Guide 1 of 13 · Receiving referrals
How to get referrals from other agents
Right now, somewhere in the country, an agent is sitting with a client who's moving to your market, and they're about to hand that client to whoever they can find. This is about being the one they find.
What the video covers
- 0:00The referral you never heard about
- 0:45How a referral between agents works
- 1:40Where referring agents look today
- 2:50What they need to see before they send
- 4:10Five things to do this week
- 5:20Where to put all of it
How a referral between agents works
A client of another agent moves to your area. That agent can't help them here, so they refer the client to you. You do the work. When it closes, the referring agent gets a referral fee, most often 25 percent of your side of the commission, paid at closing off the settlement statement. Nothing changes for the client. It's written down in a referral agreement before anyone does anything.
So from the referring agent's side, a referral is money they earn for one good decision: picking the right agent. Which means they care about one thing. Who do I send this to?
Where they look today
They post in a Facebook group. “Anyone work in San Diego?” Fifteen people reply in ten minutes, and every reply is somebody's friend saying so-and-so is the best. The referring agent has no way to tell those fifteen apart.
Or they use their brokerage's referral pool, which sends the client to whoever's next in line at their brand, in your city. Or a relocation company, which takes a cut big enough that some agents won't take those clients at all. Or they text a friend who once knew somebody in your city.
None of those can land on you unless you happened to be in the room at that exact moment. The referral into your market is real money, and you never hear about it, because the agent sending it doesn't know you exist.
What a referring agent needs to see before they send
Put yourself on their side for a second. You've got a client you like. You're about to hand them to a stranger, and your name is on it. What would you need to see? Three things.
That you exist in that market and that you take referrals. Most agents fail this one. The website says “serving San Diego” and nothing about referrals, and there's no way to tell if you'd even pick up.
Your terms. The referral fee you pay. How fast you respond. What kind of client you actually want: price range, buyers, sellers, relocation, VA, luxury. The referring agent needs to match their client to you, and they can't match against a blank.
Proof. Your numbers: volume, closings, average price. Your Zillow rating with a link to it, so they can check it themselves. And something of you. Ten or fifteen seconds of you talking is worth a page of text, because they're about to trust you with a relationship.
If those three things are easy to find, you're the obvious choice. If they're not, you're not in the running, and nobody tells you.
Where to put all of it
Your website isn't where referring agents look. The Facebook group scrolls past in an hour.
Vouch is a map. When an agent has a client moving to your market, they search it, filter for the kind of agent their client needs, and read profiles. Your profile has your terms, your numbers, your Zillow link, and your fifteen seconds. If they like what they see, they send you the referral from your profile. It lands in your inbox and your email. You two sign the referral agreement, and Vouch steps out of the way. It takes $0 commission.
Nobody can promise a referral will show up. What can be said is how it works: the referral goes to whoever the sending agent can find. Make sure that can be you.
Your terms, your numbers, your Zillow link and your fifteen seconds, on the map agents search when they have a client to send.
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