March 28. Tuesday Night.

Hi Journey.

Referrals are not about friendship or even being liked; I well know that. Referrals are about performance.

And it's hard to snag a referral for a task we've yet to perform.

That's the problem CD is up against with the business side of our marketing, Journey. Yes, the immediate task at hand is the new website, but that's just the catalyst that brings the problem into focus. I can score a dozen dynamite referrals from clients that are ecstatic about their home's makeover. Great Rooms, kitchens, living rooms, basements, even garages—Journey we've done a super job for these and a half-dozen other home projects.

But not one business. Not one.

So we need to work around that somehow. But I still don't know how.

That's what this morning's Bloom Team meeting was about.

“We cracked Brentwood because Mrs. Scutari bragged us up to Mrs. Dr. Ruice. Her referral , not a website,” Vivian said. “We need word of mouth, not word of web.”

“What--and the two somehow conflict?” Shelly asked.

Vivian shook her head in the negative. “No, but while we're wasting our breath in this meeting we could be on the phone, making calls.”

“Who ya gonna call? Housebusters?”

“Work our network,” Vivian said tersely.

Shelly fired back. “How? Pestering old clients? We already invite them in for TeaTime, plus a ton of them send in those WriteBack postcards. Our clients already give us all they can. We need a mechanism to carry our message without us being involved.”

“And this website's going to do that?”

Page 2.