Tradespeople, let's talk about referrals and how to get your clients endlessly sending you referrals.

Let's talk about referrals from moment.

Before I started the house portraits business I used to flip houses for a living. I flipped maybe five houses. Every time you do that you use a lot of different trades; drywall errors, plumbers, roofers, contractors, framers, you get the idea. And these trades people would come in do their job, which was great, and then they would.

Never once did I have a tradesperson call me up three months later and say hey how was her work? Or how's it going, you flipping another house? And they certainly did not leave me anything that would generate referrals for them.

Sure I had a home, but no one ever talks about their drywall. So I never sent any of my trades people referrals, and I wanted to! I just didn't have the tool to be able to do that properly.

In order to send referrals you need to have an anchor that sparks a conversation about that person. And it needs to be a passionate conversation about that person. You need something that will naturally bring up that person in conversation when you are talking to your friends and family. And ideally it needs to be forefront so you do it constantly and for years to come.

Looking back, if my roofer would've sent me a house portrait as a gift after they completed my roof, I would have been blown away. Most trades people leave behind some leftover garbage after the job is done, never a gift!

I would've hung that portrait of my home proudly on my new wall and shown all of my friends and family as soon as they walk in the door. "Look at my house I just flipped!" I would say. And of course when they asked me who gave me that portrait of my home I would say proudly that is from my roofer, after he finished the job in my home he gave me this is a thank you gift, isn't that incredible! It would inspire scratch that

It would inspire my friends and family so and they are looking for a roofer they would ask me who my roofer was because they saw how excited I was when I talked about him. Now that is the perfect referral.

So for all of you tradespeople out there looking to grow your referral base we highly recommend that you give your clients a heartfelt gift that keeps you top of mind for decades to come. And as far as I know our house portraits are the most powerful tool that you will ever use in creating referrals.

Thanks for listening and I hope you found some great nuggets of information in here.

Russell McRae
McRae portraits.com