Build Your Author Enterprise Through Service Marketing

An idea, a mindset, and a formula of ‘yes, I can’ is how I built a 100% referral business

Photo by Kate Townsend on Unsplash.

Yes, I can do that.

This is how I can help you.

I saw my dad say variations on these two things my whole life. Sometimes he helped as a favor, sometimes in exchange for favors, sometimes for whatever someone offered ($10, $50, a case of beer, salvaged building parts), and when he built up to it — real fees (his kids would type up invoices for him).

Yeah, I can fix your car. Yes, I can get a crew of guys to paint your house, build you a new garage, lay cement for your patio, put a ramp on your deck, rewire your RV. Now over 80, he’s still a go-to guy for other seniors in his neighborhood.

Yes, I can change your lightbulbs, haul those boxes out of your garage, stay with you when the dude comes to fix your furnace so you’re not alone with a stranger. As he transitioned from job-jobs to retirement, my dad was never without enough side work to keep him busy and earning money at the level he wanted. No marketing. 100% word-of-mouth and referrals.

It was only after my husband and I had each built up our own 100% word-of-mouth, referral businesses — he in automation software, me in all…