Ever had service or a deal so good, you just couldn’t keep it to yourself? Sure, we all have. Make some money with that word of mouth with Passing Green. After being involved in more referral groups where troubles would arise with leads not being followed through, founders Jason Gegere, Cody Muenster and Marsha Taicher branched out to offer a broader spectrum of referrals. “If somebody really wanted a service, other referral groups allowed only certain type of service or one person representing a service, say like a coder, if the person or service wasn’t to your liking, there wasn’t anything you could do about it except not pass the referral,” said Gegere. Passing Green has a simple concept – receive services from a business, refer others to that business and collect five percent cash of the referred sale up to a total $5,000. Meaning if you refer a $5,000.00 sale to a business, you can get $250 cash. Businesses listed on the site range from home repair and services to independent graphic designers to beauty consultants. For a fee of $95 a year, businesses can be listed on the site for referrals to pass between users. Gegere says the site currently has less than 1,000 users, but says that number will increase once the site expands outside the Appleton and Green Bay, WI area. The site boasts it is looking for “proven reputable businesses” and money will be refunded if business do not meet the terms of service. “People are receiving services through the site and we have passed about $65,000 through,” said Gegere. The main expansion plan for Passing Green will allow anyone to pass a referral, even for businesses not listed on the site, as long as the receiver of the referral has a phone number or an e-mail address. If a business is not listed on the site, there will be a button on the top or right side that pulls up a generic form to put referral information into. From there, an e-mail appears that lets people view the referral whether they sign up for the site or not. For phone messages, an automated call will go out informing the receiver they have a referral. Gegere says it will not be “the annoying kind” of automated call and users will have the option to press a button where the system will read the referral a user has typed. When setting up a Passing Green account, users have the ability to choose a shorter url that can be used to pass leads, which Gegere hopes will turn into a loyalty program between top referral givers and the businesses.
