Maximizing Referral Volume: Aaron Wuthrich’s Real Estate Partnership Framework

Host 00:00

I would make a call and it would be within minutes of getting the lead and they're like, stop calling me. You've gotten twenty-eight leads from the Justin Haver team, so there's some volume coming in. Offering that like top-notch service, and I think that's actually how that relationship began. It's an amazing growth strategy when you can align your business with partners that want to feed you on a consistent basis. You win, the agent wins, the client wins. Those are the best types of relationships. At the end of the day, it's what you put in is what you're gonna get. What's up, everybody? Grant Wise here. Welcome back to the Partner Profit Podcast. I am pumped for my conversation today. I've got Aaron Wootrich out of Calgary, Alberta, and Canada with Absolute Moving and Delivery. And uh pumped to have a conversation today about how do we turn our relationships into revenue. Aaron, man, thanks for spending some time with me.

Host1 00:47

Yeah, pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

Host 00:49

Of course. So give everybody that is listening to this that maybe doesn't know much about you, just give a little bit of the brief backstory. How'd you get to where you are today?

Host1 00:56

A brief backstory, yeah. So was always kind of like a worker bee for many different companies, saw kind of like some pain points. I became a contractor again, seeing kind of more like operational things, working on my own with a contractor. You know, you're given like a chunk of the money that someone that's managing has already taken from, so you're kind of forced to cut corners just in like labor materials and whatnot. After that, I kind of just branched off and now fully 100% independent. I'm no more contracting for myself for our company. Absolute moving and delivery was incorporated in 2007, but we've really just ramped up kind of over the last I'd say about three or four years now. But that's kind of the brief kind of like footnotes of it.

Host 01:48

So yeah, yeah, that's awesome. How how have you guys traditionally gotten customers? How how have you like traditionally grown the business?

Host1 01:57

So it was always um just starting way back. I I think Absolute was kind of built off of maybe a model of like the yellow pages, it was so long ago, but it's always been, you know, just off of uh the internet. Uh word of mouth, of course, helps with today's society, though, trying to have like a good Google rating. I knew that was very important right out of the hop, you know, especially on those first starting days, we really put a lot of energy into making sure that clients were super happy, getting that, you know, that Google five-star rating, starting to put money into like other, you know, advertisement platforms and Yelp and Google and Facebook, Meta, all of those, you know, were kind of like our beginning.

Host 02:43

When when you look at growing the business, you know, you go back to like word of mouth and some of those things that you guys are doing. Obviously, I got I know you guys are partnered with Justin Havers, one of the top real estate teams in Calgary. How do you kind of develop those relationships and partnerships so that you kind of can turn that feed of you know customers on?

Host1 03:02

Yeah, so consistency, um, you know, offering that, like trying to offer that top-notch service. And I think that's actually how that relationship began. They kind of found us a brief call with one of their associates there, Caitlin. Uh, I think she just kind of searched us up and I went in for an interview and then just built that. And then, you know, making sure that there's like certain you're you're aware of certain customers needing that extra kind of white glove service or like that extra care, uh, extra follow-ups throughout the day. And then just, you know, coming back with like referral kind of programs and whatnot, right? So that's that always helps.

Host 03:44

When you're looking to develop relationships, and and I it sounds like you know, obviously it's a little bit newer. You know, Caitlin hit you up and you guys have been developing this relationship. But when you kind of look at it now, having been in it, been at it for a little bit, what do you think it takes to kind of make a successful business relationship like that when two companies are referring business? What what in your mind, you know, makes that kind of thing successful? Because I can look at the numbers and see like you guys are doing well. You've gotten 28 leads from the Justin Haver team, you know, so there's some volume coming in, the numbers look good. What what does that stuff look like for you? How do you how do you kind of make a successful partnership like that from a business standpoint?

Host1 04:22

So I think always showing up is one thing, and I'm always going to the weekly meetings, I'm making sure, you know, you're kind of trying to be more well known at the end of the day. You know, it's not really again who's the best, but of being like on like the tip of somebody's tongue. So, you know, creating those prof the that that relationship through social media as well, I've kind of excelled in that um with following up with realtors on just like adding and kind of just being social, I guess.

Host 04:57

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How do you think that growing a business through relationships compares to some of the other things that are out there? I know you said that you know the internet has been really good to you guys, but when you go look at like maybe buying leads from other other types of services, how do you think that partnerships, you know, with with people like Justin, how do you think that compares?

Host1 05:18

So we did try that purchasing leads in comparison to like a lead that may be coming from a trusted source like Justin and his team, it's night and day difference. You know, in certain certain platforms, you're gonna be competing against who an unknown number of other people. I remember early on uh there was uh I would make a call and it would be within minutes of getting the lead, and they're like, Stop calling me. Like I've had 10 phone calls.

Host 05:51

I'll never forget when I was like first getting into business for myself. I was 19 and I took over my dad's or I bought my dad's my dad's gutter installation company from him, and um I got cold called by home advisor, and they were like, you know, you can start buying leads and all this stuff. And so I, you know, eventually I agreed. And I'll never forget the first time I got a lead, I paid like way more money than I had to spend on leads. And uh I was on a job and then I called them like 30 minutes later, and they're like, Oh, no, we already talked to the other gutter company. And I was like, What other gutter company? What are you talking about? I was like, the one that home advisor recommended, and I called my home advisor rep back. I was like, Do you guys sell these leads to multiple people? And they were like, Yeah, that's our business model. It's like, what the heck? Why would you do that? It's like it's crazy to me, but it is how it's how like those in you know, if you sell leads to one person and you max out a territory, it's like, well, now we have no other way to make money. Let's just start selling the leads to multiple people at the same time. I always thought that was crazy.

Host1 06:49

Yeah, I think certain companies, I think, yeah, they'll buy leads to sell leads almost, right? So you never know what's going on or where where it's coming from, or yeah, it could be it could be fake, and then they're selling it. It could be you never know. So it is good for that trusted relationship. You're meeting those people like in person, you're excited when that lead comes in from like that referred source, right? It's like you know it's it's already warm. Um, there might be someone else bidding on it, but you you know that person as well, right? So yeah, it's uh it's not like the the scrape and the barrel kind of lead for sure.

Host 07:30

In order to keep successful business partnerships, like you've got what are some of the things that you think you've got to do on the home service side? Obviously taking care of the customer, but you know, what do you believe are some of the most important things that a home service provider should do in partnership with people in real estate to keep the lead flow coming?

Host1 07:50

Yeah. So again, right back to that kind of like knowing, you know, which teams to put on to those, you know, maybe that client that's actually providing work throughout the year, you know, it's a relationship, it's not like a client that maybe comes in and I've had clients come in through Google and then they'll come back, you know, through another avenue. And I'm like, I've already talked to you. Um, they're they're they're speed dialing, you know, a thousand different companies or whatever they're doing, and all power to them. Like, I get it. That's the the nature of the beast for the internet. You know, you're you can call 15 companies by just a swipe of your phone, and yeah, no recognizing that you have a relationship with somebody and and making sure that you're handling that, like again, with the follow-up, the pre like the pre-move confirmations, you know, all that communication is really what kind of keeps that that engine running, right?

Host 08:49

So good. What would you say to moving companies out there that maybe they're thinking, like, okay, this sounds interesting, partnering with real estate professionals or other, you know, business types of professionals to get lead volume coming in. What would you say are like things they should do, shouldn't do?

Host1 09:06

Yeah, so should do is like being present for sure. Um, you know, like uh creating that relationship. I could see how somebody might focus once they're in the door, they might focus on other avenues. You know, I think it you it's at the end of the day, it's what you put in is what you're gonna get with anything. That's gonna be it. That's the should do for sure and shouldn't do, you know, maybe take stuff for granted. And maybe, you know, if you're getting work through a realtor, and then you think, okay, I can put like a not like an A team, I can put like a C team on it, or something like that, you're gonna lose all of that work that can be coming up by just one bad move, or you're gonna be playing kind of catch up. That's really it, is making sure that your those relationships are like a higher volume should be handled, you know, properly. That's gonna be the 100% you shouldn't do, is is maybe take that relationship for granted.

Host 10:05

I could not agree more. You know, people that are making referrals, like we all do it, but referrals are recommendations, like we all do it, but I think we're hypersensitive to our own reputation whenever we do make an introduction to somebody else. It's like you got to do a good job, or you're not you know, like it's not just on you, like you're not the only one that's gonna look bad. I I'm gonna look bad too. So you gotta make sure that you go ahead and do a good job. I'm always very hesitant. I I definitely do my research when I'm making recommendations because like I don't tend to make a lot of them, but uh like the ones that I do make, like normally they go well because it's like I'm really only gonna recommend somebody that I know is gonna do a good job. And that's definitely always on real estate agents' minds. Cause for a real estate agent, like if I recommend you to a client and you do a bad job, it's not just that you lost a customer, I just lost a lifetime client that could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to me. And that's it's a non-starter, it's a non-negotiable thing. Like we can't we can't gamble with people's reputations. I think it's really good advice. I'm gonna ask a question that's kind of more like a vulnerable question. Does the math work? You know, a lot of what we was talking about doing with co-marketing and in partnership with real estate agents, there's an investment required, and there's all these different ways that people can grow their business. There's all of these claims and promises and things that people do, right? Like everybody, I think home services and real estate are really cold-called to organizations. Everybody's got some strategy that's amazing, that's gonna be the best thing in the world. So I always like to ask like, does does the math work? Do the numbers work? Does it make sense to partner with people the way that you guys are doing it through co-marketing?

Host1 11:36

Yeah, the math works. The math is there for sure, 100%. In the moving industry, you could you could Google it, you could chat GPT it and see like what the margins are for like net profit, and they are pretty tight at the end of the day. So, you know, you're you're gonna pay per lead no matter which way you go. You know, it could be like your own in-house marketing or flyers or Google or Meta or whichever. So I think all of those kind of, you know, if you were to get right into like breaking everything down, you know, it can be uh it can be pretty much like one of those you're weighing kind of everything. Um, but for co-marketing, it's definitely a good return on investment for sure.

Host 12:20

That's awesome. What would you say to other moving companies that may be thinking about, you know, should I do something like this or should I put my my time and attention somewhere else?

Host1 12:30

100%. I think you should try it, depending on like what your brand is, your strong points. I know that in our market, there's a there's even like an international uh provider, you know, it it depends, I guess, on what certain companies are, you know, they might have more expertise in like an office job or something like that. So I think it would really align with whatever company, but um, for companies that just want more leads and more work, I would definitely suggest kind of just you know getting in there and trying it out.

Host 13:05

Yeah. I have uh somebody that I coached with for a long time uh gave me an enormous amount of great advice because they used to do a lot of work in real estate and and obviously still do, but they said, you know, they were always talking to real estate agents, like you guys roll out the red carpet. Their main thing was recruiting. It's like you guys roll out the red carpet, you'll buy a lead, you'll spend thousands of dollars to try to close a deal, and you could be going out there and putting the same time, attention, effort, and energy into recruiting one real estate agent to your organization that's gonna make you tens of thousands of dollars a year. And I kind of look at partnerships the same way through co-marketing. It's like you guys could spend a ton of time, attention, energy to get one lead, or you could put your time, attention, energy to pursuing one partnership, two partnerships, three partnerships that are gonna feed you a ton of leads on a monthly basis. And um, I would be apt to agree. Obviously, I'm a little biased, but I think it is it's an amazing growth strategy when you can align your business with partners that want to feed you on a consistent basis, and it's done in a way where it's mutually beneficial. You win, the agent wins, the client wins. Those are the best types of relationships. And uh, think you guys are doing an awesome job. Obviously, you've got a great partnership with Justin. That's awesome. Man, I really appreciate you spending some time with me today. This was an awesome conversation. I wanted to keep it short because I always like to ask at the end of the all these things is like, how can we, as the listeners of the how can the listeners of the podcast partner with you and help you grow your business?

Host1 14:34

Yeah, so if any realtors or anything, any home service providers want to like share leads or referrals, just enter into for co-marketing and look us up. We're there. I'm uh happy to work with any realtors. That's kind of our main thing. And any um, anyone in the Alberta area. So we do have an office in Edmonton as well. We have Calgary pretty much covered, so anywhere in between a whole of Alberta, we're able to cover and western Canada as well. So if there's anything like long distance, we can provide that that help as well.

Host 15:07

Awesome, awesome. We'll make sure that we link up all the ways people can connect with you. Highly encourage you to do that if you're listening to this. I really appreciate you spending some time with me with me today, Aaron. This was awesome.

Host1 15:17

Yeah, Grant, my pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Host 15:20

Of course, of course. And thank you all for continuing to listen to the Partner in Profit podcast. Uh, this was another epic conversation. I'll see you in the next one. Peace.