Builds referral flow and local partnerships for a local service business - the ask-after-five-star-moment rule, two-sided referral incentive design, complementary-trade partnerships, and neighborhood-domination tactics like job-site signage and just-worked-on-your-street cards. Use when an owner asks "how do I get more word-of-mouth", "should I pay customers for referrals", "how do I partner with other trades", or "how do I get more jobs in the same neighborhood". Do NOT use for gym referral and affiliate programs - use referral-and-affiliate-system instead. Do NOT use for formal B2B partnership deals - use partnership-strategy instead.
---
name: local-referral-engine
description: Builds referral flow and local partnerships for a local service business - the ask-after-five-star-moment rule, two-sided referral incentive design, complementary-trade partnerships, and neighborhood-domination tactics like job-site signage and just-worked-on-your-street cards. Use when an owner asks "how do I get more word-of-mouth", "should I pay customers for referrals", "how do I partner with other trades", or "how do I get more jobs in the same neighborhood". Do NOT use for gym referral and affiliate programs - use referral-and-affiliate-system instead. Do NOT use for formal B2B partnership deals - use partnership-strategy instead.
---
# Local Referral Engine
Referrals are the best customers a local service business gets: near-zero
acquisition cost, pre-sold trust, and higher close rates than any paid
channel. The costly mistake this skill prevents is leaving referrals passive -
"we get word of mouth" - instead of building the three systems that
manufacture them: a timed ask, a two-sided incentive, and a partner network.
Run local-unit-economics first to see the prize: Summit Plumbing (4 techs,
$450 average ticket, $75,000 a month) pays about $119 to acquire a paid-lead
customer, so every referred customer is roughly $119 of margin that paid
channels never touch.
## Operating procedure
### Step 1: Ask at the five-star moment - and only then
The ask-after-five-star-moment rule: the referral ask fires when a customer
has just expressed delight - a five-star review posted (review-engine detects
exactly this), an effusive thank-you at job completion, a "you saved us"
text. Never ask a merely-satisfied customer; a referral is the customer… install to load the full skill