Growing a detailing business isn't just about getting more customers—it's about building relationships with the people who already know your future customers.

In this episode of the Detail Solutions Podcast, Alex sits down with fellow detailer Timothy Mills, a BNI member with over two years of networking experience, to discuss how referral marketing has transformed his business. Together, they break down why networking groups like BNI, your local Chamber of Commerce, and other business organizations can become one of the most valuable marketing tools a detailer has.

They share real-world experiences about building trust, creating referral partnerships, developing a sales team without hiring employees, and why success comes from giving value before asking for business. Whether you're a one-man shop or looking to scale, this conversation will challenge the way you think about marketing your business.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why referrals shouldn't stop with your existing customers
• How networking groups create long-term business opportunities
• The "Givers Gain" mindset and why it works
• How to craft referral asks that actually get results
• The importance of becoming known for more than just detailing
• Why consistency and relationships beat cold advertising every time

If you're tired of relying solely on social media, Google ads, or waiting for the phone to ring, this episode will show you how to build a referral network that continues working long after the meeting ends.

I think this is one of those episodes that can help detailers at every stage of business, because the biggest takeaway isn't "Join BNI." It's "Get out of your shop, build relationships, and let other professionals become your sales team." That's the message that comes through over and over in your conversation with Tim.

Hi.

What's up, buddy?

What's up?

Not much.

Are you like literally outside or Is that your 3D background?

No, I'm outside because my dogs are kind of annoying and they would probably.

The one would probably bark non stop.

So I was like, I'll just go outside.

Yeah, no, I was like.

I was like, wait, it looks like he's outside, but it also kind of looks like it's the green screen picture thing or whatever, so.

Because the shad.

The shadows do look fake right now.

I totally get it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So how you doing, man?

You busy today?

Good.

Yeah.

I was removing some PPF off some pillars, getting it ready for a ceramic coating.

So today I was even in this heat.

I had a steamer in my hand all day, so that was fun.

Nice.

Nice.

Yeah.

I sat inside the AC all day,.

So I know you'd think I'd be inside right now, but.

Yeah, I had, I had a one on one, one rewind that.

I had a one to one meeting with our BNI vice president for lunch today.

So.

Yeah, so nice little segue off of that.

So this episode, I, I guess maybe is going to kind of categorize more of like a, you know, what's on your mind, where we, where we do a topic for everybody.

You know, obviously I'm starting to get back into this again.

So I was talking with Tim.

What was that?

About a month or so ago, you had posted that you had gotten.

The.

Presentation of the week award at your BNI chapter, correct?

Yep.

Is that what it was?

Yep.

And I was like, oh, I'm a BNI member too.

So I sent you a picture of my name tag, you know, and we kind of talked a little bit.

You've obviously been doing it for way longer than I have.

Like, what, two and a half years now?

Just about.

Yep.

I believe so.

Yep.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I am like two and a half months, so definitely, definitely been doing it way longer than I am.

Yeah.

But you kind of, you kind of pitch this like, getting on and, and you know, maybe talking about it a little bit.

And you know, as I, as I sat with it, my thought was like, you know, it's not about.

It's not a bad idea.

It's not a bad topic to talk about getting out and networking outside of the industry.

Right.

And it doesn't have to necessarily be an odd B B.

And I, it's.

It could be chamber of commerce.

You know, I'm sure there's.

I'm sure there's some other similar type groups or Whatever.

But the one thing that I can kind of tell everybody is, you know, just in the short time that I've been a member with bni, it's.

It's been, you know, positive as far as, like, I, in the first, I think six weeks, had gotten referrals that paid for my yearly, I don't know what, membership dues, I guess.

Yeah, members, membership plus some.

Right.

So, like, I'm actually positive as far as.

As far as the business goes.

Personally, I'm negative because I've found people within the group that, oh, I need this.

You do it.

I need this.

You do it.

I need this.

You do.

But it's.

But it's been really good.

So I, you know, I kind of wanted to.

To talk to you a little bit about that.

So, like, how did you get into it?

How did you.

I.

What was that for you?

Yeah, so a lot of people know that I got.

Well, you do.

And a lot of people listening that know me, but the people that don't.

How I got into detailing was I used to have a rental car business on Turo with my old business partner.

So as we were growing that, my old business partner's wife at the time, she was just going to like, a chapter that was like, in launch.

So, like, there was no rule.

I mean, there was rules, but there was no membership at the time.

You know, attendance was a little bit loose because they didn't really want to scare people away because it was in launch mode.

So I started going to that with her and at first I was like, I don't know what this is.

Once a week sounds like a lot, you know, plus, you have to pay for it.

Like, at first I really didn't get it, but I wasn't really asking the right questions at first either.

So I just kept showing.

I kept showing up and I realized, like, wow, this can really do something for almost anybody at realistically, any stage of their business, whether you are, you know, own a big office complex, like, we have financial advisors that do really well.

That's a good, you know, great one right there.

If you have a big office full of those, you know, you can place different ones in different chapters and that does well.

But for somebody like me that has no employees, you know, no real free time, I have to run my business essentially every, every day.

I was like, I don't really know if this is the best commitment, but, you know, once I gave it a few months, I was like, oh, wow.

This is.

This is the number one referring network system in the United States, there is over 700 chapters.

It really does work if you work it.

And one of my favorite things to say about it, and we'll probably say this two or three times, is, you know, it's like a gym membership for your business.

You know, you can, you can go to, you can go to the gym and show up and go tanning, you know, and run a mile, but you're not really, your muscles aren't going to hurt after that.

You know what I mean?

You're not really going to get anything out of that versus if you go and do the work and, you know, you don't really have to like, use everybody's services to know that they're good at business.

You can just spend time with them and learn how they operate their business and talk to customers that they've had before and after and, you know, realistically get a better perspective of people that can help you grow your business.

So that chapter was in launch mode for probably about a good eight months to a year because BNI headquarters, you know, they were like, is this going to be a chapter that makes it successfully or are you guys going to like maybe branch out and just go to different chapters if this timeframe doesn't work?

So, yeah, we were, we were a pretty new chapter for the Northwest Ohio division.

And they kind of let us do different things to kind of see.

See what worked for us.

Because, you know, some groups that we went to, like the time didn't work.

You know, they didn't really feel like family or some of them kind of had been going on so long.

As a newcomer, it's kind of hard to get into some of those places.

You know what I mean?

You don't really feel, it's not, it's not that you don't feel welcome, but they're just, they're not really your people.

So we kind of created our own group of people and now we have about 22 and it's doing really good.

I had, I had no idea I would ever be in it this long, but yeah, it's really successful for me.

Yeah, so.

So you got into it when it was fairly new.

So is that chapter only two, two and a half years old?

Ish.

Or whatever since you've gotten into it, or is it a little bit old?

Yeah.

Yep.

So it, it's the same age as I've been in it.

It was probably in launch mode probably about six months before I joined.

But what launch mode is, is like I said, they kind of just give you a little bit looser parameters, they like to start every group at about 20, but they let us start at about 16 because we didn't really want to feel forced, you know, to kind of do the stuff that BNI wants us to do, which is track the referrals and do all that stuff if everybody wasn't ready.

So we started with 16, went up to about 27, and then right at our.

Right at our year, because we kind of had a lot of people join at the same time with Launch Mode.

You know, it's some people, it's not for them.

For other people, it was like their.

Their job paid for it.

So their job was just like, hey.

Their job was like, hey, we tried it.

Thank you.

We're gonna try something else for next year.

Maybe.

Well, maybe we'll be back next year.

And I think now we have 22 at the moment, so we definitely lost.

We definitely lost a handful, but we gained more.

But, you know, when you lose some and gain some, it doesn't really show.

It just looks at what you're losing, so.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So technically we're down.

Technically we're down 4, but we're still up like 8 if you really do.

Yeah, no, I asked that because the, the group, the.

So, like, they've.

It's.

It's been around for a minute.

Yeah.

And there's.

There's a lot of.

There's a lot of members in the group that, you know, have.

Have been there for that long.

I mean, even the guy who started it is.

Is still there or.

Well, I think he was one of the guys who started it, but he's.

He's still there.

But.

Yeah, there's.

I mean, like, I've talked to some of the.

The members and they've been there seven years, you know, 10 years or, you know, whatever.

It's.

It's crazy how long some of these people have been in it and they just.

They just keep coming back.

Now, obviously, in that time frame that, you know, my, my two, two and a half months or whatever that I've been doing it, there have been a few people that have left, but like you said, we've had new people join.

So in fact, like, we even lost our chapter president because he took a.

A new position with a company, and it doesn't allow him the time to, you know, because our, our meetings are Wednesday mornings at 8am Which I love.

I love, you know, middle of the week, early morning.

Because usually if I have a coding job, that's like Monday, Tuesday, you know, so Wednesday I don't, I'm not delivering the car until usually the afternoon, so I don't need to be there or, you know, if I, if I'm not doing coding jobs or whatever, I'll schedule something after.

Like, I've got a lady dropping a car off tomorrow and so I've got her coming at 10am and that's still not a bad start time, you know, to start working on a car.

And it gives me, gives me the time to be able to go to the meeting and, and interact with, with everybody and, you know, do my referral pitch and, and, and those types of things.

So, yeah, I mean, for me it was, it was kind of weird.

Like I actually got cold called to, to join the meeting.

I guess they had a detailer and it's, it's a guy that I kind of know, I didn't know it at first, ended up learning this a few weeks ago because he came and did a, a subspot for one of the girls and.

Okay, yeah, and since I'm already there, you know, they didn't let him, you know, do his thing or whatever, but I talked to him afterwards and, and because we had talked through messaging and things like that, but we never really met.

And he had listened to the podcast, like he was super cool and everything and, and, and he told me, he's like, look, dude, he's like, this chapter will be really good for you.

You know, you just got to give it a little bit of time.

You got to work it.

And I asked him, I was like, well, if it was so good, like, why'd you leave?

You know?

And he's like, dude, Wednesday mornings at 8 o', clock, it's hard.

I gotta take the kids to school, you know, I gotta do this.

Yeah, so what he did was he actually went up like two towns over and started his own chapter so that he could do it at a time that worked better for him and everything.

So, so that's a cool thing.

But yeah, I got, I got cold called by, by a lady and you know, she's like, look, it doesn't cost anything to just come visit, you know, just kind of sit in, see how it goes, you know, talk to everybody.

And, and then it was funny because like, after I went, I think I did my three visits and I was like, I'm.

I think I want to do this.

And afterwards it was funny because she, she went to send me a text or something and she goes, oh my gosh, I've used you before.

And I was like, really?

Yeah.

She goes, it's been a few years, so you probably don't remember me.

And I'm like, honestly, it could have been last week and I might not remember you, right?

But she was like, yeah.

She goes, I had.

She had spilled something in her car and she brought it to me to.

To like, clean the seed or clean the carpets or something like that.

And I was like, well, I hope I did a good job.

She goes, oh, my God, you did a great job.

Did f. You know, fantastic and everything.

But she didn't realize it because I guess when she cold called me, she just dialed the number.

Whereas when she put my number in to go text me, I guess she still had the text from where I had messaged her about pricing or.

Or whatever.

Okay.

Nice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So.

So it was actually kind of nice.

So.

So then, you know, I'd already.

I'd already been a member and had been in for a few weeks at that point, but she actually got up and, you know, said, hey, I. I have used Alex before.

Didn't realize it when I called him.

And, you know, he did an excellent job.

So it was nice to, you know, kind of get a little bit of a testimonial before anybody had even used my services.

But, yeah, it's.

It's a.

It's a.

It's something I was.

I kind of was telling everybody, you know, like, it was something that I was kind of looking into or.

Or the thought of trying to join something like that, of.

Of getting outside of my clientele base for referrals, right?

Because you can only ask your clients so many times for referrals, right?

And then they're like, alex, I've told all my friends about you.

Like, like, tell your brother, tell your mom, tell your grandma, you give them.

You give them business cards and a free towel, and yep, you're as nice as you can.

And.

Yep.

Yeah.

So it's.

It's.

It's tough.

So I had.

I had been thinking about doing something like that.

Like, you know, trying.

Trying maybe the.

The chamber or whatever, but that I b and I.

And most things.

Most referral things like this are.

Are the same.

For anybody who's listening, who is thinking about doing something like this is when you join it, you're.

You're locked in as the only.

The only person.

So, like, you would be the only detailer there.

And, and the.

The cool thing about being I.

And.

And you know this as well as I do is there's.

There's seven core values.

But the main one is givers gain, right?

So the more that you give, the more that you're going to gain.

So the more that you refer the people in your chapter, they're going to turn around and refer you as well and, and vice versa.

If they're referring you, you're going to refer them because that's, that's just the way it works, you know.

So talk a little bit because again, like the fact that you've been in it a lot longer than I have, talk a little bit about, you know, what kind of growth it's helped you with.

Not necessarily on the referral side, but maybe like on the business side or the education side or growth side of your, your, your business.

Yeah, for sure.

So one thing that's really cool about BNI like you mentioned is there's only, there's only one per profession.

So for people that don't really understand what that means is like you said, I'd be the only detailer.

So I detail cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles.

Masonary and flat glass is basically what I say.

So if there was another guy that wanted to come in and only do boats, we could have a conversation and then I could also stop pitching boats and he could pitch boats.

So like our chapter, there's a handful of insurance agents, but like, most of them really only are really, you know, caring or very good at the one part of insurance.

Right?

Everybody sells insurance, but this guy likes property and casualty, you know, this guy likes life insurance, you know what I mean?

Because he's just, that's what he's good at.

Or trying to think of everybody in order, how we sit, you know, like, it's just, they, they, it doesn't really matter.

So even if you're almost gonna overlap, you could even have a con mentioned like, hey, do I do more interiors?

Do you do more coatings?

And you could still have that level of exclusivity that, you know, in a chamber of commerce, it's full of realtors, right?

So, I mean, of course, I mean, I don't, I mean, yeah, I go to detailing stuff like with you guys for classes, but like I'm not gonna go to like a detailing convention in town to try to get business from people like walking by, you know what I mean?

So it's.

Right, it's a very, it's a very fun kind of pointed way to get business that you would never ever think you'd get.

So I mean, personally for me, growth wise, like you said, you know, I've gotten clients that I never even thought of.

I've been to marinas I didn't even know existed.

You know, I've been in neighborhoods that I've never seen houses that big before and you know, they trust me to come get their vehicle and drive it because my, one of my favorite things is pickup and drop off.

So you know, if you don't have time to, you don't have time to make your appointment, I'll come to your house or your marina or wherever and pick it up for you.

So.

And a lot of people like they don't really want mobile, they don't really want to bring it to you, but they want that kind of service, they just want it handled.

You know what I mean?

So once you're at like a certain level, it's, it's really, really easy.

So.

But then growth, growth within the chapter too.

You know, I started like you, just as a regular member, coming once a week, just passing, you know, small referrals and then they kind of seen that hey, you're good at talking to people, you know, you're kind of good at this.

So now I'm one of the four visitor host coordinators.

So what I do is I sit right outside, like our little thing with the table and the sign in sheet and I sign everybody in, I get everybody's email address.

I usually call people a day or two before the meeting, call them after the meeting, send the follow up emails.

So personal growth, it's got a lot stuff that for that and then a growth in the chapter as well and then professional growth.

Like I said, there's a lot of different types of businesses in there.

So you know, even if you're just starting your business, you don't have to have some wildly successful brick and mortar store if you don't even have, you know, business license or business insurance.

There are people that can help you get established.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So I didn't really have very good bookkeeping in the beginning.

So I linked up with bookkeepers and got that established.

You know, I have tax professionals that I can help with.

I got business banking strategies that I can use, all from people that are in my chapter, not necessarily people that I did direct business with that we can track as a monetary between us.

But it's like just having those connections, being able to help.

Or they call me like, hey, my daughter spilled this in my car.

How can I clean it up really quick versus googling something that's wrong and it's gonna ruin their car.

You know what I Mean, so, yeah, I've definitely grown in the chapter personally with, you know, all those little tiny things and then professionally with just getting help with stuff that you don't know you're going to run into as a business owner, especially when you only, when you only do it by yourself.

You know, I'm a, you know, I'm very self employed.

I'm sure you have a couple employees, right?

Nope.

Nope.

No.

Yeah.

Okay.

See, I didn't know.

I didn't know either.

I think we talked about this before, but yeah, so like everything I have to do, I have to do the math for every little thing that I do.

So it's, it's a really fun way to.

We call it our sales team.

You know what I mean?

So like, not only that, but it's gotten my name out there in rooms that I never ever knew I would be in.

So I mean the, the level of growth can honestly be talked about for a long time in personal, professional and within the group because I've been the visitor host coordinator for just about a year now.

And then we're getting ready for our elections and.

Sorry, I'm outside and I'm actually going to be the treasurer of our chapter next time.

Oh, nice.

I'm really excited to then step up again in the chapter to kind of see not only what else I can bring to the table, but why is my laptop not plugged in?

One second.

Yeah, no worries.

What the heck.

No, but you, you make, you make a good point.

My lead card was off.

Okay, you make a good point about like, like you said, right?

Like you, you didn't do any bookkeeping, so you talked to a bookkeeper.

And, and honestly, like, I think even for somebody who's just starting out in business, it's a good thing because like you said, right?

Like, like in our group, in our chapter, we, we have an accountant, right?

So like if I didn't already have an accountant and I was doing it myself and I was, you know, not knowing what to do, like, hey, now here's an accountant I can get with.

You know, maybe for and, and granted, again, this is all going to be dependent on how your chapter works and everything like that.

But, you know, let's say you're, you're growing and you're scaling and you need to, you need to get into a bigger shop.

Well, one of the girls, one of the ladies in my chapter, she does commercial management.

So like, she's always, you know, like, hey, I can find you, you know, I can find somebody a bigger building A bigger warehouse, a bigger whatever.

We have a girl who works for a company called Paychecks that's kind of like an ADP or whatever.

So if you did have employees and you're constantly having to write them checks and, you know, not knowing to take their taxes out and do all this, like, you know, there's like.

Like she's there that, you know.

And again, like, every.

Every chapter could be different, but there's always going to be, you know, people within the chapter that, that you could use personally or.

Or in your business to help to help you grow as well, right?

And like I said, not even like them using you as a detailer or you purchasing their bookkeeping skills.

You can be like, hey, is this right?

Am I even doing this right?

You know what I mean?

Like, my one buddy Scott, he's got a big boat, and him and his, you know, they like, washing it themselves.

So he's like, hey, is this any good what I'm using?

Or is this trash?

You know what I mean?

And it's just like, he doesn't have to hire me, but I can definitely be honest.

Or, you know, like, the guys in insurance, there's plenty of them.

So I can be like, hey, am I overpaying for my commercial building?

You know what I mean?

Like, do I need.

Do I need this policy?

You know what I mean?

Like, so, like, and the same people I've, you know, ended up doing stuff with, and I don't know how close your town is, but like the, the one insurance guy.

Just because, I mean, it's not like we're sharing information.

You just kind of hear stuff.

I found out he's.

He's my barber's insurance agent.

He's like three of my cousin's insurance agent.

Oh, wow.

And it's like, oh, it's like, oh, you know this person?

How do you know that person?

Because then it's like you add them on Facebook.

And then it's like, how do you know my aunt Lucy?

And how do you know my friend Derek?

You know what I mean?

Like, how do you know these completely random people?

And it's like, oh, you sold him a policy.

Like, I detailed your car.

Like, there's eight more connections that you might not be able to track a dollar amount today, but like, oh, I need my bathroom remodeled next year.

I know exactly who I'm gonna call.

You know what I mean?

So it's, It's a really.

And you're right.

There's.

There's a.

There's a.

A business Attorney in our group.

And, you know, I was talking to him because he was.

I think he was on the, like, the.

The committee.

The.

The.

Not the visitor.

There's a couple subcommittees, if you're new.

He basically was one of the ones that, like, I had to sit down with, and they asked me all the questions before they approved me.

Gotcha.

He's on leadership, then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so just talking with him, you know, found out that he is real good friends with one of my clients.

And then that client was referred to me by another client.

So I was like, oh, you must know this guy.

And he's like, oh, yeah, I know him, too.

So, like, it was cool because, like, just in that conversation of talking with him, I. I found out that he knows, like, two or three of, you know, my.

My clients, plus he knows my past boss from the car wash, like, because they all.

They're all golf.

They're all golfer guys, you know, so.

Yeah, so, you know, they all know each other.

So.

So, like, that was kind of cool because to me, I felt like, okay, he hasn't come to me yet for something, but I feel like that's just that seed that was planted that when he does need something, that now he's going to feel a little bit more comfortable using me because he know, you know, like, we both know, you know, these other people that, okay, well, if he.

Alex, is doing cars for them or whatever, then it would be good enough.

So.

So a lot of it, I feel, too, is, you know, and that's why I don't like stress if I go, you know, a week or two without getting a referral or whatever, because I know it's just you got to plant those seeds, you know, and then you got to go every week and water it by doing your, you know, your minute kind of elevator pitch referral, you know, pitch or whatever.

So, yeah, it's.

It.

There's definitely, I think, within these meetings things that anybody could use to help themselves as.

As well within either the business or.

Or personal.

I mean, one of the.

One of the ladies, she's a.

She's an estate lawyer.

Estate and trust lawyer.

And Michelle and I have been talking about that over the last few years, you know, like, hey, we're getting a little bit older.

Like, we should really set something up for Haley just in case, God forbid.

So, you know, like, I did a referral for her, and.

And, you know, she was like, yeah, I can do this.

I can do that.

I can get you guys all set up.

And, you know, so even, you know, those things that you might not have ever thought about, you get introduced to somebody and you go, oh, my gosh, like, you know, that's something I should do or I should look into.

Absolutely, yeah.

Because like, you just said, estate planning lawyer.

We're actually very specifically prospecting right now for an estate planning attorney because we have, we have one woman that does 65 plus Medicaid who's very good at that.

We have another woman who's very good at placing seniors in skilled nursing, you know what I mean?

And then another person that does that type of, like, insurance.

So it's like them three together are a very good power team.

So if they had an estate lawyer, then it's like, that would be another very good piece to that puzzle.

Because when they have to sell their home and move in and cash, you know, liquidities and move out and all the rules they have to follow to move into a facility and memory care issues and, you know, they're, they're a really good power team.

And that's the other cool thing about being I too is it's not just come have coffee, tell your friends what you do.

Like, there's a lot of individualized coaching that you're not really going to see from our first couple meetings if you just come visit.

You know what I mean?

There's the power of, there's the power of one.

I'm sure you've heard that.

Yeah, there's.

There's power teams.

There is trying to think.

There is.

We have, we have accountability partners in our chapter.

So it's like, hey, if you notice, I don't get two referrals in like a week or two weeks.

Like, we'd, we, we call each other out essentially, like, respectfully, of course, like, just individually, not like in front of the people during the meeting.

But it's like, hey, you know, what's wrong this week?

Do you need help getting some referrals out?

You know, stuff like that.

Or like our, our exterminator, he does extremely well with pretty much everybody, you know what I mean?

But sometimes he kind of struggles with trying to give us business.

And I kind of feel that way too sometimes, because, like, of course everybody's got a dirty car, but how often am I switching insurance?

Right.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, I don't, I'm not, I'm not trying to feel bad about getting the business, but it's like, I know that I'm still putting in business to, you know, even people that aren't in our chapter too.

That's the other cool thing is you're connected to BNI everywhere, as big, as big as you want to make your circle you can, right?

So like there's.

We don't really have a commercial cleaner in ours right now, but my friend Nicole, she's the president of her chapter.

So it's like whenever we can't find somebody, we know exactly what chapter we do want to use.

So like, it's a very big, it's a very big network that people don't really realize that they think it's only the like 15, 20 people that come to your meeting.

But you know, especially with BNI corporate and BNI plus nowadays, you're really connected to a very big network and it can really benefit you in a lot of ways, you know?

Yeah, and there's, there's the.

One of the things I didn't know until just recently is you can cross chapter, like visit every now and then too.

Like if they don't have like, you know, especially for, for like you or I, if there's a chapter, you know, in the next town over that doesn't have a detailer, you could go and do a visit, you know, and say, hey, I'm from bni, whatever, and you could do a visit and do your speech and do all that things or, or whatever.

And, and then two, you can even cross chapter referral.

So like, if your chapter doesn't have a whatever but the other town does and, and you want to keep it, you know, you need it, or you know somebody who could need it, you could do a cross chapter referral.

And I, I wasn't, I didn't know about that until a couple of weeks ago because one of the ladies who, she just left the group, her and her husband have a business consulting or like business coaching business.

And so I had somebody who was looking for that, so I connected her and, and my buddy and, and then by the time the wheels got rolling and, and my buddy decided to use them, she had, she had left the group for whatever reasons I, I still don't know.

But she called me and she said, hey, look, she goes, I still want you to get the referral.

So she goes, my husband is in a different chapter, so just go in there and plug his name in and that way you'll still get the referral.

And then when you know, she goes, I don't know if you'll get it every month or you get it for the first month, but you'll get that.

Thank you for Closed business or whatever will be a part of.

Of your.

Your deal too.

So I was like, oh, that's.

That's cool.

I appreciate that, you know, So I was.

I was glad that she told me about that because she could have just, you know, whatever.

I left the group.

Not a big deal, you know, and not necessarily that it would have hurt me within the group, but, I mean, it definitely helps me in the group by, you know, kind of giving me an extra referral and some extra thank you for close business and that type of stuff.

Correct?

Yep.

Rather than just a, hey, I know somebody.

Yep.

It's way more.

And that's the thing that I like about it the most is it's like, you know, we're.

Because a lot of people also don't know all the little intricacies and stuff.

And we're detailers, so we love the details.

We love defying, you know, the.

The finesse of it.

So it's like, whenever you.

You know me and you know this, but other people don't.

Like, in bni, when you're like, hey, I have a referral.

Like, there's literally a BNI app.

It's just like Facebook.

It's very easy to use.

You go in and put in exactly who you want to get your number where you want it to go, and then there's a little chart at the bottom.

How hot is this referral?

So it's like, do they want a quote?

Is this, like, for their husband's birthday?

Or is this like, they spilled milk and they need it cleaned right now?

Yeah, like, so there's a lot of, like, pre.

Pre stuff.

And then there's a comment section.

You can be like, this is my grandma.

Please don't call her at, you know, before 9:00am or else she'll get really mad at you.

Like, and then she takes lunch at noon, so don't call her then either.

You know what I mean?

Like, you can.

Instead of being like, oh, I know somebody, and then you call somebody and miss a call and play phone tag.

It's like there's already a story that you can tell to help.

To help bridge that gap of, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna trust this person versus, hey, I heard you're having these four specific issues.

Not only am I licensed to fix this three of those issues, but if I can't do it, the fourth one, my best friend does it as well.

So it's like you can literally find people's chief complaint.

Because I was a dental assistant for a Long time.

So that's the first thing you do to the dentist.

They ask you, what's your chief complaint?

You know, obviously, we're going to detail the whole car, inside and out.

But what do you hate about it?

You know what I mean?

What's the.

What.

What.

What does your eye go right to?

Let's fix that.

Of course we're going to detail everything, but let's figure out.

Yeah, you want to.

You want to know those problem areas.

Like, I always tell people, like.

Like, I get.

I get this is what we're doing, but is there, you know, like, is there a problem area that I need to concentrate on for you?

Because that's the one spot you're gonna look at first kind of thing, you know?

Yeah, no.

So, shoot, I was just gonna ask you something on that.

Well, that takes people back a little bit, too, because they're not really used to that level of service.

They're like, what do you mean?

Does anything bother me?

And I'm like, right?

I'm like, yeah, we're gonna detail it.

Everything on the list, and the invoice is going to be done.

But, like, is there anything else that you can show me that you didn't know I could take?

And they're like, oh, my God, I didn't know you did that.

I didn't know you can't.

You know what I mean?

I didn't know you would ask me questions.

And it's like, well, yeah, because your brother told me that, you know, you didn't like, your last detailer.

You felt like the last guy overcharged you, or, you know, this guy forgot to do your back windshield, so it left a bad taste in your mouth.

Like, any little thing you can tell me to help do better business is not only going to help me, but it's going to help your customer feel better about the service they just paid for, but also feel better about recommending me in the future.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not just one and done.

Thank you.

Have a good day.

It's like, oh, wow.

They went out of their way.

They listened to what I said.

They brought up all my complaints before I was even told.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's just.

Yeah, it's such a.

It's such a better way to do business that it's.

It's.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so what I was thinking about is, is with the referrals, the.

The thing that I like is they have, like, a referral accountability.

So when you do turn in a referral.

Yeah.

They'll Go through every, you know, usually every week and say, you know, you know, hey Tim from Alex, you know, so and so and you go, yeah, call them, talk to them.

Close business or you know, reaching out or you know, whatever.

So I like that they do that too because you know, if you get busy and maybe forget or didn't see it in the app or you know, didn't get the, the message passed along to you, it's like, oh shoot, okay, yeah, yeah, I need to jump on that or whatever.

So I like that they have that kind of referral accountability too within the group in your time being, being in bni, like what do you or who are like the people in the group that you have found like the most success with as far as like maybe joint referrals?

Because I, I actually need to, I, I've been kind of like slow rolling it because I'm the new guy and, and I have, you know.

Yeah, obviously like the first couple of weeks like being, being fresh meat, like everybody wanted to sit down and do one to ones with me and learn about me and all that stuff.

Yeah.

But one of the people in the group that I've been targeting and I need to, I need to reach out to him, I think I'm gonna talk to him at tomorrow's meeting because I think our clientele matches up perfectly.

Is, is.

He's a, he's a personal trainer.

He's a, he's, he not only does personal training but he also does, you know, like meal prepping and you know, teaches you how to be more healthy and things like that.

He's, he's a, he's a fit guy.

Right.

So, so to me like, I feel like our clientele probably matches better than maybe anybody else in the group because our clientele are primarily people with disposable income.

People that want, like his clientele obviously wants to look good.

Right.

Because they're going to him to get in shape, get fit.

So obviously there's an image thing there.

Right.

So they're not going to be wanting to ride around in a dirty ass car.

Right.

Like they, they're looking good, feeling good, they want the car to look good.

Good.

Correct.

So like for you, has there been a certain, you know, business or person that's been in there that has been a great mesh for you as far as like trading off referrals over the last couple years?

Honestly, there is a really funny doctor in our group.

He has like his own community care center.

So he like charges like $0 for lab fees and stuff.

I would.

I would honestly probably say him, because not only have I done, like, his entire family and pretty much everybody in his office, I've done all of his office chairs.

And then me doing his office chairs and talking about that and posting that led me to get three other office chair jobs for other people in the group.

Because, like, a lot of people look at us and, like, oh, you detail cars.

And it's like, we do way more than that.

If you would just listen for five minutes, which you only get 60 seconds.

So I get that it's hard, and there's 27 people talking, but, you know, the one woman in our chapter, she's a life coach, but she also has, like.

Like a group home, so she has, like, a lot of good furniture.

And she bought this really nice couch off Facebook a couple years ago.

And, like, it wasn't.

Like, it wasn't dirty or nothing, but, like, she called me, like, what can you do with this couch?

And, like, I. I think I used IGL cleaner and then ceramic coated that, and it looks.

It looks fake.

Like, it's just.

You know what I mean?

And people are like, they don't know that you do couches or they don't know you do office chairs or purses or shoes or belts.

And it's like, when you talk to those different people, like you said, you never really know who has what kind of income to dispose of what on.

You know, just because I'm, you know, living in a smaller house doesn't mean I don't spend a lot on money in purses and shoes.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, people spend on what they want to spend.

So if you limit yourself by, like, talking down to your customers and not telling them all your options, you never know what they're gonna book with you.

You know?

I mean, they might not even book a car.

They might book to do their, you know, whole entire outdoor bar.

That's gonna be way more business in the long run than doing their car one time and then never seeing them again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So all those different options and having different niche categories really helps out, because they're like, oh, I don't really need my car detailed, or.

Or my son cleans it for me.

No, thanks.

I'll never use you.

Versus, like, okay, well, he cleans your car.

Well, who cleans your boat?

Who cleans your couch?

Who cleans your floors?

You know, I'm starting to do, like, tile and grout and showers and all that fun stuff.

So it's like, hey, do you have a mate?

Do you have a maid service?

How long does it take?

Like, how dirty does your shower get?

How, how, how long do you wait until you call your maid?

Like, you know, I could come in there with her and do a couple coatings on a couple things and you can use a squeegee in between and you know, not to, not to not hire your mate anymore.

But you can go maybe an extra week in between cleanings because your shower is going to stay cleaner longer.

And then people are like, oh, especially with Airbnbs and VRBO and all these vacation homes, people hear stuff like that and they're like, oh, okay, like, maybe I'll never use you as a detailer, but me and my three friends, we have six rental properties and we hate cleaning them.

So when they hear, when they hear clean something less, you know, they're, they're, then you're not even a detailer to them.

You're a, you're a coding guy.

You know what I mean?

And then it's right, right then, then they tell other people about that.

And now it's like, I'm doing other, all kinds of counter jobs that I have lined up right now.

And people like, what do you mean you do countertops?

And I'm like, yep.

I'm like, you just think of me as a detailer because that's all you've ever looked at or, you know what I mean?

And you can just, you can open up so many different doors because in bni, that's your sales team.

So they're not going to be like, oh, I know a detailer.

They're going to be like, I know a guy that's a professional cleaner.

He'll let him tell you no, you know what I mean?

Because we can do, like I said, couches and I can do rugs now and all kinds of fun stuff.

So it's like I'm basically just not going to clean your toilet.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

There's so much different stuff you can get into with it.

Yeah.

So what makes you, what makes you think of, of why somebody would want to give you a referral?

Right.

I mean, obviously we get our 60 seconds for everybody who doesn't know, everybody in the group gets to get up and, and gets a 60 second, like referral pitch or whatever.

But, and that's, and that's supposed to, I guess, you know, help everybody understand what you're looking for.

But when you're doing those, when you're doing those 60 second pitches or referral asks, like, do you do the same thing every week?

Do you.

Do you switch it up?

Like, what is your thought process of switching it up to kind of get the attention of.

I'm a detailer.

I'm just looking for dirty cars.

Right.

Like, I just want a clean car kind of thing.

Right.

Make it different.

So, you know, and especially with you winning the weekly award, I want it once already.

I was.

I was super proud of that.

Except that was the one week.

That was the one week they forgot to bring the trophy.

So I didn't get to take a picture with the trophy or anything.

A lot of office people leave it at their offices.

Yeah.

So one thing that BNI kind of asks for and once you kind of go through a little bit of coaching is there's kind of like three or four major asks that they want.

Well, three or four things, bullet points that they want to be in your 60 second to kind of make it as perfect as it can be.

Right.

So they kind of want you to tell a story of a recent client.

They want you to be relatable.

I forget now I'm on the spot and I forget what they all are.

But there's like four major and they want you to have a specific ask.

So not like, oh, like you just said, anybody with a dirty car.

Like, no, I want to meet them.

I want to meet them.

The owner of this marina, Derek, whatever.

They want you to have specific asks.

And then what?

We also try to do that fourth one is like, we try to theme it to kind of like, okay, it's 4th of July, it's Mother's Day, it's Father's Day.

Like, we don't have to.

Obviously, there's no rules or point system if we don't.

But it's like, if you keep it different, then you can kind of know that you're not just reading off of a chat GPT script every single week.

Which is fine.

I use it too.

I'm not saying that.

Yeah, but like, if you're using the same thing every week, like.

Or like the one week, the woman in our chapter, she actually got her headlights done.

So the next week I just kind of used as an example to tell a story, make it relatable, and then talk about something.

And then.

And I was like, hey, and if you want to go look at her headlights, they're in the parking lot.

You know what I mean?

So it was like something like that or like Halloween.

It's like, you know, don't let a Dirty car scare you, you know what I mean?

Like, just try to make it, just if you even try to make it fun, I promise you it is so easy to do, you know what I mean?

But when people, when you want to be a 90 minute member, which I'm sure you'll hear people talk about that, that means you kind of just show up and only do stuff like five minutes before you're going to come to the meeting.

And then you don't really stay after, you don't really call people.

And you can be a 90 Minute member, you know, kind of here and there if you need to be on, you know, autopilot for a minute.

But that's not a good place to be because you're not helping yourself and you're not really helping anybody else either.

And.

Right.

You know, that's what you, that's what you joined for.

You know, I mean, you're definitely joined to help yourself, but you also joined at the core value.

Like you said, givers gain.

You're definitely going to give more to get more.

And the more you give, the more you will get.

And that's 100.

True.

And you know, anybody that doesn't believe it, they can look at anybody's average seat value, you know, because it costs anywhere from 600 to 900 bucks for your first application.

But the average seat, like if you have a 25 chapter group, the average seat is anywhere from like 22 to 33,000.

That's what you can make per year.

You have, you, you have 30 to 40 members, double that because.

And you're giving that much business, you're also going to get that much business.

So, you know, if you have a smaller group with, you know, 15, 10 to 15, you know, of course this year already, we've already passed like $137,000 worth of business just in our little group.

Even with losing, even with losing eight people and half of them are on vacation and there's a travel agent and everybody's kids are in college this year, you know what I mean?

Like, even with all of that, we've still been able to do that with everything that we've got going on.

So it's, you know, it's, it's pretty easy to do if you keep up on it.

You know what I mean?

It's, it's a whole set, they got just like detailers.

We have systems in place and if we use them, we get really good results with the cars that we do.

Right.

If we put into our business these little things that BNI does, it will absolutely work itself out, and you will get phone call after phone call, and your voicemail box will fill up.

Yeah.

So.

So let me ask you about, like, when you, when you plan out your, Your minute.

Right.

Are you.

Yeah.

Doing that day before, like, during the week?

Like, like, what's your, what's your thought process?

Because I'll be honest with you.

Like, I don't.

I mean, you know, there's a lot of people that get up there and do the, the chat GPT thing, right?

Like, they hold their phone, you can tell their read and whatever they put in the chat gbt.

And, And I just feel like I don't want to do that.

And, And I'm very on the fly.

Like, I, I think of it, like, okay, you know, I got 20 people to think of something, and I.

And somehow I just get inspired, you know, during that morning.

Like, like you said, right.

Like, I'll bring up a car, right.

Like, I.

A couple weeks ago, I brought up years ago when that gentleman tried to apply ceramic coating to his $120,000 Mercedes.

And, you know, I ended up having to charge him, like, six grand to correct it.

Right?

So, like, I gave.

I, I did that.

I did.

I done a couple things, but lately what I've actually been doing is I listen to our education coordinator, because he gets up there and he does.

And I'm sure it's a chat GBT because he reads it off his phone, but.

But he does, you know, hey, you know, this is how you should ask, or this is what you should ask, or these are what you should be looking for.

Whatever.

And honestly, like, the last, like, three weeks or so, listening to his education, you know, little snippet in the morning gives me an idea so that I can, I can take what he's educating on and be like, okay, I can use that.

I've got a story for it.

I've gotta ask for it.

I've got a whatever for it.

So, you know, I'm on the fly about it.

I mean, how are.

How do you, you know, plan it out or go about it or whatever?

No, that's a really good question, because some people are not good on the fly.

You know what I mean?

Like, and they're.

It's not that I can't talk on the fly, but for certain stuff that I want to kind of educate people on, I don't want to stutter over certain things because then not only does it make you sound not confident, it doesn't really make you sound like you know what you're talking about if you can barely say it.

So, like, there's a handful of people in our group that are not good at public speaking.

And I mean, as.

As.

As outgoing as everybody knows me to be in person, speaking in front of strangers.

I mean, you guys are family now.

But I was really nervous about stuff when I started, so it was like, hi, guys, I'm a detailer.

Hire me.

You know what I mean?

Versus that.

And that's how I started.

And they were like, hey, thanks for coming, but you didn't do anything that we asked you to do.

You know what I mean?

So I. I try to keep, like you said, with the educated agent, with the education coordinator.

I try to keep up with what he's saying as well, to try to keep it relevant, but I try to keep those four or five bullet points in my head.

And I'm usually doing it, like, two days before when I'm trying to.

Because some people log everything, like, the night before, and that's okay if you want to do that.

But I try to do, like, two whole days before.

That way I don't miss anything.

I have a day to go back over everything.

So usually two days before, I like to talk about something that just happened to me or something that's about to happen, and then I can try to make it relatable so that people can either, you know, see it on my social media because we're all friends now, or they know to ask about it later because it's something I'm going to talk about that's happening kind of right after the meeting.

Or like, this weekend, I'm going to Wisconsin for the IGL industrial class.

So, like, my little meeting is going to be about that and then reintroduce the fact that I do countertops and other stuff because, you know, people forget about that stuff because they're so in their own world, you know.

So, yeah, I. I try to.

I'm.

I'm not gonna memorize something like that.

I mean, some people are really good at memorizing stuff.

I'm not gonna lie to me.

It's something that I don't really have to memorize.

I would rather, like, worry about enunciating it perfectly and getting, like, all the, you know, if I'm dropping a price, I want people to be like, oh, okay, that's 100 bucks.

Or, you know, if they hear, you know, if I have SAP on my car, then I know I can get this off with it.

You know what I mean?

If I Talk about rubbing alcohol or something like that.

So I'm, I'm good on the fly, but I, I would definitely rather like, okay, I know this is going to take me 58 seconds, so then I can, you know, play for two seconds on the fly.

Like, I'm, I'm more of a structured SOP person rather than like, hey, guys, thanks for.

Now it's my turn.

Like, I'm, I'm sure I could and I, I have before, but I'm definitely not gonna.

Me, myself, I'm not gonna win.

I'm not gonna win presenter of the week doing it that way, you know what I mean?

Because all the ones that have been really specific that have led me to winning that little award for the week have been probably three days ahead.

Probably ran it through chat GPT two or three times to make sure not only did it make sense to me, but then I said it out loud to a couple people.

I'll say it to both my dogs because one's mean.

You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, see if it.

See if it.

See if it makes sense.

See if I can get through it.

See if it's, you know, too much of a greeting.

You know, see if it's too much science because no one cares what a ceramic coating really is because they're not going to talk about it until they pay.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, does it make sense?

Is it too boring?

Like, am I even bored talking about it?

You know what I mean?

Is it engaging?

And then back to, does it have those four things that we think is going to.

Not only either.

I'm not trying to win that award every week, but I want to have all those things that puts me closer to maybe being able to do it, because if you're never specific, nobody's ever going to help you.

You know what I mean?

Or if, if you, if you're, if you're.

Ask every week is, oh, like you said, my dirty car versus, I would like to meet the owner of this marina or marinas that have, you know, less than 40 boats.

They might not know the one that I'm looking for, but you might live out on River Road, and there's a marina out there and you know the Dockmaster, so you know that that's a small marina.

So you're not, you're not gonna know this one that I named, but you're like, hey, I know this.

Can this help you?

You know, like, we're always looking for restaurants and there's a supplemental insurance guy so he can work with a lot of people.

So he's like me.

He's service based.

It's like he can sell insurance to anybody, but he'll be like, oh, I want to work with a restaurant with less than 10 people.

So it's like, okay, I know, I know my friends with food trucks, they definitely don't have insurance for their employees.

So, hey, maybe not a restaurant, but would you do food trucks?

Like, oh, sure, that's a great referral.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, if you listen and have specific asks, they might not know that estate lawyer you're talking to, but they might know three other estate lawyers or two other lawyers that work with an estate lawyer.

So as.

As specific as you can be, people can help you a lot more broader than you really think that they can.

Right.

And I think that's.

I think that's one of the really cool things about it too.

Yeah, I. I think, I think this podcast is one of the things that's.

That's helped me just be able to get up there and be on the fly because, you know, talking to everybody on this podcast over the years, for sure.

Yep.

Right.

It's.

It's all on the fly.

And in fact, the, the first couple of times that, you know, I got up and spoke, you know, I got, I got compliments, you know, for, for my, My stories or whatever, from the people I sit with at the table or around me or whatever, you know, and I, And I equate all of that to years of running car washes and having to do monthly safety meetings.

So not being nervous or afraid of getting up in front of people and talking.

Correct?

Yep.

And how to talk into a microphone so people can hear you.

Because, like, we get some people and they're mumblers and they hold the microphone way down by their belly and you can't even hear them.

They're mumbling, you know, so, yeah, I think, I think this show and, and some of the things that I've done helps me be a little bit better on the fly than, you know, I feel like if I was trying to read it off my phone, I would, I would just be stumbling and bumbling over all of the words, you know, looking like, you know, that, you know, first grader that's hoping he doesn't get called to read the, the next chapter in the book or whatever.

You're like, you.

You're like, scrolling with your fingernail so you don't accidentally scroll and miss your thought.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Keep Looking up at the timer, like, how much time is left?

30 Seconds, 20 seconds?

It's like, oh, I have four seconds left.

And then I just, I have three more paragraphs.

Yeah.

Yep.

So I, I try to, I really try to.

I really try to, like, make sure that I practice it a couple times and make sure, like I said that, that it makes sense to other people and.

Because of course, it'll make sense to us.

We're detailers.

We can talk science and SiO2s and covalent bonds and all kinds of stuff, but people don't know what that means.

They just want to know that you can.

They want to know that their bumper can be shiny.

They want to know that you can get scratches out when they hit it with their shopping cart.

You know what I mean?

They want to, they'll pay attention to the details later.

They want to just know what you can do because right.

If you tell them all this, they're like, oh, I don't, I don't know what paint correction is.

I'm like, well, that's buffing.

Just, just come to my shop.

Just listen to my, just listen to my 60 second call me.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Is there, is there a, a business that maybe isn't worth detailers trying to chase down referrals for or trying to connect with because it just doesn't mash or work that you've seen in your, you know, in your chapter over the years.

To be completely honest, I love all my friends in insurance, but there's even like a restoration guy in our group and, you know, he's always looking for painters sometimes, and, and, and sometimes insurance agents or, you know, conglomerates, they're not going to pay for additional services.

Yeah.

So it's not like I don't want to work with those people, but like you said, people with like more or less a, a type of, a disposable income or someone that knows that they want to take care of their toy versus their work truck.

You know what I mean?

Like, so I, my, my little thing is like, it's like my little pitch that I say, you know, my, my ideal client is someone that cares about their car more than a coupon.

Because if I explain everything that I do, and you're like, well, can I get 20 bucks off?

You're probably not my best client.

You know what I mean?

So if, if insurance insurances, especially some restorations, they have such a, such a hard line of, well, it's only worth eleven hundred dollars, so why would we pay you two grand to re.

Ceramic coat it.

He didn't have it on the car flat, you know what I mean?

So, yeah, and again, it's, it's not that it's not worth it because there's mold remediation, there's odor removal and stuff that can be done after the cl.

I've definitely done stuff after the client has went through the insurance agency and then the client has then had to kind of nickel and dime them for stuff after the fact.

But again, you never know what that insurance agent is going to lead to.

And maybe if, if their car, you know, like I said, maybe they can't help you with that.

But then in six months they want their car detailed again because like, again, the insurance agent is limited to what the body shop does and what the, you know, you can have the best insurance in the world.

You're only getting a rental car for 30 days.

Like, yeah, I don't know how we all live in that world, but like, that's stupid.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, yeah, exactly.

That's.

Honestly, if you can get a rental car sometimes, like, sometimes they'll be like, oh, your insurance doesn't cover you getting a rental car, you know?

Right.

So people that have those hard, hard line budgets I say are just, they're not really good clients for me because I like people that want to do detailing and more, you know, like let's, let's clean it, then correct it, then coat it, then protect.

The other people are like, oh, it's just dirty.

I'm like, well, I know, but there's a lot more that I can do.

So if you're limiting me to be just a detailer, then, then that's okay.

But there's a lot more stuff that I do than just detailing or, you know, you bring me your car only after your kid is vomited.

You know, why aren't you calling me the week before you buy it to let me.

So I'll tell you if that's good pain or not.

You know what I mean?

Let's, let's see how thick they're spraying it.

Let's see what paint system they're currently using.

Versus you called me six months after and it's been through the car wash 900 times and there's no protection on it.

And now you want it to look the best and you're mad you got to spend another two grand.

Why didn't you spend a grand when you first bought it?

And we wouldn't be here.

You Know what I mean?

Like, yeah.

So I like people that know that they want to protect their investment.

That's my, on my little business card, it's detailing to protect your investment.

Like, call me before.

Of course we can call me after.

But you're gonna be mad it's an extra thousand dollars.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So, you know, those insurance agents, they can definitely lead to good, good and better referrals later down the line.

But I think sometimes, like, you know, they're only going to do what the underwriters let them do, you know, and when they're, when their house flooded, they're not going to leave much room for their car because they're just going to total it.

You know, at the end of the day, that's kind of the world we live in in a throwaway society, right?

Unfortunately.

So all these new computer cars.

Oh, yeah, exactly.

Have there been, like, certain service asks that have performed better for you than others?

Like, you know, asking about interior details or asking about washing waxes or clay and seals or ceramic coatings?

I typically try this when I do my ask.

I typically try to stay away from ceramic coatings.

Unless my ask is, hey, anybody with a new car that wants, you know, ultimate protection or whatever, because I feel like in that 60 seconds, it's not enough time to try and give the information about a ceramic coating for then, you know, all of the, you know, quote unquote minions of the, of the group for you to go out and try to explain that to their friends or whatever.

So I, I typically try to keep it to like interiors, odor removal, you know, sealants or, you know, protection services for the exterior of the car, things like that.

But, but in your experience, you know, giving them, you know, over and over and over and over over again.

Have there been certain services that just hit better than, than others that you kind of, you know, it's like going back to the, well, hey, this one got me referral last time.

Let me go ahead and hit it again.

I'm kind of just doing interiors as well in my referrals because I do talk about the other options.

But like you said in that 60 seconds, you can't really explain to someone how you can ceramic coat like the, the brick around their pool.

They don't even, they can't even conceptual.

They don't even know what the, they don't even know what the hell you mean by that.

You know what I mean?

Versus, versus.

You're like, hey, I, I offer, you know, rust protective coatings for rust and slip resistant Coatings for these different services.

And then they're like, oh, okay, you do.

You do other stuff.

So that's why I'm like, let's detail it first, and then I can tell you about everything else that I have to offer.

You know what I mean?

Like, when you, when you first book a detail, I'm not going to ask you about your boat and your deck and all that other stuff.

I'll wait until you pay and you're happy with the service, and then I'll let you know.

Hey, I do all this other stuff too, just to let you know.

Thank you for hiring me.

And this job is complete versus, hey, I do all this.

Hopefully something sticks, somebody hire me, right?

I usually.

And that's, that's, that's another thing we talk about too, is it's like, you know, of course all the insurance people, again, do different multiples.

Multiple different parts of insurance.

But if you just talk about the one thing, you're gonna get a lot of business from that one thing.

And then everything else is kind of gonna just line up.

You know what I mean?

You get.

If you get 100 life insurance policy people, you're probably going to get 20 or 30 people that also have cars.

And then when you look at your insurance, it's also a good time to look at your other insurance, you know what I mean?

So that's why when I do an interior detail, like, hey, now let's talk about your outside.

Okay.

Are you happy with that monthly car wash?

Do you see the damage it's doing?

Do you mind if I talk about this?

No.

Okay.

You're happy with that?

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Call me for your next interior.

You know, then.

Then you realize, okay, they don't want anything to do with an exterior.

So I'm never going to have an exterior conversation with them.

Let's keep them on interiors so that I keep that bread and butter spread.

You know what I mean?

I'm not trying to give them so many options.

They just go with somebody else.

Because now I confused them and they think I want to redo their kitchen because I said the word countertop.

That.

That's just confusing to them, you know?

Right, right.

If you could, if you could give one tip or, or advice that joining BNI and being a part of a networking group, that's changed your business, you know, that might get somebody who's listening to this, that they're kind of like, hey, I never really thought of this.

This is kind of interesting.

Like, maybe I should look into it.

But they need that push over the over the edge.

Like, what would you.

What would you tell them?

What.

And again, whether it's bni.

I mean, I know you and I have that BNI connection, or whether it's the.

The chamber of commerce or any other style of networking community that's out there, because maybe you don't have a BNI chapter in your town or something like that.

Right.

Which would be weird because it seems like they're everywhere.

Yeah.

What would be that.

That little piece of advice or that tip that you would say, like, you know, to go for it.

In a sense,.

It's gonna sound cliche, but you don't know what doors are going to open and you don't know what rooms you'll get invited to until you go to that one first.

Get your first free coffee.

You know what I mean?

You're gonna, You're.

You're gonna be nervous.

But I was nervous, too.

The first time I took a detailing class in Indiana at Nate Warren shop, I was terrified.

You know what I mean?

Two, Two years ago, I was terrified to join bni.

I was terrified to go to my first detailing class.

Now I have my own shop.

You know, I was, I was scared to go network.

And now I'm gonna be one of the top three in leadership.

And.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So of course you can tell people, hey, just go for it.

But like, it, speaking from an experience two and a half years later, like, you can even clip this.

Like, BNI does actually work for your business.

You might not notice it in two months, you might not notice it in six months, but you're gonna take stock a year later and be like, wow, I would have never met.

Just go.

I even, I can go through my detail bookie customers and I can be like, never would have met them, Never would have met them.

Never would have done that boat.

Never would have got that insurance job.

You know what I mean?

Like, looking back, there are so many things that I can say I never would have done versus being like, oh, my God, how can I pay my bills?

I need clients.

I need this versus I just check the app once a day, and there's at least two or three people recommending me passing my name off, saying they want something cleaned or polished or done.

So I would, I would honestly say just join and give it a year.

I promise you're gonna like it.

You know what I mean?

Just go for it.

And even, Even detail king, like the packet when you graduate.

Detail king.

When they talk about marketing and stuff, I this was funny about eight months ago, I was going through, like, all my stuff and all my training manuals, and I just happened to read my stuff and detail King was the first thing that I went to.

At the very bottom, at the very last page, it says, find your local chamber of commerce, join a bni.

Oh, wow.

And I thought that was hilarious because I, When I was looking at that stuff back then, I didn't know what BNI was.

I didn't know how to network.

I just knew how to clean a car.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, people don't really realize how important networking is.

You can't just go to a bar and have a beer and drop off a few business cards.

You know what I mean?

That's.

I mean, of course you can, but that's.

That's not really doing anything.

Someone might think that some guy just left their business cards there.

You know what I mean?

They're not going to know, Right.

Yeah.

How to trust them or what to do.

You know what I mean?

What to do.

It's.

It really is a foundational way to do things.

And especially like you said, I mean, you're pretty established in your business.

You're just a little older than me.

You know, you're very good at what you do.

I'm just starting out.

I would love to get random clients from people that already trust me, you know what I mean?

So you're absolutely going to get the business.

You just have to kind of wait for it to come in.

And once it does, you might even be overwhelmed.

Sometimes when the weather changes, as many people start calling you just from bni because, you know, like you said, we only do one thing in bni, but you never know that that insurance guy, you don't know that her wife owns that beautiful downtown restaurant.

You don't know that.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

You don't know who these people are or, oh, he's a lawyer, but he also owns that ice cream parlor that you've been going to since you were a kid.

You know what I mean?

He knows your truck.

He just didn't know that you were you until you were at that meeting the one time.

And it's.

It's crazy how many times that stuff has happened to me because, like, oh, are you in Game Changers?

It's like, yeah, are you in 409 success partners?

It's like, oh, yeah, I know.

I know your cleaning lady.

I know.

I know your insurance broker.

And it's like, now it's really Starting to be so chaotic.

It's like I don't, I know somebody anywhere I go nowadays from bni and that's a really cool thing to do because it's a lot of fun and it really does help your business.

Yeah.

And I think the other thing too is, is, you know, when you join a networking group like the, like that it's not just, you know, like you said, being a 90 minute member or whatever, it's, it's getting there a little bit early and shaking hands and talking to people and kind of building that, that little bit, you know, and it doesn't even have to be about business.

Just hey, how's your week been?

How have you been?

Like, you know, whatever.

And then two, like even afterwards, like usually everybody kind of, you know, slowly mingles out, so there's always time to talk afterwards.

I kind of feel bad because the last couple of weeks I've had jobs scheduled right after, right away.

Yeah.

So I, I'm, I'm boogieing right.

Like as soon, as soon as meeting's done and everybody's like, I'm out the door.

Like I, and I'm, and I'm gone because I need to get to, to the shop and, and sometimes I feel bad but, but I know that's not going to be every week, you know, and, and who knows, next week I won't have anything on Wednesday and then I'll stay and hang around.

Right.

The one we kind of didn't, didn't.

Touch upon it.

I think it's another good thing about this is, and I brought it up briefly this morning or briefly earlier when we started this was I had a one to one with our vice president for, for lunch this afternoon.

So the, the thing about the one to ones that are really nice and you can, you can kind of elaborate maybe on some of the good ones you've had is, is it's a way to like actually just sit down one to one and find out, you know, hey Tim, how did you get into detailing?

What does your detailing business do?

Alex, how did you get into it?

What is your.

So that, that way you learn about that other person more.

So when they get up there and do their ask, you know about them a little bit more to be able to refer that, that ask.

So the, the, the, the vice president I sat down with, he's, he's a, I guess like a personal injury attorney.

Like he's, you know, he's always like, you know, my, my biggest ask is car crashes, you know.

So like I talked to him, like, how did he get into law?

And, and then how did he get into the personal, you know, injury side of it?

And so it was a nice conversation to just learn, sit down, have lunch, casual conversation, and just learn more about him versus, you know, what he's looking for in a sense, you know, because it helps me then if I know somebody that gets in a car crash, I could be like, hang on, hang on.

Like, I got a guy, I know a guy kind of thing or whatever.

So have there been like, really good, successful one on ones for you?

And, and, and how often do you try to do one on ones?

I mean, I was doing pretty good there for a little bit, and then I kind of slacked off.

I need to get back on it again.

But you know, how often are you trying to do them to keep that relationship going?

And, and like, what's been a, you know, maybe a good hit for you or a good connection for you?

I try to do at least two a week because again, I do everything myself.

So I kind of, whenever I have a one to one, I like during lunch.

That way I don't really miss production time because if I have to shut down my shop and leave or especially, you know, if I go leave and have lunch for an hour, then I have your car an extra hour.

So.

Yeah.

But honestly, yeah, one to ones are a great way to find out just like what everyone else does outside of work.

Because of course there's only allowed one per profession.

But like our financial planner, her husband just bought one of those, like, Mercedes vans.

Okay.

It was like, it was like pre built as a, as a mobile dog grooming unit.

So they're starting, they're starting a whole new mobile dog grooming thing.

And I was like, okay, well, who's gonna wash that truck?

You know what I mean?

And she's like, oh, we're gonna, she's like, we're gonna build a thing in our house and we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that.

And I was like, well, do you know what kind of power washer you're gonna use?

Like, do you know what kind of chemicals you're gonna use?

And she was like, I've.

I have absolutely no idea.

She's like, I don't even know what it's made out of.

And I was like, well, how about, how about I like call the company and figure out like, what it's wrapped because it's coming pre wrapped, like just their phone number, you know, I mean, it's like one of those businesses you buy.

And I was like, well, how about I call and figure out like what it's gonna come with?

Like what, like what the warranty they're giving you is, like if it's gonna be a full wrap or like just stickers, like if it can be corrected and all that other stuff.

So they haven't reached back out to me and they're about, they're, they're, they just took delivery of it, I think the other day.

But it's like, you know, of course I'm going to get to know people and learn what they do and they're going to learn me and we're going to talk about childhood and high school and taxes and all that fun stuff.

But, you know, that was a whole another business venture that she probably never might even would have talked about had we not had a one to one.

I never would have been like, hey, I can.

Not only am I a detailer, and even if I don't end up detailing that car ever for you, let me figure out like the brand name and find you chemicals that are compatible so that you know that if it even has a laminated layer to, you know, be used in the sun.

Because if not, we need a ceramic, we need a ceramic coat at asap.

And she's like, well, what does that mean?

And I'm like, I got you, I'll email that.

You know what I mean?

And she was like, yeah, yeah, I had, she's like, I didn't even think to ask any of those questions you just brought up to me.

And I was like, well, you know, if I bought a house, you'd probably find a way to save me money.

Like, I don't know how to, what to ask you.

That's why when you bring situations to people, they will take over and kind of just handle them for you.

Right?

Yeah.

You know, like, if I'm worried about my insurance being too expensive, I'll just call Alec or Scott and I'll be like, hey, is any of this right?

And they'll be like, no, let me, let me just handle it for you.

Like, I'm not gonna explain everything.

I don't need to bore you with the details.

I don't need to tell you how many times I'm going to call the underwriter, but it'll be handled.

And I'll call you when it's done.

Right?

Right.

And that's what I like to do.

I'll call you when your car is done and everything we talked about is going to be handled.

And you're going to pick it up and it's going to be ready because that's what we do.

You know, we, we handle everything.

We're not going to just do half of it.

Yeah, yeah.

No.

Well, listen, Tim, I.

This has been great, man.

It's, it's given me some ideas for, for going into tomorrow to do my ask, so I might practice it a little bit tonight.

Hopefully everybody who's listening to this, you know, understands that there are other ways of, of networking or getting referrals outside of just asking your clients or asking your family or, you know, like you said.

Right.

Pinning a business card at the local, you know, whatever place, you know, that nobody really knows about you.

So I'm really glad that you made that post that I was like, hey, I'm a BNI member too.

I'm really glad that you kind of suggested doing this.

And, you know, took me, took me a little bit to kind of figure out how I wanted to talk about it.

And then of course, you know, starting the podcast back up again to, to get it scheduled.

So.

Yeah, thanks a lot.

And then, you know, for everybody.

You know, look, you know, I, I would say look into it.

You know, either look into your, to your local chamber.

Look into local bni.

What, what's the, the website.

I'm bad about the website because I'm always on the app.

It's bni.com or.

Well, ours is north, ours is northwest Ohio.

So my website's a little bit different,.

But I would just, I didn't know.

I would just go to Google and type in local BNI chapters and it'll probably pull some stuff up for you or take you to your local, your local station.

Yeah.

So the, the, the main, the main group, Business Network international is just bni.com and I'm sure you could go on there and do it, do a search of your, your zip code or your town or whatever and see if there's a, see if there's a local.

And then I'm sure you could reach out to them and say, hey, do you have a detailer yet?

If not, you know, can I come do a visit and see what it's all about?

So far, like I said, I mean, I've, I'm, I'm in the positive.

I mean, I'll be, I'll be open.

Our, our membership dues is twelve hundred dollars for the year, and I think I've got about fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars already in, in referrals.

So I. Yeah.

And within the first six weeks.

So within the first six weeks, I made my $1,200 back, plus three or $400.

So, you know, now, realistically, I mean, I know it won't be that way, but if I never saw another dime for the rest of the year, I'm still going to learn, I'm still going to grow from it.

But I, I, I've already, I've already made my money back, you know, and that's.

That, to me, is the main thing, at least making my money back and then kind of figuring out how it grows from there.

You know, like you said, each seat is worth, you know, anywhere from 20 to $40,000, depending on, in business, depending on how big your chapter is.

So hopefully by the time I get to April next year, you know, I, I mean, honestly, If I made $10,000 off of BNI in a year, I'd.

I'd be doing, you know, the, the icky shuffle or something, you know, I'd be super happy with it.

But, but to me, like, just making that money back in such a quick time, like, it was like, okay, this, this was okay to do, you know, this was a good thing.

So.

Right.

And that was the first six weeks, and you still have a year left in your membership, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So, so everybody, if you're interested, like I said, you can go, you can go reach, you know, reach out to BNI or if you want to, reach out to, to Tim or, or to myself and yeah, ask questions or whatever.

Yeah, we can even help you find a chapter.

Yep, absolutely.

I can.

I don't want to put that on you, but I can help you find a chapter.

So I'll just send.

Everybody calls me asking about to help them find a chapter and be like, dude, did you hear me?

Look up bni.com and I got you.

I got you.

Yeah, because we.

Our travel agent is moving to Missouri and she already found a new group and has referrals in it already, and she didn't even close on her house yet, so.

Oh, wow.

It's.

It's very easy to, to do.

You know what I mean?

It really is.

Yeah.

It really is.

All right, buddy.

Well, listen, thank you, sir.

I appreciate it.

Great.

Rest of your night.

And I know we'll talk.

I know we'll talk soon, so.

All right, everybody, that's it.

See you next.

All right, guys, see you later.

I'm not even gonna say see you next week because I don't have anybody lined up for next week.

This is going to be you next time.

Look, you got three, right?

We haven't done.

I haven't done a podcast in probably six months or longer.

You got three in a row.

Don't get greedy.

There'll be another one whenever they're gonna.

They're gonna get greedy.

They miss you.

Yeah, I know.

We'll see it later, guys.