Welcome to Close it now, the podcast that's revolutionizing the H Vac and home improvement trades industries.

Get ready to dive deep into the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning.

We're turning up the heat on industry standards and cooling down misconceptions.

And we're not just talking about fixing vents and adjusting thermostats.

It's about the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement.

We're the driving force, inspiring top performers who crave excellence not only in their professional endeavors, but also in fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all.

This is Close it now, where excellence meets excitement.

Let's get to work now.

Your host, Sam Wakefield.

Well, all right.

Welcome back to Close It Now.

Sam Wakefield here.

This is a hot topic we are covering today because I know all of you out there, raise your hand if you would love to be able to get new business that doesn't cost anything other than just being exceptional at what you already do.

And that's exactly what we're going to talk about today is how do we get more referrals?

Referral business, we know, is the best way to grow your business at the lowest cost.

So I have the world's expert in creating raving referrals.

In fact, he wrote the book on raving referrals on this episode today.

This is Brandon Barnum.

He is the CEO of HOA.com as well as he has been not only pioneering, but he, he wrote the book on referrals and he's been teaching this methodology all the way since 1997.

And clearly, as things change across time, technology changes.

Asking for referrals doesn't change because people are people and relationships are relationships and psychology is psychology and that's where the power comes from.

So thanks for being on the show today, Brandon.

Oh, Sam, it's my pleasure, man.

I'm getting excited just hearing you talk about it.

Good stuff, man.

So we always like to start off with especially interview episodes with the highlight reel.

It's like, where did you come from?

You know, why are you sitting here in the hot seat?

You know, why should people listen to you?

Right?

So give it, give us that, that journey.

Yeah, you bet.

Well, you mentioned 1997.

And I'll tell you what, I, my life really changed when I became a single dad at the age of 24.

I was, I graduated from a school with marketing degree and was working a marketing manager for estate planning law firm.

And then I got custody of my 2 year old son and became a single dad.

And I was making $20,000 a year at that point and I couldn't afford the daycare bill on top of the mortgage of the house I had just bought.

And so I had to make a change.

I ended up getting into the mortgage industry and I had somebody that mentored me in the art and the science of what I now call raving referrals.

And in 18 months I was able to 10x my income from $20,000 to $200,000 a year.

It changed my life.

And ever since then I've been on a mission to help as many other people as possible do the same.

Love it.

Well, that is a beautiful highlight reel.

I think it's awesome.

And so for everybody listening and you'll hear the pages turn, I'm actually holding a copy of Raving Referrals and in my hand and I'm super excited to dive into this for also if everybody listening, I do host a monthly book club that's all about personal growth.

So who do you know in the trades or even not in the trades, that's for personal growth?

This will be one of the books that we, that we read along the way.

But, but tell us more about it, man.

Like how did this methodology develop?

How, how in the world in 18 months did you all of a sudden go from zero to hero basically and turn your whole life and business around?

Yeah, you know, it all came down to relationships like you said at the intro.

And what was fascinating is the mortgage industry is complex.

Right.

Not only do you have to learn all the intricacies, the ins and outs of how to get loans closed and approved and funded and all that stuff.

And we've all gone through the home buying process.

So you, you know what stress that brings, right?

So you got that side of that.

Plus, as a 27 year old kid, I had to convince these 40 and 50 year old real that they should trust their most valuable clients with me.

So it's a big jump and a big league.

But I had a great mentor and what I did is I went and I interviewed the most successful people I could find, both in the mortgage industry and then also in the real estate industry.

And I just listened, I asked questions and I found out what they wanted and I asked what the most successful people were doing and they all said the same thing, they were building referral partnerships.

The vast majority of their business was coming from relationships and referral partnerships.

And so rather than advertising and throwing money away on cold marketing, I invested time rather than money in deepening partnerships with people who are serving homeowners every day.

And I think that's exactly the message that your audience needs to hear, because it still works, and it is timeless.

Love it.

Love it.

Well, let's dive into it a little bit.

What are.

What are some principles here?

What are some keys that, you know, say I'm a, you know, just a comfort.

Not just a comfort.

I'm a comfort Advisor.

Right.

For H Vac Co.

In the end, this is the time of year.

It's been an unseasonably warm winter.

I've talked to so many people this last week that are like, man, I'm in Chicago, and normally everybody's stumbling down the sidewalk about to fall over frozen, and people are actually on the lake today because it's 75.

So how do we get.

They're like, we need business so bad.

So I'm that guy.

You know, talk to that person.

How.

Where do they even get started with this?

Sure.

What we do is first we.

We start by looking at who are the people that you're already doing business with, who are the people that you're already getting business from, and who are you referring business to?

That's where you want to start, Right.

You already have trusted relationships, but what we find is most people have never formalized those relationships into referral partnerships.

So what we do is we teach the refer partner blueprint, and it's a simple process.

And you can go to hoa.com blueprint and you can download it for free.

It's a PDF that's going to tell you exactly who to reach out to, what to say, and how to get into this conversation.

But ultimately, what you're doing is you're seeking to serve, right?

You got to be focused on serving, not selling.

And most people are pretty good at that.

But what we know is most of your audience, Sam, is they're great at providing H Vac work, for example, but maybe they're not so great at their marketing.

So what if you earn your relationships into champions for your brand?

What if you take all those people that have been referring business to you and you really formalize the process and boost that relationship to the next level and then also start formalizing partnerships with the people that are referring you business already.

So.

And then who you're referring business to.

So that's where we start.

Now, one of the major areas is partnering with realtors.

If you think about it, when somebody is moving into a new home in those first three years, that's when they're going to upgrade most of the major improvements in their home.

Right.

You're going to get a woman that's in a new house and she wants to completely redo it so it's her own.

Right?

Right.

And that's a great opportunity to offer a home health check.

So as you've got, realtors, they typically give out a ton of referrals and they don't get many back.

And what we teach is teach you how to reciprocate, how to give more to the people that are giving to you.

And the more you do that, the more that you spend time and invest in those relationships, especially kind of the strategies and the systems, it really creates a ton of business for you.

I love this.

It reminds me of a just a one liner that I heard, a philosophy I heard years ago when I was networking a ton of is a giver's gain.

Right.

The more you give, the more in networking and all of this is you can't life philosophy is give more value than you take.

And that's always been mine.

And I love that in this conversation.

I love that you just said that, Sam.

Before I moved to Arizona, when I lived in Oregon, my license plate said give more.

And that was literally what I stood for.

And I wanted everybody to catch that message.

The more you give, the more you receive.

Oh, you got it, you got it.

I love this.

So along the journey, I'm super curious, obviously you got lots of experience in creating referral networks and that type of thing.

What was the impetus on writing the book about it?

Sure, sure.

At some point you had the spark of like, okay, we've got to get this down somehow.

Yeah.

So, you know, when I was in the mortgage business, I closed over half a billion dollars in transactions.

So I was super successful.

It changed my life.

I ended up own mortgage brokerage.

I had 30 loan officers working for me.

So I went from producing to really managing the team and empowering them to do it.

And you know, over the last almost three decades, I've tested and perfected so many things when it comes to referrals.

And when we started HOA.com I realized that so many people don't know what I know.

And I want to do a, a knowledge transfer, a wealth transfer, and empower the next generation and help people transform their lives and achieve financial freedom for themselves and for their families.

And you know, to be totally honest with you, one of my mentors is, my biggest mentor is Mark Victor Hansen.

He wrote all those Chicken Soup for the Soul books back in the day.

Yeah, absolutely.

I was just talking to him yesterday.

He just spoke at an event I did last Wednesday.

And so he's been on me to write a book ever since I met him 20 years ago.

Oh, geez.

And I. I sort of started to write the book back in 2011 when I had a company called Trusted Team.

It was a tech platform, a referral partnership platform.

But when Covid hit, I was sitting there in December of 2020 going, you know what?

It's time.

It's time.

And all the people that were helping@hoa.com really need to know what I know.

So I had to sit down, and I basically spent a month to do a brain dump and get everything in to the book.

And so some people hire ghost writers or use AI.

I wrote every single word.

It's straight from my soul.

And it's what I know works.

Love it.

Love it.

So, man, that.

That's what a powerful mentor, first of all is.

You know, it took you 20 years from that mentor to finally, like, take the steps of, well, what was cool about it?

And I really teach the power of intention.

Right.

And I learned this from Mark.

But I Met mark on May 18, 2004, and I'd hired him to be a speaker at a charity event that we doing for a Christian charity called Northwest Medical Teams.

Kind of like Doctors Without Borders.

Sure.

And I covered his speaking fee.

I was, you know, doing really well at the time, so I paid for it.

But we raised enough money on that day to send $1.2 million in medical supplies around the world.

And it changed my life because it opened my eyes to the power of impact and really, charity and what I now call being a charity champion.

Sure.

And Mark challenged everybody in the audience to write 101 goals.

And so I went to the beach the next week.

Sorry.

I went to Hawaii with my wife.

And I was sitting on the beach, and I would spend every night with my laptop, listen to my worship music, and I'm like, okay, God, what do you got for me?

What is this?

What am I here for?

Yeah.

And I just totally got this download.

So I walked away from that experience with 338 goals.

And one of the goals was that I wanted Mark Victor Hansen to be my personal mentor.

I had just met him a week before.

I'd met the guy one time.

I'd spent one day with him, and I also wanted him to write about me in a book by May 28, 2005, one year later.

I love how specific these goals are.

They have to be.

And I'M glad you caught that because it's got to be in writing and you've got to have what Mark taught me as a victory date of a date of when you're going to accomplish that, experience it, whatever it is, achieve your goal.

And so that's exactly what I had.

I had 338.

One it was.

I wanted to meet Bono.

Right.

From YouTube.

I met Bono in six months.

Right.

Oh, wow.

Wrote it down.

And I was specific.

But I wanted Mark to write about me by May 28, 2005.

And a few months after that, we started building a relationship, started spending time.

He started inviting me down to LA to his events where he would feature me on stage in front of his VIPs.

And then one day he said, robert Allen and I are writing the follow up to the 1 Minute Millionaire and it's going to be called Cracking the Millionaire Code.

Would it be okay if we write about you?

What do you think I said to that, Sam?

Absolutely.

Would you like to see what my goal was?

Absolutely.

Right.

So it was just amazing that this happened.

But because of the power of intention and setting goals and declaring what it is that you want to achieve, experience, accomplish, it happens quickly when you get crystal clear.

So I said yes.

He interviewed me.

They started writing the book.

If you buy the book, Cracking Millionaire Code, you're going to see on page 42, you'll see my story.

Oh, nice.

Love it.

And so literally, this book came out on May 31, 2005.

Now I missed my goal by three days.

I'm so cool with that.

Right, right.

That's okay.

That's funny you mentioned that we just, just book we did in the book club that I mentioned was is called the Gap in the Gain.

And so it's like measuring backwards and like.

Okay, so exactly.

You're holding it right now.

Yeah, we instead of like, oh, I missed it by three days, it's like it happened, right?

Totally.

Oh, you know, it's funny you mentioned that book.

I literally was talking about it yesterday on a team call.

I said, guys, we're so accustomed to focusing on the gap, all the things that aren't working.

And, you know, we're building a tech platform and quite frankly, we're building a movement we think is going to revel, revolutionize homeowners associations and so much more.

But I said, we've got to really take a look back and appreciate the game.

Where we've come even in the last 90 days has been amazing.

And so if you're listening right now and you're a business owner, take a moment to just look backwards.

Think about last year, think about last month and instead of looking at the gap between where you are and where you want to be, appreciate and enjoy the game that you've created.

Because that's the sweetness in life and that's the special stuff, isn't it Sam?

Oh, it is, it is absolutely.

And like for the owners and even the sales, just when you're a comfort advisor, you're selling tech.

Everyone you know, look at your numbers, right?

One, you have to measure, measure it to be able to manage it.

But one, know your numbers.

But when you know your numbers, you can look at across, you know, six months or a year.

I mean I remember my first when I very first started selling air conditioners years and years and years ago.

I was the year one to year two, I was like, oh, I'm not where I want to be.

But then I looked back and I was like, wait a minute.

I gave myself a $30,000 a year raise not because I saw more people, but strictly took a couple courses and learned how to sell better.

Right?

Sell bigger projects and close more deals.

And it's like, okay, wait a minute, let's celebrate that, right?

What can we do?

And then of course kept going after that.

But definitely example of how that works, right?

It's huge.

And I love your example of measuring the numbers, right?

Your numbers matter.

We talk about letting your data drive your decisions.

Don't use your intuition, use information.

And your guys probably know that because if they're technical, they're more knowledge minded on a personality style and so that's probably how they're naturally inclined to.

But let your data drive your decisions.

Oh, I love this.

So let's get into this book a little bit because there's obviously for everybody listening, you've got to pick up raving referrals by Brandon Barnum.

The tagline on here though is the proven step by step system to attract profitable prospects which is of course what we all need and want.

So let's kind of unpack this a little bit say with specifically you know, talk to the air conditioning people.

Yeah.

H vac people or plumbers and, and trades people.

Like where do they get started?

Because you know, realtor realtors are a hard conversation just from the perspective of the industry.

It's a love hate relationship with realtors because you've got so many of them that are like I only care about the cheapest price and I don't care what you tell me, I'm going to Get a thousand quotes, and we're just doing that.

And then you've got great realtors who truly care for the people.

And.

But there's like this big mixed bag of emotions and, and sentiment around working with Realtors.

So how can we turn this into something much better than what traditionally has been experienced by the trades in working with Realtors?

Oh, great question number one.

I'd say there's a lot of rockstar realtors out there.

Right.

And when you, when you focus with that mentality, that's who you're going to attract into your life.

Look for people that are top producers.

How can you tell that?

Find out how many transactions they're doing.

You can look them up online and see that.

You can go to homes.com you start to see their commercials everywhere because they're owned by costar and they're about to spend $1 billion to promote that brand, which you saw come out at Super Bowl.

You can look up every agent on homes.com you can see their profile.

You can see how many transactions they've done.

And the key is show up as help figure out how to add value to the people in your life.

And then, you know, when we're talking to the comfort advisors, the reality is, if you look at your closed transactions for last year, what you're going to find is that a lot of that business came through referrals, either from your past clients or from other professionals who serve homeowners every day.

For most people, that's where most of your business comes from.

Would you agree with that, Sam?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, when I was running the.

The last team that I ran here in Austin, Texas, you know, we would have.

We documented this because I got really good at tracking it with my people.

And Absolutely.

I mean, every single person, we always had this ticker going of.

You know, personally, I had the most because I was teaching the methodology.

You know, so what my biggest year, I think I had $700,000 of revenue that came strictly from this referral process and, and from people calling up and I pass business to them, too.

So it was very intentional with that.

Right.

But we did that all the time.

Right, so.

Right.

100 agree with what you're saying.

Yeah.

And when you actually contract that and you know where your business is coming from and who your best referral partners are, you can really double down and invest in those relationships.

When I got started back in the mortgage business at the end of 18 months, I started in like, May.

So by basically 18 months was the end of the second calendar year after 1998, I sat down and I analyzed and audited all of my commissions and transactions I had closed the year before.

And I was shocked to see that I had one realtor that I had made over $50,000 in commissions just from one agent.

That One agent represented 25% of my income for the year.

Right.

Once I had that data, then what I did is I doubled down on a relationship.

I started investing in co marketing, cams, campaigns.

We started advertising together in the real estate book because I knew every client she got was coming my way.

Right.

So imagine.

Let's just unpack this for a little bit.

We just talked about referrals from past customers and from other professionals like realtors.

Let's stay in that lane for a second and then let's come back to the customer side.

Sure.

When it comes to your referral partners, imagine if you created a gift certificate.

Right.

Or a referral card, coupon, whatever you want to call it.

I like gift certificates because everybody likes to get a gift certificate for sure.

That may be framed as a free consultation, a free analysis, a free energy audit, however you find best.

And Sam, you're the expert in that space, so I'll let you kind of speak to that.

But imagine your realtors giving a free energy audit with every single new home that they sell.

Sure.

Now, here's the other side.

When you think about realtors, when they're helping somebody buy a home, what do they.

What's the first thing they do with that new home buyer?

They have them do a home inspection report, don't they?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

What happens to that home inspection report after the transaction?

That's most of the time just gets set aside or thrown out, forgot.

Okay, cool.

Here's the inspection.

Thanks.

It gets forgotten.

Yeah.

Would you agree with that?

Oh, 100%.

Is there any information that you, as a.

As a. I can't remember what you comfort advisor would like to know on that inspection report.

Oh, it's huge, right?

Ah, you see the light bulbs going off.

Wouldn't it be amazing if you had realtors that helped you understand, hey, this person's buying this house and two years from now they need to hear from you.

Or maybe it's just even after they buy.

Because when somebody moves into a new home, 85% of the time, according to welcome Wagon, which has been doing this for decades.

Right.

85% of the time, they use the first professional in that new industry that they meet because they don't know anyone.

They've moved into a new City, a new state, in some cases a new area of town.

And they don't have their, what we call their trusted team of professionals.

And so if you can be the first one on the scene, if you will, and you can get your realtors to give the gift of you is the way that we teach it in the book, by giving a gift certificate for a free home energy audit or however you recommended.

Right.

And that way, as part of their closing gift, they're getting, they're receiving the information about their top trusted pros, including the H Vac Comfort Advisor, that they should be connecting with.

Right, Right.

Absolutely.

Gosh, you know, it's just so powerful.

And I'm glad we're talking about this.

We have a very similar process when we're teaching how to do door knocking for the same thing.

But so that, and for everybody listening, make sure that you have a value assigned to the gift.

You can't just be like, hey, here's a free thing.

Here's a free thing normally valued at $499 or whatever the value is.

But because of this relationship, here is your free gift.

And that totally frames it differently.

So now they have the value that they're getting instead of just, oh, it's a free thing.

I don't know if I want to call.

Yeah.

And now your realtor's happy to provide it because they're giving a $500 value.

In that example, 100%.

You just nailed it.

That's perfect.

Oh, love it.

Yeah.

So then of course, then the realtor feel there you were helping them build their value stack for how they're able to help their homeowners by providing this for them.

And then, God, it's so powerful.

And of course then on the back end with the sales training, then we just have to be good at asking the right questions and asking how they want to live in their home.

And of course, that's a whole, whole nother training.

Well, and let's just unpack one thing you just talked about.

You talked about door knocking.

And I know a lot of people do that.

I have a 23 year old son that's literally doing that this summer for pest control.

This will be his third summer.

He's crushing it.

He's loving it.

He's over in Barcelona, Spain right now because he made so much money last summer.

He and his buddies are over there.

They're going to a, I don't know, a soccer game, a football match over in Barcelona.

And he can't wait because there's going to be A hundred thousand people.

And he's doing that because he's door knocking now.

He's door knocking and he's having 200 conversations a day or.

Well, he's.

He's approaching 200 homes a day.

Right.

Talking to strangers.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

And it's awesome because you're able to have more conversations.

Right?

However, when you get a referral from somebody that's already trusted by a homeowner, did you know that referrals are 400% more likely to hire you because of the trust that's in place?

And referred prospects spend 16% more money with you overall because they trust you more.

So they're willing to buy something that's more expensive because you're the expert, that's recommended by somebody they trust and they make more referrals as well.

So when you work by referral, it's a game changer.

And I'm not suggesting that anybody stop knocking.

What I am suggesting is that if most of your business is coming by referrals, or at least a significant portion, my question to you is, how much time, energy and money are you investing in the referral side of your business?

Exactly.

Exactly.

You know, and that's.

That's so intriguing too, because the best door knockers end up not knocking doors because they don't need to.

You know, I.

Some of the best people, I know that, like, they're going to get in houses, but what happens is they're like, oh, all I have to do is get in maybe 10 houses.

And then they're experts at asking for referrals.

So every single time that they work with a homeowner, they get one to three referrals minimum from that homeowner.

So it just becomes this chain that moves forward and moves forward and moves forward.

Well, let me teach you the art of the ask real quick because this is something I love that you're talking about, asking for referrals.

This is what Mark Victor Hanson, my mentor, his latest book is called Ask.

That is what he's on a mission for.

Add this to your book club called the bridge from your dreams to your destiny.

And he's all about.

So he's been training me for 20 years about asking for referrals.

We've created the art of the ask.

And it's super simple.

There's three steps, okay?

You're going to set the stage, you're going to listen for referral triggers, and then you're going to ask to get.

So let me unpack that for you.

Yes, please.

When you first have a client that agrees to do business with you before you even come and do the install, before you let them off of that phone call, face to face, whatever it is, say before I leave, would it be okay if I ask you for a favor?

They're always going to say either yes or maybe tell me more.

Right.

We love helping people.

Helping homeowners like you have an amazing experience and feel great about your home energy solution, however you phrase that.

Right.

And what I'd like to do is once we've proven ourselves to you, we're so committed to having to you having an amazing experience with our company, with our product, with our service, that once we've delivered a wow experience for you, I'd like to ask if it'd be okay to ask you for referrals now.

You'll get 100%.

Yes.

Because you haven't put them on the spot.

You're not asking for referrals in this moment.

Although oftentimes they'll go, well, you know, Sam, now that you mention it, I have a neighbor and I told them I was doing this H Vac, and they're like, yeah, I got to get my none too.

Right.

So you'll get referrals right on the spot.

But that's not your goal.

Your goal is to plant the seeds and set and get them to an agreement now so that once you finish the job, you can come back to them and they've already agreed to give you referrals.

Make sense?

Love it.

Love it.

So that so much of that in our process anyway, that I'm trained with the close it now sales process.

Love it.

Those verbal agreements for future actions.

Mm.

Huge.

So important you know it, Sam.

And that's what you're teaching it, right?

So now you've got their verbal agreement for a future action.

They've said, yes, of course.

I'd be happy to.

Because you've said, I'm going to do a great job.

I'm going to wow you with our service right now.

That's setting the stage.

And you set them the expectation that I'm going to wow you with my service.

That's correct.

Is like, even cooler than, like, hey, we hope you do a good job for you music.

We're going to do a good job for you.

It's different.

It's a totally different.

And you know what?

It's different for you now.

You got to live up to it.

You're committing to a higher service standard that's going to make you famous in their Mind and to what you said earlier make you the expert.

So they have no choice but to tell you to tell everyone they know about you.

Make sense?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so that's setting the stage.

It's done at the beginning.

Once they've said yes, they've decided to hire you, they've signed the deal.

You, before you walk out the door, you're going to set the stage now.

You're going to start servicing them right now.

You're listening for the referral triggers.

You're going to do the install.

You're going to do an assessment.

You're going to walk them through your process.

And all the stuff that you teach Sam, that create that wow experience.

Right.

As you're installing their new system right now, you want to listen for the referral triggers.

That's step two.

So, Sam, what do you think a referral trigger might sound like?

Referral triggers?

Oh, that's a good question.

So from my experience in the past, it sounds a lot like if you hear them talking about maybe friends or relatives or.

Yes.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, this is.

I'm so glad you fixed this for us.

I was at this house the other day that my friend had this problem.

Those types of things, 100%.

It's.

Man, this is so great.

You guys were so easy to work with.

You're so fast.

You're so clean.

You know, the last guy I had made a mess everywhere.

You did an amazing job.

You're listening for an expression of appreciation.

You're listening for a thank you.

You're listening for a wow.

Okay.

And it's your job to manufacture that wow experience.

Sure.

As you're going through it.

So I'm Sam.

I know you're teaching that.

So we won't.

We don't need to camp out there.

Yeah.

But once you hear.

Thank you.

Wow.

Oh, I love it.

This is amazing.

This is going to help us save so much.

Whatever that is you say.

I'm so glad to hear that.

We love helping families like you.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever that commitment.

And Sam, you're the guy on just.

Retail their words right back to them.

Right?

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

And.

And so now we're going to go into the third step, which is to ask to get.

Sam, I'm so glad to hear that.

We love helping people like you do this.

We're looking to help some other families.

We've got room right now on our schedule to take on a couple more clients this.

This month, whatever.

However you Want to frame that.

And you know, we've got a gift that you can give to your people.

Right.

Here's $100 off or you're back to your gift certificate.

Here's a free analysis.

An energy audit.

Who do you know that would be a perfect fit and would appreciate receiving a gift certificate like this?

Oh, love this.

And I, I want to camp out here super quick because so many people, when they're asking for.

And I know you know this, when they're asking for referrals, they do it wrong because we were taught, just taught that way.

It's like, okay, here, everybody that you send me, I'll give you a hundred dollars.

Right.

The people have such an aversion to making money off their friends and family.

They do.

And that this bypasses that.

Be like, here is a gift that you can give that has the.

I mean, and we're not talking about, I'm going to give you money, you're good, you know, all those kind of things.

It's like, how can we help?

Well, so in my experience, and, and I agree with everything you just said, Sam.

And for me, it's about 50, 50, and it's based on the personality styles.

Sure.

Half of people feel totally uncomfortable getting compensated.

And so then what we do is we, you know, I teach to offer a referral reward because half the people love it.

Sure.

And you want to incentivize and compensate, but you're absolutely right.

The other half get repelled by it.

So what you say is, and if you don't feel comfortable receiving the money, we're happy to make a donation to the charity of your choice in your name.

Love it.

They're happy to give you referrals because again.

And your cost of sale just went down.

Right.

Because it's a fraction of the profit that you're going to make on the deal.

And now you are a charity champion and you get to tell the story of the impact that you're creating.

Oh, I love this.

And I was so curious when you mentioned that earlier of what that really sounds like and, and some feet to that, to that action.

Well, so that's one example.

We really recommend that you truly become a charity champion.

Support different community events.

At HOA.com, we actually manufacture community events because we're on a mission to connect communities.

And we believe that we're at a crossroads in our country.

Right.

We really believe that even though our nation is as connected technically.

Right.

To as we've ever been, we're disconnected, we're divided and, you know, some would say that's by design.

We would say that it's time to unite our communities again.

Right.

If you look at the word community, it has unity in the word.

Isn't it time that we connect with each other once again on a much deeper level?

And I was just speaking at a Marketplace Ministry event last week with Mark Victor Hansen, and I really, my topic is, who are you doing life with?

Who are the people that you're building your business with that you're spending your time with?

And if you create referral partnerships with people that you love, you respect, and you have a good time together, you go to grab a beer or go to topgolf or go to the shooting range, whatever you're into.

Right, right.

Those are the people that you want to do life with.

And when you've got a group of people, we call it a trusted team of professionals that you know, if you refer them, that they're going to do an amazing job, take care of your customers and clients, and that's just going to generate more referrals for all of you.

We really believe that we're better together.

And while most people try and build their business by themselves, when you partner with others and you cross refer, refer and you cross promote, you build your business faster than ever before.

I love this.

It's very, very powerful too, when, like we talked about, because of the higher percentage of closing and, you know, bigger tickets and that kind of thing, but on such a deeper heart level.

And I think that's why I, you know, my training is very much feeling an emotion and building these relationships.

I was on a podcast a couple days ago and we were talking, the hot topic right now is AI and how AI is automating everything and just taking over, et cetera.

And I, I was like, I will argue that while, yes, maybe it's replacing a handful of jobs, it will never replace relationships.

It's never going to replace the emotional connection.

We're not going to have a robot showing up at somebody's house to try to build a relationship for, sell them home improvement things.

Right.

So in this vertical, we're not replacing ourselves.

It may help things be more efficient, but that's why relationships are so important.

And this, this is just part of that, to feed it even better.

It's huge.

And let's go down that trail for a second ago, because I, back in 2019, the only time I've worked for somebody else in the last 27 years and actually had a, like a salary, paycheck job, I was hired to be the CEO of a company called Code Breaker Technology.

And back in 2019, we created an AI.

So this is almost five years ago, right?

Long before ChatGPT and everybody caught on that AI.

We were like telling everybody, this is the future, it's coming.

And anyway, we built an AI that helped you understand your prospect's personality code.

In just one click on like a LinkedIn profile, it would tell you exactly who they were and when you understand.

In the chat, in the book it's called, there's a chapter called Learn why they Buy that.

And this is personality science.

Right.

You understand that people are wired in four different ways, Right.

They're either high in action, they're high in knowledge, they're high in blueprint, or they're high in nurturing.

Okay, so there's two that are more intuitive.

That's the nurturing and the action.

These people buy on feeling.

Right?

You talked about their feeling.

These people buy more on other each emotion and they follow their intuition.

Whereas the blueprint and knowledge personalities, which are most of your service advisors, tend to be, or at least the techs that probably do the work, not the advisors.

The advisors are probably the nurturing and the action because they're out there making things happen.

And the guys that actually own the company do the tech and make sure everything works well.

They're high knowledge and blueprint.

So when you understand who it is that you're selling to, you start to customize your conversation and your presentation based on how they make buying decisions.

Right.

Every single personality code makes buying decisions differently.

So this is part of what we teach.

It's called bank code.

And it's just an amazing system because it's instant empathy.

When you understand how somebody's wired, then you can serve them better and save everyone time.

And you close more deals in less time.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I've.

That's.

I love that you brought that up because I've been a fan of bank code for quite a few years now.

I originally came across it years ago at.

From some.

I don't know if you're familiar with.

I'm sure you're familiar with T. Harvecker and secretary billionaire mind and that whole group taking some courses with them and originally discovered that there.

And it's super powerful.

It's a big part of what I train, just not to the exact, exact phrasing.

So love this.

And for everybody listening too, make sure to check that out.

I'm working, actually, I'm going to be.

I am becoming a trainer for that oh, are you really?

Oh, cool.

Yeah, it's like in my, in my short list of accomplishments.

But love it, love it.

Of, of two accomplish items.

But for everybody, listen, you know, it's, it's those person.

That's why we talk so much about personality styles and being able to instantly recognize that personality style.

Are we going to close every single deal in the house?

No, because some personality styles don't even allow for that.

Now if we understand how they, how they make decisions and how they, they think, then we're much more likely and, or at the end of the day, we're still going to be, still going to close those deals, even if it's not one sit.

Because we know, hey, we will structure our process around how they think and how they buy.

And no one else is customizing it according to that.

So.

Let me give you some data to back that up, Sam.

So when I was CEO, we commissioned, I commissioned a real estate research project and what we wanted to do is study the impact of bank code on real estate listings and buyer broker agreements.

And what we found was that when realtors customize their conversations and their presentations based on the bank codes, they were able to increase listing conversions by an average of 123%.

Meaning that they more than doubled their close rate because they really customize their conversations based on the way people buy.

Right.

And they, they got to their heart, which then won the mind.

Yes.

They also, that study also showed that on average, we boosted the average buyer broker agreement conversion by 300%.

Wow.

So we're about to go teach this and train this.

You mentioned being a certified trainer for bank code, which, you know, I love Sherry Tree and everything they're doing, and I have so many of their certified trainers that are part of my community because that's where I came from.

Right, right.

And we're launching a certified trainer program for raving referrals for the exact same reason we want to empower people with the ability to go teach and train this system that doesn't.

You don't have to spend a lot of money when you're working by referral, like you said on the intro.

But the ROI on referrals is higher than any other marketing that I've ever seen.

Right, right, absolutely.

100% agree with that.

Specifically in H vac referrals close at an 80% close rate, which is absurdly high relative to anything else.

There's no other source to get that high of close rate, and that's the average.

So people that are actually good at it it's better than that.

That's the average.

Yeah.

It's incredible.

Sam, what would you say?

I'm just curious.

I love this.

The fact that you've got those stats.

Sorry, somebody's trying.

One of my team members trying to call me.

Do you know the average conversion rate overall outside of referrals?

Outside of referrals, the average close rate of the H vac industry is 30%.

Wow.

Yeah.

Average close rate.

Yep.

We're gonna have to write a book about that and really talk about the difference in close rate, huh?

Absolutely.

Oh, it's huge.

It's huge.

I mean, so.

And you know, when you get at rock stars, top performers, you know, they're seeing 50, 55%, maybe 60% when we start, you know, overall.

Right.

And so then when we start to break apart the different lead sources, that's when we can get really granular in.

Okay.

Marketed leads.

A good number is 50% or greater referrals, though.

That's the one that, you know, the second people realize, hey, it's 80% that.

Yeah.

And that's why.

And so for everybody listening, that's why a tech turnover, if, say, if somebody is out at home and the system is, say, having issues, and the technician sends that lead, a tech turnover or a tech generated lead to that advisor, that's why everybody begs for those appointments because they close at such a higher level.

Well, everybody listening, that's a referral.

So if you want that type of an appointment, it every single time, just fill your calendar with more referrals.

Boom.

That's like a gimme, right?

If you're.

If you're putting.

And you don't even have to hit it because your buddy's like, no, you got that.

Just.

It's like a. Yeah, it's in the leather.

Just like, pick it up, we'll count it.

Yeah, you got it, bro.

That's awesome.

I love this.

Well, I know that you have a.

Thank you for your time today.

This has been fantastic.

I.

We've got to start landing this plane soon.

What?

So this podcast is known for immediate actionable items.

People can apply right away.

So you.

Thank you for taking us through the referral process.

So everybody that's listening, go back and make notes.

Right.

Be super diligent about that because that is.

That's gold mine.

What is something you can leave everybody with.

Right.

Right away that they can, like, start applying.

Yeah.

The biggest thing that I would say right now is do your own self audit, go to referralscorequiz.com and take the two minute assessment.

It'll take you two minutes.

You're going to look at the top 10 referral best practices and you're going to self assess and rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.

What I'm telling you right now is you're going to find a couple of those that you're like, oh my gosh, I'm a zero.

And it's just not part of your, your, it's not on your, your radar.

Right.

You don't know what you don't know and as soon as you know it, you're going to be able to adjust it and instantly boost that aspect of your business.

And I'll, I'll give you an example.

Back when I was in the mortgage business, I would have scored a 0 out of 10 on thanking referrals, referral or the people that gave me referrals and also following up and educating or updating people that gave me referrals.

I was horrible at it and I found out because I had a client that had done several loans with me, it was a VP at intel.

And he called me up one day and he said, you know, how's it going with Mike Johnson?

Right.

He had referred, this guy said, great, we just closed his loan three weeks ago.

He said, there's a long pause.

And he said, do you mind if I give you a piece of advice?

Absolutely, sure.

Number one, it's a really good idea to thank people who give you referrals.

And I just felt like an idiot because I missed it.

And this was a vip.

He was a VP at Intel.

Yeah, like everybody he knew had lots of money.

Second thing he said was it's also a good idea to update the people who give you a referral so they know what happened with their friend, their family member, their client.

So there's 10 different referral best practices.

Those are two of them.

Go to referral scorequiz.com take the quick two minute assessment and you'll know exactly how you score and that will help you identify where you're weak.

Besides that, put a referral program in place so that every time you serve a new customer, you've got to leave behind that is asking for referrals.

Maybe it's a gift certificate like we talked about earlier.

Maybe it's a refer a friend card that you give them where they're able to instantly and easily share the gift you with the people in their life.

That alone will boost your business.

And then also go create more referral partnerships if you just create one per week for one year.

That's 52.

It's round down to 50.

And out of those 50 people, let's say it's the 80, 20 rule, and there's only 20% of them that you're really going to build a strong referral partnership with.

Well, that's 10 people or companies.

Like, I was just meeting with the guy who owns a solar company here in Phoenix.

They did $38 million last year.

Partner with a company like that, they've got tech crews out there all the day.

They don't do H Vac company.

And a partnership like that can give you all the business that you want.

Absolutely.

And I'm going to, like, tackle into this super quick.

When you're building these referral partnerships, everybody that's listening, think about the.

The company that you're wanting to partner with.

Think about their client base.

So, for example, the solar company, they don't do H Vac.

But also think about what they do.

They're addressing a homeowner's energy where questions we're already asking in the home, are your bills higher than you'd like them to be?

Great.

So then you can create this machine that's like, hey, if you know, listen, we don't do this, but I have some.

If we can show you how to save 20 or 30% on your bill, if I could show you a way that you could get rid of the rest of your electric bill, would you be open to more information?

And then it's like, perfect, listen, we don't do that.

But let me connect you to somebody.

Well, and check this.

Creating this, like, whole thing, right?

Hundred percent.

You're so spot on.

And so I was talking to the CEO.

The guy's 30.

They're doing 38 million a year.

He's 30 years old.

Right.

He says, you know what I do with all the roofers?

They focus on partnering with roofers.

He gives.

He prints the shirts that they wear to work, and on the back it says, ask me about solar.

Wow.

Then he gives them a spiff.

If that ends up generating a lead that ends up generating a client, he pays the roofing company or the roofer a percentage of that deal.

A referral reward.

Sure.

So you create that ecosystem where everybody's winning together.

We're better together.

Instead of building your business by yourself, find out and figure out a manufacturer way to get everybody recommending you to everyone they know.

I love this.

Oh, so good.

Well, thank you for that.

It's definitely boots on the ground for everybody listening and watching on the YouTube.

When this comes out, I'm holding in my hand raving referrals by Brandon Barnum.

He's the CEO of HOA.com do you have a quick minute to tell us about.

We've referenced it several times.

What is hoa.com?

we need to hear about that too.

And then tell everybody how they can get in touch with you.

You.

Yeah, you bet.

So let me take care of that part first.

You can find out about me@brandon barnum.com that's the easiest way.

You'll see links to the referral score quiz, to the bank code assessment, to hoa.com and then I have a.

Anyway, that that'll give you the best source of all my stuff.

You can even book me if you want to do a podcast interview or have a a high level conversation about your business.

Brandon barnum.com with hoa.com what we're on, what we're creating is a platform that's kind of like next door meets Angie's List meets Zillow.

We have 155 million homes.

In our data feed, we're creating community pages for every neighborhood in America and what we call a home safe report for every homeowner in America.

On that report they can see all the information about their home in one place.

We're building kind of like a Carfax for your home.

Cool.

And it not only has all the information about your house, it including like the square footage, the tax assessment, your mortgage history, ownership history, all that stuff.

We do it automatically.

It's part of you can go to hoa.com and you can type in your address and you can see a free home safe report.

And what you're going to find is that we also promote the local pros, trusted pros.

So we vet people kind of like an Angie's List, like a thumbtack.

And then we recommend top trusted pros on a hyper local social farming basis.

So we help people really build deep relationships and get become famous in those communities that they serve while helping create referral partnerships.

And we automate the co marketing because what we know is a lot of people are great at providing tech or the services.

Right.

They're not great at the marketing.

Sure.

So we automate the marketing and we help you market with your partners.

You set it up one time, it's set it and forget it.

Super easy and super affordable to be part of.

Our referral network is just $357 a year.

Wow.

That's incredible.

I love this too because you know, for Everybody coming from the trades.

You know, you mentioned places like Angie's List and Home Advisor and Yelp.

We know those are blackmail organizations.

It's a pay to play if you don't.

The more money you give them, the better, the more of your positive reviews are going to put up.

But if you don't pay on money, they only put up your negative reviews.

And it's like this gross machine that keeps contractors under their thumb strictly as a.

To make money.

And then of course, somebody, a homeowner, fills out a hey, I need AC work.

And they get bombarded by all of the dirt bag contractors in the area.

And this is breaking that, breaking that mold and actually creating something.

Maybe those organizations at the beginning had the best of intentions like this, but, man, somewhere along the way they've gotten off track.

I love what HOA.com is doing because it's actually fixing that model and making something much better that's actually worth being involved with because I know a lot of the listeners would definitely will love to hear about HOA.com and get involved because of the low cost and local star power.

Super low cost.

Yeah.

We don't charge for leads.

You don't pay us on deals that you close.

You're simply a member of our referral network, kind of like a bni.

But we help you create your own referral alliance.

We help you formalize your trusted team of professionals where they're part of your profile page and you're a part of theirs.

And we're training everybody.

This is where to go to find a pro.

Love it.

Where to go to find a pro.

Well, you heard it here first, folks.

Thank you for being on this episode today, Brandon.

It has been a very, very big pleasure and I'm grateful to have someone of your caliber to be on the show.

Everybody, you got to pick up the raving Referrals book.

Is this on Audible as well, or is it strictly in word right now?

It's strictly in print right now.

Or ebook.

I've got to record that and I haven't done it yet.

Gotcha.

Well, we'll put some pressure on you with that because this podcast is drivetime University.

And so we talk so much about using windshield time as your learning time, because outside sales, you know, 15 year career in outside sales or service tech is if you use your windshield time for education, it's the equivalent of three PhDs.

And so we absolutely are all about personal growth and doing that, but love it.

Pick up the book, actually read it.

And then, of course, when the audible comes out or the audio comes out.

I'm sure Brandon will let us know and we'll be able to get that also.

And everybody, this is cool.

So definitely connect with Brandon hoa.com for that as well as brandonbarnham.com to learn more about the bank code.

Learn more about just the assessment, all of the things.

Thank you for giving those tools to us.

It's my pleasure, Sam.

Thanks so much for having me.

For sure.

All right, everybody, a couple super quick announcements.

One, the book club that we talked about.

Text me 512-364-8559.

Join the Close It Now Facebook group.

Email me samoseitnow.net or just go to closeitnow.net and you can connect to me.

Connect to us there also.

March 21st and 22nd of 2024, two days powerhouse days.

Actually part of the training that I do this is the sales process.

We will we cover a lot about personality styles and how to communicate exactly to that person in the way that they hear you and care, which is different than the way most people communicate.

So but that is it.

Everybody, thanks for listening today.

Thanks for being here.

Brandon and everybody will sign off like we always do.

Go save the world one frostbite at a time.

Go save the world one heat stroke at a time.

You've been listening to the Close it now podcast.

Our passion is to dive headfirst into the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H VAC and home improvement and at the same time covering fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all.

We hope you've enjoyed the show.

If you did, make sure to like, rate and review.

We'll be back soon, but in the meantime, find the website@closeitnow.net find us on Instagram at thereal closeit now and on Facebook @CloseItNow.

See you next time.