Referral partnerships for Burnaby businesses, built to last and written down

Why referral work deserves a plan of its own

A referral from a business your customer already trusts is often the warmest enquiry you will ever get, and it costs nothing per click. The trouble is that informal referrals are fragile. They depend on one person remembering you on one busy afternoon, and they fade when that person changes jobs or gets annoyed by a late callback.

A plan fixes three things:

• Who. Instead of waiting for referrals from whoever happens to mention you, you pick partners whose customers need you next.
• Terms. Both owners know what is expected: response times, how a referred customer is treated, whether any fee or thank-you applies, and how the arrangement ends.
• Proof. You can see, a few months in, which relationships produce real jobs and which only produce goodwill.

Burnaby suits this approach. In the 2021 Census the city had 249,125 residents in a dense mix of towers, townhouses and older detached streets, so many homeowners and strata councils need several trades in a short span. Our areas page explains how that plays out from Metrotown to Big Bend.

What a referral partnership is, and what it is not

A referral partnership is a business relationship between two owners who agree to recommend each other where it truly helps a customer. It is written down, both sides can end it, and the customer is told plainly when a recommendation comes with a connection.

It is not:

• A link scheme. Google's spam policies name excessive link exchanges and partner pages built only to cross-link as link spam. We never set up partnerships to move rankings.
• A lead-selling arrangement. You don't buy anonymous enquiries from us, and we don't pass your customers to anyone.
• A secret. If money or a thank-you changes hands, the customer should know. Our guide on disclosing referral relationships walks through the wording.

The five pieces of work we do

Each owner needs a different mix, and the services overview helps you choose. In short:

1. Referral partner mapping: who shares your customers, and in what order.
2. Written referral terms and disclosure: a short agreement and customer-facing wording.
3. Referral tracking and partner scorecards: source codes, job values and a quarterly review.
4. Joint marketing with partners: shared material that helps both businesses honestly.
5. Partner-ready website pages: somewhere sensible for a referred customer to land.

A quick worked example

Say your average job is worth $3,200 and your gross margin on it is 35%, so each job brings in about $1,120 before overhead. If three partners each send you one job a month and you win two out of three, that is two extra jobs a month, or roughly $2,240 in monthly gross margin.

Now look at the other side. If you paid a $150 thank-you per completed job, your cost per referred job would be $150, against the $1,120 it earns. The numbers usually work. What breaks them is sloppiness: a slow reply, an unclear quote or a partner who feels taken for granted. Our referral fee guide lets you run the same sums with your own figures.

Proof from our HVAC work

Our published case studies come from the group's HVAC portfolio, so treat them as evidence of method rather than of your sector. The most relevant one here is GasBoilers.ca, a gas-boiler division built for CANRO Heat that now serves 26+ BC communities: proof that a specialist offer can be built alongside an existing company's relationships. BCWide.ca reached 3× leads in 90 days. Read the details on our results page.

Who is behind this site

Burnaby.Network belongs to the Sedighi.ca and SAZ.ca group of companies, which is Canadian and keeps its head office in neighbouring Vancouver, BC. It is led by Ali Sedighi, MBA in Technology Management, who has more than 17 years of marketing experience starting in 2007 and has built 150+ live HVAC websites. Our parent brand for trades is Trades.Agency. More on the about page.

When you are ready, look over pricing or go straight to contact. Call, text or email; a senior strategist answers.