Two small businesses sharing leads: write six lines before you shake hands

A neighbouring business owner offers to send you customers if you send yours across. It sounds free, and for a month it is. Then a customer is called by a stranger they never agreed to hear from, or one side counts twelve leads given against two received, and the goodwill ends. Two small businesses can share leads when they sell to the same person at different moments and neither could be taken for the other's rival. The rest of this post is the page that makes it last: six lines, agreed before the first introduction.

Is this the right partner?

Check four things before you spend a cup of tea on it.

The same buyer needs you both, at different times. A caterer and a tent-and-decor supplier for the same weddings fit. Two caterers do not. The price band matches, since a premium decorator who sends couples to a cheap photographer embarrasses both. You would defend the other firm's work, so visit a finished job before you say yes. And you can live with uneven traffic: if you will pass ten leads and receive two, say it aloud now and decide whether it matters.

If your work is rare and large, such as one building a year, you will have no flow to share. Walk away from that arrangement. Walk away too if the other firm is a rival in disguise, or if you would hesitate to hand over a customer you care about.

What do the six lines say?

Send them as one message and ask the other side to reply "agreed".

1. A lead is a named person who has said they want what the other offers and has agreed to be contacted.
2. We introduce by message, with the customer's consent. The number is passed on only after that.
3. Each of us keeps our own customers. A passed lead gives the other no claim on the rest of the relationship.
4. We say only what is true and checked about each other. No promises or prices on the other's behalf.
5. Money: nothing, or a fixed amount paid when the first job is paid for.
6. We look at the sheet together on a date we fix now. Either of us can stop, in writing, with a message being enough.

Line 5 deserves care. If a fee changes hands and it affects what you recommend, the customer should know. Where a trade has professional rules about referral payments, check them with your own body or adviser before agreeing any fee.

How do you introduce without spooking the customer?

A common failure is a bare phone number handed over without a word. The customer gets a call from a stranger and treats it as spam.

Send three sentences instead: who you are introducing, why, and what happens next. For example, from the designer: "Ramesh, you said the kitchen is next on your list. Suresh fits modular kitchens and I trust Suresh's work. I have given your number to Suresh, who will call after 5 pm. Tell me if you would rather a message came first."

That last sentence gives the customer a way out. It also shows you are not selling their number. Keep the message short enough to read on a phone, and send it before the partner calls.

What do you track?

A shared sheet with five columns will do: date, customer first name, passed by, passed to, and status (contacted, quoted, won, lost). Both sides update it. In your own records, tag each customer who came this way with the partner's name, so you can find them again at renewal. Arguments about who sent what are settled by the sheet, not memory. On the date you fixed, look at three things: how many each way, how many became work, and whether any customer complained. A lopsided flow is fine if both are comfortable. If one is irritated, talk about it that day.

An interior designer and a kitchen fitter in Nagpur

Here is an invented case. An interior designer in Nagpur and a modular-kitchen fitter agreed over tea to pass each other's clients. They wrote nothing down. The fitter sent the designer a list of recent customers, and the designer called all of them cold. Several were annoyed, and one asked the fitter why a stranger knew about a flat.

Worse, a client the designer had passed to the fitter for a kitchen later received a quote from the fitter for the whole flat, partitions included. Each believed the other was poaching. They sat down and wrote the six lines. Introductions now go by message with consent, and line 3 settled the quarrel: the fitter takes the kitchen and no more. When they next met, the sheet showed the designer had sent nine leads and received three. The fitter offered a small fee; the designer declined, since fitted kitchens brought repeat work. Then one of the fitter's installations ran late and the designer's client complained, so introductions paused for two weeks until it was put right. The arrangement survived because the six lines said what to do.

How do you stop without a fight?

Going quiet is a poor way to end it. A partner who stops replying leaves your customers in limbo and your logo in their leaflets. The sixth line covers it: either side may stop by message. Leads in progress finish normally, shared material is taken down, and each customer stays with whoever served them.

Before the handshake

Pick the one business whose work you would be happy to stand beside, and take the six lines to the conversation instead of the idea. If you are unsure which partner fits, tell us what you need; bigger arrangements with agents and dealers are a different job, and sit under sales.