I can see the point for the above responses. But there are some instances where that's not a good idea. <p>In my case, we have tons of little suburbs around Portland. I only do work in 3 of them. They are all very close. Connected like once city, in reality. We NEVER do work outside of our area. But since the phone books, etc. cover other cities as well, we do get calls from time to time for work in cities we don't cover. In that case, I sell those leads to friends of mine who DO service those cities. <p>Typically, if a lead turns into an account, my friend's give me one month's pay for it. Works well for both of us. He gets a year-round account that he'll have for years and I get a nice referral bonus for it. I do the same for others if they give me accounts. <p>Another case where this is good is referring jobs that you don't do. We don't get too far into landscape design and installation. Sure, I'll plant some flowers and small trees and even lay new sod once in a while, but for the most part, when someone calls asking for a bid on a big landscape design or installation job, I refer it to my buddy. That's all he does. He's done it since 1979 and he's killer at it. He pays me 5% for every job I send his way. Plus, since he doesn't do maintenance at all, he sends me all the maintenance when he's done with the installation. Works out very well for both of us. <p>The key to either of these methods is when you get a call like this, take down the information anyway. Then tell them you will have the right person get back to them shortly. Otherwise, I find that when I tell people "Oh, you need to call this guy at xxx-xxxx" They only actually do it like 30% of the time. When I take down the info, I pass it on 100% of the time. <p>----------<br>Jim Lewis - Lewis Landscape Services<br>http://www.lewislandscape.com
