My first client wants a referral to my next client and I don't know if that's normal or a problem

What he's describing is two separate things, and separating them makes the answer clearer.

The first part, him passing your name to someone who needs help, is normal and you should absolutely encourage it. A client who vouches for you is more persuasive than anything you could say about yourself, especially two engagements in. Tell him yes, please do, and thank him for thinking of you.

The second part is the one worth thinking about. He is asking you to do outbound work on his behalf, sourcing a conversation, running an intro call, essentially doing intake labor for his friend's benefit. That is a different thing from receiving a referral. You are not obligated to do that, and you should feel no pressure to frame it as normal pipeline-building if it does not feel right.

On the intro call question: a short first call where a prospect decides whether to hire you is standard practice and typically free. The purpose of that call is for both of you to figure out whether there is a fit. It is not a consulting engagement. Charging for it at this stage would create friction that costs you more than the call is worth. What you do want to do is keep it short, maybe twenty minutes, and have a clear sense of what you offer and what you charge so the conversation has a destination.

The thing that protects you here is having a straightforward intake process so every first call feels the same, whether the prospect came from this client or anywhere else. No special favors, no ambiguity about what is free and what is not.

What does your current offer look like? Knowing whether you have a defined scope and a set price will help me give you something more specific.

The intro call should stay free but you control the format, 20 minutes, scheduled, no writeup, done. What nobody says until it costs them six months: the friend-of-a-client is usually a worse client than the original, because they heard a summarized version of what you do and expect the same result for a different problem at the same price.

At two engagements you do not have the volume to be precious about this. Say yes, do the intro call, and treat it as a sales call where you are deciding if they are worth taking on, not just waiting for them to hire you.

What did the original guy actually say you did for him when he described it to his friend?

The $400 engagement is done, he got his value, and now he wants you to do unpaid work so his friend feels taken care of. Those are not the same transaction.

"Help his friend" puts the obligation on you, which is backwards. If his friend needs help, his friend can book a paid hour.

Do you have a simple intake form or a booking link, or are you still doing all of this over text and email?

Referral inbounds are real pipeline, but you are the one who decides the intake structure.

Free 20-minute scope call, paid engagement after that, and you set both terms before the intro happens, so his friend arrives with calibrated expectations rather than assuming the $400 rate covers whatever they bring.

What was in the write-up you delivered, and did it include a clear scope of what a follow-on engagement would look like?

Albuquerque South Valley duplex guy is using you as a free resource for his friend, full stop.

The misconception worth clearing up: the intro call being "free everywhere" is a norm that consultants accept by default, not one they have to. A fifteen-minute scoping call where you decide if there's a fit costs you nothing material, but an "intro call" that's really a third party explaining their situation in full and expecting preliminary guidance is a paid engagement that starts the moment you open the file.

What he's asking you to do is recruit his friend as your client, on your time, with no compensation to you, framed as a favor to him. That's a different thing from him saying "my friend might call you." The first is a normal referral. The second is you doing unpaid business development labor for someone who already paid you $400 and got what he paid for.

Two engagements in, yes, referrals from early clients are genuinely how this builds, and you should encourage him to send people your way. The structure I'd use: he passes your name, the friend reaches out to you directly, you schedule a scoping call as short as you can make it, and if they want the actual work they book the engagement at your rate. What you don't do is agree to a three-way intro where you're performing for an audience that hasn't hired you yet.

Does the friend already know roughly what you charge, or did your client describe what he got from you without mentioning the $400?

The framing I'd push back on is "doing free intake calls for people he knows" because you're not doing it for him, you're doing it because a warm referral converts at a completely different rate than cold outreach, and two engagements in, you don't have enough data yet to know what your actual close rate is on anything. I ran intake on every single potential tenant for free for two years before I even thought about charging a screening fee, and those conversations taught me more about what the product actually was than anything I read. The intro call isn't a favor to your client, it's your research. What's the scope you laid out for the $400 engagement, did you define what "review" meant in writing, or was that loose?

Two engagements in and you're already worried about being used as a free sourcing service, that instinct is right, but you're conflating two things that are not the same problem. Your client referring you is a gift. Your client asking you to do the outreach for his friend is a different request, and you are allowed to just not do that part. Let him pass your name, let the friend call you, and then yes that first call is free, twenty minutes, you find out if they have an actual problem you can price. The number I'd push back on is the $400 for two hours plus a write-up. Comparable review work in markets I watch is closer to $600 to $750 for a duplex with any real complication, and if you're already second-guessing the rate two engagements in, you priced for desperation, not for what the work actually costs you. Do you have any sense yet what he paid his agent on that deal, relative to what he paid you?

Decide what the second engagement costs and lead with that number on the call.