do business. And so we had to adapt to that and really identify ways that would make it, you know, good for them and their industry. So it's been an exciting run. It's been 11 years and we're, I think, at one of the most exciting times that we ever had in the last 11 years and that's because of what's happening out there with AI, lead generation, lead aggregators, TCPA the economy you know, all sorts of things that are, you know, kind of culminating, you know, in today's market. And so we believe that you know, or my main goal or our main goal as a company is for contractors to look at this as a channel, not as a happenstance.

Caitlyn: Yes.

Jamey: We want them to look at this and invest the time, effort, and money that it takes to have a successful program, and that's where we come in and, and, you know, we coach and train and share best practices. But ultimately, it's the experience where a contractor can communicate and engage with their customer. This is my elevator pitch, right?

Caitlyn: Love it.

Jamey: Yeah. This my elevator pitch.

Caitlyn: You're answering all our questions. We're just gonna keep on scrolling.

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: GTR, you know, the way I kind of, you know, summarize it is we're a platform, excuse me, that allows contractors to communicate and engage with their customers from the point of sale and beyond. The and beyond becomes very important because being able to stay connected to your customers well beyond the installation of whatever product that may be is critical, right? And you built a great relationship with them and, you know, why not, you know, stay connected in some form or fashion? And emails, as we know is, you know, just really difficult to do. Text messaging right now, it's so difficult to, to, you know, to manage text messaging and you know, you, you just need a place to land. And so we at Get The Referral we're, we're a white label branded app where you're gonna own real estate on your, on your customer's phone and that's where your customers live. I know I do. I know, you know, a lot of people out there live on their phones. And so if you can own that real estate on their phone and be there when, you know, they need you or you need them to share the experience that they had it, it's gonna, it's gonna be a game changer for you, so.

Caitlyn: I think it's really important what you said, like, right there at the end, 'cause I mean, we've got clients, like I said, who also use this.

Meredith: Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn: you said that white label aspect. So I mean, you've got on your app, like, on your phone, gosh, you've got on your phone an app that says ABC Company, you know, and it's branded to ABC Company and it lives and breathes on your phone, in your device. So every time you're scrolling past your Facebook, Instagram app, you see ABC Company right

Jamey: Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn: as an app, and it's an amazing resource. I know we're gonna get more into what it

Jamey: Yes. Right.

Caitlyn: I I had kind of forgotten about that white label aspect of it. And that's so powerful.

Meredith: Well, and you also talk about meeting them where they are.

Caitlyn: Sure.

Meredith: Like, let's not try to find a whole new place and way to get in touch and get in front of our, prospects.

Caitlyn: Right.

Jamey: Mm-hmm.

Meredith: meet them where they're at, on their phones. Like you said, we're scrolling all day, you know?

Caitlyn: Yeah. That's

Meredith: them where they are.

Caitlyn: So obviously, we're sitting here. We're a digital marketing agency. We generate hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of leads for home improvement contractors every single day, but I mean, I'm sitting here as a business owner

Meredith: Right.

Caitlyn: saying, "These referral leads set so much higher-"

Jamey: Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn: faster than the leads we're gonna be spending money generating for you."

Jamey: Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn: And they close. So, I guess what I wanna kinda shift to, and then we'll get really into the nitty-gritty of Get the Referral, is, you know, why are contractors failing at these referral programs? Like, because it is such a lucrative opportunity.

Jamey: Yeah.

Caitlyn: just, like, eh, they're using spreadsheets. There's not a system in place. Like, why is it failing?

Jamey: Lack of process, right? Lack of process is what it really comes down to 'cause every contractor strives to, you know, provide a great customer experience, right? They're gonna do everything they can do to provide a good experience, and so, but how do you capture that? How do you, how do you turn that into

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Jamey: bigger? And so, if you don't have it part of your Yeah that's where the failure breaks down. And if you allow or you think your sales reps are gonna do it for you, you know, it's just not gonna happen, you know, just being realistic. You're gonna probably have one or two sales reps that do a great job, that ask for referral every time, but if you don't have a standardized process that ties everybody in... This is one other thing we're learning with, with the enterprise companies. Like, some of our enterprise customers has thousands of sales reps

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Jamey: Like, one company has 3,000 sales reps. Like, you know, it's

Caitlyn: Wow.

Jamey: to control 3,000 sales

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Jamey: across the board. So, unless you have top-down, whether you're, you're a five-man and woman

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: with two sales reps or if you have, you know, a three and a half billion dollar company with 3,000 sales reps, doesn't matter. It has to be top-down, so you know, the ownership, the, the leadership needs to really buy into, like, "Hey, everyone, this is the process. This is how we're gonna do it. We're gonna ask every single customer at this single point." There's a lot of different strategies on when and how you ask for referral.

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: and we do a lot of that in our training and best practices. But it's important to make sure that it's consistent and, and, you know, something that you can follow up on. Nowadays, with Rillo Rilla and, and

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: you know, a lot of companies that are using that are, are encapturing, when do they ask for referral, and what is the customer's reaction? And now, AI is, like, kind calculating that information and saying, "No, don't do it this way. Do it this way." You know? Let's, you know, "This is the point that you want to introduce a referral," and, and so, understanding that it's a science, it's not, you know, do a good job and you're gonna get referrals. It's just not the way it... you will, but you're not gonna be able to scale. You're not gonna be able

Caitlyn: Sure.

Jamey: turn it into a channel. As I mentioned, our goal, I mean, it's, you know, if, if you're not at 20% of all your total revenue being generated by

Caitlyn: Great.

Jamey: you know, after working with us for a year or two, there's something seriously wrong.

Caitlyn: Agreed.

Jamey: That's what we're seeing, right? You know, most large enterprise companies that we talk to ask the same question. You know, they all tell me, "Well, we really suck at it, first off. Second off, it's only about 2 to 3% of our revenue, you

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: if I were to venture a guess." I'm like, "Okay, this is a great opportunity."

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Jamey: And, and this can be applied to any company, big or small but it's consistent across the board. And another goal that we really focus on, and a lot of contractors don't pay attention to it enough, is, is really what is their cost per acquisition? Like, what does it currently cost them to bring in a new customer? And then, working backwards from there, and, and understanding that and most, once again, large enterprise companies, you know, they're happy if their total cost of marketing is 20%, right, which is, in my mind, high, right? So in our program, when you kind of factor in the cost and everything else, rewarding homeowners for referrals and all that kind of fun stuff once you start getting referrals, you know, you're gonna maintain, you know, a, a total all-in marketing cost of less than 10%. So, there's no better way to control your cost and for smaller companies, that money's gonna go to your bottom line.

Caitlyn: Correct.

Jamey: You know, and larger companies, you're gonna be able to scale this thing across, you know, different verticals that you sell a lot of cross-branding. So, you know, but try doing that with a business card you hand out to somebody. It's just not gonna happen. It's

Caitlyn: Right.

Jamey: gonna happen.

Caitlyn: And a QR code, right.

Jamey: Exactly. Exactly. So it's, it's, so I get, get back to the long-winded answer to your question is, it's all about having a process

Caitlyn: Yes.

Jamey: top-down awareness and buy-in from, you know, the leadership team, so.

Meredith: Right. And it sounds like GTR is putting that process in place for you. It's putting the structure, all of that in place. Like you said, it's just then getting your team, your leadership on board with it. So tell us a little bit about the homeowner experience of submitting a referral. Say I use Joe's Roofing Company and I had a good experience, what happens for one of your

Caitlyn: Yeah, walk us through.

Meredith: when they leave that job?

Jamey: Yeah. I'll, I'll share with you first, like, our best practice because some of the pushback we get was my customer's not gonna download another app, right?

Caitlyn: exactly.

Jamey: So

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Jamey: So it's all about the, you know, providing value to that homeowner and giving them the reasons why they should download the app. And so that's where we are really unique in that we integrate with their

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: both on, lead submission and lead updates, but also on project status tracking.

Caitlyn: Yep.

Jamey: So you're able to actually track your projects. So the in-home experience at Joe's Roofing is I'm the sales rep and I say, you know, "Okay, Mr. Customer go ahead and download our app. You know, here's a QR code, scan it in, you know, register, and by the way, we have this great rewards program. But before I get to that, let me show you what your journey's gonna look like as you go through this project." And then they pull up the project tracking and saying, "We're gonna notify you here at this step, this step, this step." Almost like the Domino's Pizza tracker.

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: "We're gonna, we're gonna be able to, you know, show you every step that you want to call us, right? And oh, by the way, you can access your documents, your warranty information, you can contact us right from the, from the app. And you know, by the way, when the job is complete, if you had a great experience, you can write a review. We have a review portal within the application," right? So all of that kind of combined adds additional value. The customer goes, "I'm gonna be able to see what's going on in real time?"

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: "If you work, you know, if your, if they work with CompanyCam, we have an integration with them. We're gonna send you photos of every step of the way. So, you know, you can access, you know, this at any point in time during the day or at night, whenever you need to look at your project, you can see where you are. And we're gonna stay, you know, in touch with you all along the way. And by the way, we have this great rewards program, and if you submit three referrals today, you're gonna receive a 10% discount. Today, you're gonna walk outta here with a 10% discount if you give us three referrals-"

Caitlyn: Before you even sign.

Jamey: of that might right? And by the way, if those customers that you refer to us, they're gonna get a 10% discount because you referred them. Plus any one of those referrals that sell, we're gonna pay you $250," right? So now you got a customer going, "Oh, wow, look at that," you know.

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Jamey: And, and, and then when you really have a process in place where the sales rep is doing it on every single call and they're walking out of the home with two to three

Caitlyn: Yep.

Jamey: let's just say one of them becomes a sole deal. I mean, you know, and you think about how many, how many sales reps you have on, on, and, and how many sales deals that you close in a month, you can actually, you know, set up benchmarks around what you could expect from the channel and it's super easy to do. And that's where we come in, into play. And we set benchmarks and we follow up with 'em and really track all of those metrics. And we really look at, you know, four unique kind of areas of the, of the, of the experience. It's number one, sales rep adoption.

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: Number two is homeowner adoption, right? How many can you get downloading? Third one is of those homeowners that downloaded the app, how many are gonna submit a referral? And the last one is of the referrals that are submitted, how many are actually gonna give consent or book an appointment?

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: And so those are the areas that we focus our, you know, our coaching and our, and our, you know, customer success folks work with our companies in really helping them, first of all, define what is good and then how are they doing in those areas. And then if they're not doing well, how can we help them through training, ongoing training, webinars and things like that where we could help improve those metrics?

Caitlyn: I love that. I don't think I knew that part of this. I've obviously played with the app. I've encouraged our clients to use it. So you guys do, though, provide training for contractors, like, in terms of what to tell the sales reps to do, et cetera?

Jamey: Yeah, we actually

Caitlyn: Okay.

Jamey: in most cases, it's a virtual training with the sales reps.

Caitlyn: Yeah, that, sounds

Jamey: That's part of our launch plan. And, you know, that is, you know, kind of the last step before

Caitlyn: Right.

Jamey: is getting the company aligned on the front end and, you know, the onboarding piece of it and the integration. Those are all the boring stuff, right? But the, the exciting part is when it comes to, you know, how do you train the sales reps?

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: because it, Referrals are really three parts. I call a three-legged stool. One of them is obviously your connection to your salespeople and the homeowners, right? they, have a unique relationship with that customer. The customer liked them, they bought from them and, you know, providing everything goes smoothly they're going to, you know, purchase from them and, and, and send referrals. So you got the sales rep piece. The next piece is your past customers. How can we help you go and reach out to the hundreds or

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: of previous customers that you worked with? So we have a product called Referral Boost that does exactly that, where it, it actually is a simplified method to gather referrals through providing those existing previous customers with just a link. So they don't have to download the app or do anything like that they just share their link and it's gonna be attributed back to them as a, you know, person that shared their link. And then once they get their first referral, of course, say, "Go ahead and download the app so you can track and get rewarded." And then we actually, you know, pay the rewards right in the app.

Meredith: That's

Jamey: So another reason, you know, so the money is coming through. They can download it to their bank or we have gift cards that they can select. So you know, once again, having that app there, they're not gonna delete it if they have money I'm not gonna delete my Venmo account if I got money in it, right?

Meredith: Right.

Jamey: You know, so that's the second leg. The third leg is, how can we help you build a network of what I call affiliate,

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: folks that, you know, can help drive referrals outside of your customers? So you got your sales reps and your current customers going forward, you got your previous customers, and now you got your affiliates. So it kinda comes in steps. You don't wanna do it all at once 'cause it's a lot of work there. But yeah, you have your affiliate piece where you go out I used to, when my solar company, used to send my sales reps out once a month, go to a real estate

Meredith: Oh.

Jamey: on their Monday morning meeting and just present Solar Universe. Like, "Hey, this is what we do. And by the way, we got this great program. We're gonna pay you $500 for every referral that you send us that we sell." Like, and then sign up all the real estate agents, you know, and so Or if you're working with a HVAC company or if you have a sister company get all of your employees on this program. It's not just for sales reps.

Meredith: Got

Jamey: Every single employee in the company could be, you know, have their own personal QR code so it's attributed back to them. So now you have this tracking and you have these methods to really manage and scale a program. So, those are the three kind of legs that, you know, I really, you know, coach on.

Meredith: Yeah.

Caitlyn: That's I love the coaching side of it.

Meredith: Absolutely.

Caitlyn: I love, like, the app side of it. I'm getting, we're getting windows replaced at our house right now and it's so funny you said, like, the messaging side of things. Like, I know I'm going off the cuff of get the referral, but, like, my husband and I were like, "What is the number of the company we just gave $8,000 to?" Like, how do we get in touch with them? How do we find out when this project's starting?"

Meredith: Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn: You know, and, like, to have that at the palm of your hand and not have

Meredith: convenience, the transparency.

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Meredith: It's immediate gratification. We don't wanna have to wait to call somebody.

Caitlyn: No.

Meredith: Like, we wanna be able to find it at any moment.

Caitlyn: And then, like, I'm not having to go through my email and, like, look

Jamey: Exactly, yes.

Caitlyn: then look at all this.

Meredith: Ooh.

Caitlyn: Like, it's all right there, and then I could walk over to the St. Patrick's Day party at the neighbor's house

Meredith: Oh, girl.

Caitlyn: and be like, "Yeah, here's my easy, like, tell-"

Jamey: Share link.

Caitlyn: link back."

Jamey: Yeah.

Caitlyn: It takes them back.

Jamey: So, yeah, so there's two ways that submit a referral. You have obviously your manual referral, and this is a really cool piece for companies that are concerned with consent, which should be just about everybody nowadays.

Meredith: Yeah, for sure.

Jamey: We're the only company that you're gonna be able to actually get consent a manual referral. So if I, you know refer Caitlin today, you know, typically that information would go into the, you know, CRM, the call center calls them, and you hope they answer the phone where now what happens is if I'm the advocate homeowner that's gonna refer I'll put in the information, select the product, 'cause you can have multiple products you can refer and I hit submit. Instead of it going to the CRM, it pulls up my personal text message and it

Meredith: Okay.

Jamey: "Hey, text Caitlin personally that you're sending her this link." And so now, I'm gonna send you a link, Jamey to Caitlin, saying, "Hey, I just referred you to ABC Roofing. You know, click here to book your appointment, click here to give consent or to get a call or whatever," and we're capturing that consent when they click on that

Meredith: Love

Jamey: and we're capturing the IP address and everything else. So now, so now you're taking a referral which normally closes at 50, 60% of the time anyway and now you're getting someone that says, "Yes, I want to be called." You take a referral that, you know, now is gonna close at 60, 70, 80% of the time.

Meredith: That's

Jamey: what we're seeing with our consented referrals is being able to get, you know, you know, that type of close ratio. So then you have your, your manual referral, then you also have your share links. So in your app, you had a great experience, you click on it, share, you share it on Facebook, Nextdoor,

Meredith: Right.

Jamey: LinkedIn, wherever you want it to go. It goes out to the social media you know, platforms, and if anybody fills that information out, it's gonna attribute back to you and the sales rep and everybody else in the whole process. It'll flow just like a regular referral. And then when those referrals get updated in CRM to either, you know, demo completed or, you know sold deal I'm gonna get a notification. I can track all of

Caitlyn: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: referrals in the app. I can see how much I've earned, how much I've been paid. And so it just allows you to really That transparency that you mentioned earlier, that's so important for the person sending referrals. Like, if you send a referral and don't get paid, are you gonna call the company and complain? Maybe, maybe not. But I'll tell what, if I didn't get paid, I'm not gonna do it again.

Meredith: No.

Caitlyn: No.

Meredith: Never that way.

Jamey: Only once thing, right? You know.

Meredith: Yeah. No, seriously.

Jamey: Well.

Caitlyn: Tell us more about the rewards.

Meredith: Right.

Caitlyn: Like, I think

Meredith: You mentioned cash.

Caitlyn: Yeah, like, how does this work?

Meredith: gift card. And do the contractors have manage that and deal with it? Or does Get The Referral do it for you?

Caitlyn: Yeah. Yeah.

Jamey: So you'll set up your product so I walk backwards from this when I say, you know, if they don't know what their cost per acquisition is, we'll work with them and say, "Okay, how much are you spending here? What is this?" You know, we kind of figure out what, what are they currently spending to get a new sole deal in the you know, in the, in the company. And then when we've figured out that, now let's just say it's $1,000 for, to get a new customer, right? So then they say, "Well, how much should I reward my, you know, the homeowner to give me a referral? I think we should give them like, $75." And I'm "What are you talking about? You, you pay $1,000 to get a lead that closes at, you know, it takes

Meredith: Right.

Jamey: close. Now you want to pay $75." So let's, let's kind of cut that and let's say, let's pay $500, right? And by the way, if they send you a referral and you go meet with them, let's pay them $50 because what is your lead cost right now? "Oh, I pay like, $150 for every lead." Well, why not pay somebody for a lead that you've given me, that I went and met with, did a proposal? They didn't buy yet, but it's a great lead.

Meredith: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: Pay them $50. Guess what? Because that person that gets $50 is going to want to send more to you, right? Does that make sense?

Meredith: Correct.

Jamey: You know, and, and we kind of go through that process and so so we set up the product based upon how much they want to pay and then we look at it and we make sure it aligns with that 10% or less overall marketing cost.

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: And then, you know, you know, figuring out, okay, well how do we pay our, you know, what about the sales reps? Well, this is a big mistake. This is one of the reasons for non-sales rep adoption, is they, they pay an extra 5% for it, for a self gen, yet they don't want to pay anything for a referral that the sales reps actually got. So that's a big fall off.

Meredith: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: and they go, "Why should I pay a sales rep for a referral? That's my referral." Like, no. The sales rep created the the relationship. They built They asked for it. They got it, and you sold it.

Meredith: Right.

Jamey: Pay the sales rep a referral bonus like you would for a self-gen bonus. And so that's another key thing. So once you start doing that and the sales reps see they're getting an extra 5% for every referral that sells, there's the, there's the magic right there. That's when it kind of comes together. And then you can actually pay the sales rep in the app. That's a whole other thing, but then now they see the money pop up. Like I said 3 sales here is, you know, whatever the dollar amount is, so they get excited. There's buy-in there and the sales rep has their own version of the app so they can track all of their advocates, all of their... you know, all their homeowners, all their referrals. They can reach out to them. They can thank them. Like, the sales rep interacts with their network of, of homeowners, advocates.

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: So once you submit the referral and it goes through and it gets to say they met with them, did a proposal and sold the next day, it's going to send a message to the homeowner, "You've just earned $500." Great. Well, I don't see it yet. Well, then the company goes in, they have a wallet that they load up money into, and they hit pay now because we track every one of those customers based upon the status of that lead in the

Meredith: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: tells them exactly how much is owed, and alls they do is hit pay now and the money goes electronically to that homeowner and they get a push notification and they can go into their wallet and then they can either download it... You know, Link their bank takes a minute. Link in their bank and then they can send it to their bank and get cash or select over 200 gift cards. We have charities that they can select. If they don't want

Meredith: Love

Jamey: they can give to charities. Or there's a virtual debit card. So we leave it up to the homeowner on how they want to receive that money because if you give them a Home Depot or, or a Amazon credit card or gift card, it's like, "Well, I don't use that," or, "I don't need it." You know?

Meredith: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: It's like, "I want to use my money when I want to use it and how I want to use it."

Meredith: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: So, you know, that flexibility, transparency, the ability to see what's happening with your accounts. They can track all the referrals and see what status they're in. So, you know, it eliminates a lot of phone calls, a lot of the confusion.

Meredith: Mm-hmm.

Jamey: And now you're... Now you have this, you know, active, you know, network of advocates that are, you

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: not just sending one referral. You know, we have some, believe it or not advocates that earn 20, 30, $40,000 a

Meredith: Oh.

Jamey: in referrals. You know?

Meredith: Yeah.

Jamey: It becomes a second job for them.

Meredith: Yeah. That's a hustle. Wow.

Jamey: Yeah. So it's, it's unbelievable. And so it's all about, you know, kind of, you know, having that process in place following the playbook that we provide and we don't go in and try to change a company's process. We only try to enhance it. Like, okay, we might have to tweak it a little bit here and there, but this is a proven method of, you what's gonna work for you, so.

Meredith: So just... I know

Caitlyn: keep like, not letting you talk.

Meredith: I know.

Caitlyn: But, like, I'm sitting here imagining, like, okay, cool. I have this app. I'm getting my windows installed. And I know Meredith, her house is old and needs her like, windows replaced 'cause we're next-door neighbors and our houses were built around the same time. I refer Meredith. And Meredith moves on and decides to, like, move forward. Does Meredith's information go into the CRM and, like, it's linked? I, I don't know if that's

Meredith: Yeah.

Caitlyn: the weeds, but, like, I don't know how important it is to know all of that.

Jamey: Yeah. So no, when you submit Meredith's information, once she gives consent And you don't have to use consent,

Caitlyn: Got

Jamey: you, you can just have it go directly into the CRM. But yeah, it'll, it will flow right into the CRM. We're gonna send over Meredith's information any other information that was mandatory or even, you know, that are that's in the form that you fill out. The sales rep's name, the advocate's name. So we send that all to the CRM, and that's all part of the integration mapping that we do. And then that will sit in a, as a new lead. It gets coded as GTR or whatever they want to code it. And now, you know, if that goes to a call center, then the call center will then, you

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Jamey: obviously reach out and now they can associate it back to the sales rep that was you know, associated with you when you had your windows done. And, and, and so it all kind of flows, you know, like that.

Meredith: Oh, Yeah.

Caitlyn: Hey. By the way, Meredith, I'm sending you

Meredith: Yeah. I've now went I've

Caitlyn: Your window's nasty.

Meredith: gotten new And, I mean, you mentioned CRM. I know that there are tons of CRMs out there. How much coverage, in terms of CRM integrations, does Get The Referral have?

Jamey: So I would say we, we've integrated with over 100 different ones, believe it or not. There is very few that don't play nice.

Caitlyn: Right.

Jamey: And they're starting to play nice because they have to.

Caitlyn: get it.

Jamey: You know,

Caitlyn: Totally.

Jamey: those, those companies that wanted to kind of be everything to everyone, they realize that you can't do that. So they are, you know, and there's only a couple left out there that, make it a little bit difficult. But yeah, just about anyone. We have an open API as well,

Caitlyn: Oh,

Jamey: and, and, you know, typically if the CRM has an open API, then, you know, integration can be done. We know, we use Zapier a lot of times to, you know, create the connections to make it super easy. We have direct integrations. We have custom integrations. So it's, it's kind of all over the, all over the board when it comes to that.

Meredith: Nice.

Caitlyn: That's amazing. You told us some success stories in terms of metrics.

Meredith: Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn: I think you said something about 20%, like, if your leads aren't jumping up to 20% from referrals after working with us. Do you have, like, any, like, just top of mind

Jamey: Yeah.

Meredith: Success stories maybe of,

Caitlyn: Yeah.

Meredith: two different size companies?

Jamey: Yeah, I love talking about this one because it's, it's, they became part of my company. I'll, I'll explain what happened here. So we have a I had a company that I worked with, it was a solar company, became very, very, very large. And they were customers since probably 2015, soon after I created Get The Referral. And they just continued to grow and grow and grow. And over time, I became friends with the owner and they ended up selling for close to a billion dollars

Caitlyn: Oh, fantastic.

Jamey: three years ago, about three years ago. And he, he will, he will stand in front of anybody and tell them that 40% of their revenue came from Get The Referral and referrals.

Meredith: 40%.

Jamey: He he saw

Caitlyn: From a sales rep, yeah.

Jamey: He saw the, he saw the, the power of it and he actually created an internal team that focused just on the referrals. So when he sold, he went on to go do some other things and we stayed in touch. He actually became an investor of GTR, by the way. And he told me, he says, "Hey, I got I had this team of folks that, you know, really, you know, they've been doing it for 10 years and they, they know how to do referrals." He goes, "We should think about bringing them on." So I ended up hiring, I think it's five of them now, that all work there in their referral program. So the folks that you, you get to work with are experts in referrals that know how to scale a company and know how to scale these things. So

Caitlyn: They've been there, done that.

Jamey: Yeah, they've been there, done that. And so you know, there is a, a level of competency that our contractors can rely on because they've done it themselves and they understand how it works. And,

Caitlyn: Sure.

Jamey: you know that's, that's that's one of the great stories. My own personal

Meredith: What about a Like, you

Jamey: Yeah.

Meredith: I'm trying to think about the range of contractors.

Jamey: Yeah. Those Like, we were pretty small when, when I was doing I'll give you my own personal experience. About

Meredith: Of

Jamey: our business was coming from referrals. Now, I drove this thing like like, from the from the top. I mean, we got to about 60, 65% of our business coming from referrals. You know, I literally, literally, you know, changed the, the whole composition of, of, of our P&L. And you know, from a, a smaller company, you know, it's, it's all about moving that needle. So it, you know And we have case studies that show year one, year two, year three. And every year it goes up. Like, every year you see the percentage go up. It's not like you get to one and it just flattens out. It just continues to grow because it's an 80/20 rule, right? 80% of the customers may or may not submit one referral but 20% of those customers stick around and they become multiple referrers. So over time, that 20% keeps growing and growing and growing and growing. And those, you know, it's all about staying top of mind. You mentioned you know, the app and having it your fingertips and, you know, sending gentle reminders through push notifications, wishing them happy holidays or "Hey, there's a storm coming."

Meredith: I love that.

Jamey: So yes, those push

Meredith: That's

Jamey: get read 90%, 97% of the time versus a text message And you mentioned that before. It's like you scroll What was that text message? It was a short code with five numbers. Where was it? And you're scrolling

Meredith: Exactly.

Jamey: messages. Whereas I just like, boom, open it up and there's all the information I need about my company, my, my, my warranty information. When, when I used to go to the house at the end of a job, we used to drop this binder off. It was about this big and, you know, it'd go sit in the top of the shelf. No one ever touched it. Well, you don't have to do that anymore. You just upload it all to the customer's portal in the app

Meredith: That's,

Jamey: all that information is right there. So there's just so many other components of it that make it successful. Um-You know, when we talk about, you know, you know, successful companies, it's, it's incorporating all of those things. And you don't have to do it overnight. It's not like all of sudden you're gonna have to have all these different processes. It takes over time. First thing is, let's get your sales reps engaged. Let's make it part of the process.

Caitlyn: Yep.

Jamey: Let's get them rewarded. Let's get the rewards right for the homeowners you know, and then let's You know, 'cause that's kind of a, you know, going forward basis, right? And then you have your previous customers and affiliates. So, it's all about building it over time. But just think about, you know, over a two, three-year period, you know, you have access to 10,000, you know, advocates or, or previous customers that you've worked with. And, and you can stay top of mind with them by a simple push notification. You know, a reminder. We have one company that sends out you know, a lot of companies do it, but one in, in, in mine sends out every month who got paid what. They'll, they'll actually say "John

Caitlyn: Oh, like your leaderboard.

Meredith: Oh.

Jamey: Yeah. So, you know, and they start kind of this whole, "Really? He got paid that much?" And they'll send out just push notifications, and it just, you know, sparks, like, "Yeah, you know what? I forgot I have this referral." And so you know, and, and, you know, reminders. You know, "Share your share link. Start earning today." You know? So, combination of that, you know and, and once again, just staying top of mind is so, so important.

Caitlyn: It does.

Meredith: Yeah, I feel like you guys have thought of literally

Caitlyn: I know.

Meredith: built into this app.

Caitlyn: I know. I'm obsessed. I

Meredith: I

Caitlyn: wanna sit here and talk about this all day. I'm like,

Meredith: I

Caitlyn: I'm so glad we had this conversation. And we could keep talking,

Meredith: Yeah, we'll, be respectful of everybody's time and whoever's listening to this podcast

Caitlyn: They've probably already left and they're on Get The

Meredith: Exactly.

Caitlyn: listening. Yeah.

Jamey: No, I don't know.

Caitlyn: Jamey, thank you again. Jamey.

Jamey: Jamey, yeah.

Caitlyn: Yes, we're recording this after lunch towards the end of the day. There's no good time to record these.

Meredith: Whew. Thank you so much for sharing everything that you know, not just about your platform, but about referrals in general. This is such a big opportunity, referrals in general, and feels like you have truly made a system that is going to processize that and make it as simple as possible. I'm Already wheels are spinning and turning. I'm like, okay, this client, this client, we gotta go get them signed up, so.

Caitlyn: I want a Fat Cat app.

Meredith: I know.

Caitlyn: know. So, yes, if you are listening, which I'm sure you have already left because we are just rambling Joes.

Meredith: Right.

Caitlyn: But you wanna learn how to turn your customer base into a referral engine, you need to check out Get The Referral. Getthereferral.com? Is that right?

Jamey: Yep, Get The Referral.

Caitlyn: Getthereferral.com, and see how their platform works.

Meredith: Yes. So, thank you again. Go check it out. As always if you're looking for any help generating leads through digital marketing PPC, SEO,

Caitlyn: Referrals.

Meredith: Referrals. Yes. You can visit our website at fatcatstrategies.com.

Caitlyn: We'll have all the info about this linked in the show notes.

Meredith: Absolutely. We'll have links to Get The Referral. Jamey, if they wanna get in contact with you, what's the best way? Go through a form on your website?

Jamey: Yeah, that's usually the best way. I mean, I give out my email all the time too. It's Jamey, J-A-M-E-Y, @getthereferral.com. Reach out anytime. But yeah. website and, you know, we can even give you guys a a QR code that you can put on your, on your site. That would be great, and that way you can see how many of your clients are

Meredith: There we go.

Jamey: taking

Caitlyn: You better believe I want a referral link.

Meredith: There we go. I love it.

Jamey: Yeah,

Caitlyn: Thank you so, so, so much for your time. We'll talk soon.

Jamey: Thank you so much. Take care.

Caitlyn: Thank you. Bye.

Jamey: Bye.

Outro: Digital marketing for contractors is created by Fat Cat Strategies. For more information, visit fatcatstrategies.com.