How to run a referral program that actually works.

Start from the job, not the gesture. If a referred job is worth $8,000 and you'd happily pay $800 to a lead source for it, a $100 reward is inexpensive. If your average ticket is $200, a $100 reward is not.

Flat amounts are easier to advertise and easier for customers to repeat to a neighbor. Percentages scale better when your job sizes vary a lot — a roofer's referral is worth far more than a tune-up.

Whichever you choose, set a minimum job value. It stops a $90 service call from triggering a full reward, and it's the single most common thing people forget to configure.

The best time to ask is right after you've solved something. The install is finished, the leak stopped, the power came back on. Wait three months and you're a vendor again rather than the person who helped.

The second-best time is seasonal. Before summer for HVAC, after the first freeze for plumbing, following a storm for roofing. Your customer's neighbors are thinking about the same problem at the same time.

Don't over-ask. One good campaign a quarter outperforms monthly nagging, and it keeps your opt-out rate low.

The referral has to survive being retold. "Text this link to anyone who needs an AC guy" travels; "mention my name when you call" does not.

Give every customer their own link so you never have to ask who sent whom. It also means the customer doesn't have to do anything except share.

Say what the friend gets, not just what the customer gets. A discount on the first job gives your customer a reason to bring it up that isn't purely self-interested.

The fastest way to kill a referral program is to let a reward go unpaid. The customer remembers, tells the person they referred, and neither of them sends you anyone again.

Tell them twice: once when they've earned it, once when it's on the way. Silence between those two moments is where trust leaks out.

Pay quickly. A reward that arrives the week the job closes feels like a thank-you. One that arrives two months later feels like an accounting process.

Referral count is a vanity metric. Track closed referral revenue against rewards paid — that ratio tells you whether the program is carrying itself.

Then compare cost per acquired customer to what you currently pay per lead. That comparison is usually the moment a referral program stops being a nice idea and starts being a budget line.

Watch who refers. A small number of customers usually drive most referrals, and they are worth knowing by name.