Unlimited Referrals in B2B: Myth or Model?

Sounds like a dream, something that makes sense but actually feels unattainable. I mean, if we could get unlimited referrals, why would we need marketing? Why would we need 1000Steps? No more email campaigns. But when you think about it, there are so many benefits, reduced costs, higher quality, trust comes quicker, higher revenue, and a stickier business, why are we not nailing this and measuring it.

I’m certain that as you read this, if you have revenue responsibility, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Let me ask you a few questions:

Let me ask you a few questions:

• Do you know how many referrals you got last year?
• Do you know how much of your revenue came from referrals, and what type of referrals they were? (Yes, there are different kinds.)
• Do you know the average length of your referral sales cycle?
• Do you have a plan for getting more referrals?

It’s funny, these questions are obvious, but we usually don’t know the answers. How can something so important, something that’s ultimately free, that reflects the health of your business, and that, if done right, is as valuable as the golden goose, get so little focus?

I’m talking about the big four accounting firms, enterprise software companies, consulting firms, engineering firms, and many others. Why aren’t they focusing on this?

I have a theory why, but let me first tell you my journey with referrals.

My journey with referrals

I worked in the life insurance and investment world for the middle part of my career, about 25 years. When I moved out to Singapore from Aberdeen, where I had a great career, I thought things would work out well. But the first 12 years were a disaster. My income collapsed and I struggled throughout those years. Much to my mum’s chagrin, I still remember the Christmas chat where she asked me why I was failing, why things had been so good in Aberdeen, but such a disaster in Singapore.

At that point, I made a lot of changes. They had an impact. I won’t bore you with the details, but my income grew from about 20k a year to 240k a year over a period of 3 years. That was good, but I knew it could be better. I also felt things were still unstable. I was relying on a mix of cold calling, some referrals, and networking. It was tough, if you know financial services, you know it’s not easy.

I knew I was capable of more and decided I wanted to do a few things differently.

• Take my income to 4X of its current level, a million dollars a year.
• Work only 2 days a week, seriously.
• Make the income consistent and scaleable

Okay, so this sounds very classic selfish sales and revenue-driven. But it wasn’t. The income was just a target. The goal was to figure out how to get there, it wasn’t about selling more, but being more effective with my time. The two day work week, was so I could train as an amateur elite triathlete, spend time with my young kids, and the consistency was for peace of mind.

Long story short, I fixed it all, it worked and I hit the revenue and only worked 2 days a week for 2 years. Again, another story. But there was one key that made it all work, I worked off referrals 100 percent. No cold calling, no networking, just referrals. That was the only way I could manage the quality.

At the time, I knew the answer was referrals. Yes, there was also time management involved, but that’s also another topic. Referrals allowed me to control who I was talking to, where they were in their journey, how deep the relationship was, and basically allowed me to scale to that model.

Then came the big question, how do you scale a referral model?

First, I read everything I could on referrals. To be honest, there wasn’t much out there that was real. Lots of fake stuff, like the guy who gave everyone a goldfish tank and followed up, or others who said, “If you don’t give me referrals, I won’t work with you anymore.” But nothing on the science of referrals, why people give them, how to build a referral model that actually works and written by a practitioner not a intellectual.

One of the best books I found was The Trusted Advisor. It gave a great framework. I remember reading it and thinking, “The way they work is the way I want to work with clients.” This became the foundation for how I consistently started getting more referrals.

Lets come back to my theory of why its tough?

• No one will give you referrals if they don’t trust you.
• No one will give you referrals if they don’t trust your product.
• They need to also like you.
• Trust takes time to build. Seven hours of face time is an arbitrary number—but it’s pretty accurate. Less than that, and people usually don’t get to the point of trust.
• You need to ask for help.
• You need to help them.
• You need to thank them and cultivate the relationship.
• They won’t refer you if doing so exposes them to risk, e.g., if you sell investments that could go down in value.

Once I worked this out, I realised that in financial services, getting referrals was going to be tough. We met clients for an hour-long intro, a discovery meeting, a financial planning walkthrough, document signing, then we’d stop for 6 months. Then a 1-hour review, then another 6 months later. So it could take 18 months to get to those 7 hours. But even that wasn’t enough, those hours had to be substantive, or the relationship would drift.

And if our product (investments) would take years to prove value, that’s another problem.

Also, with brief visits, how do they really get to know and like me?

You see what I’m saying, referrals were going to be harder to get than I thought.

So I built out a plan and a team.

My theory was, if my team was engaging, I was engaging, and we did an amazing job, and the clients knew we were all over it, that would tick all the boxes. And it worked. The clients built strong relationships with Lyn and Kerry, my senior team. The clients loved them, more than me by the way, which is the same now, haha.

We started offering other services outside of our base products, things that didn’t make us much money, but were valuable to them, wills, inheritance planning, travel insurance, house contents insurance. By doing a great job, organizing wills, helping with claims, we became their go-to. That was the turning point.

I started getting 4 or 5 referrals a week. Clients were introducing us to friends in the same boat. Things got better and better. The happy ending? I got back on track, had an amazing team doing amazing work for clients, and they were happy to refer us.

This is the process I went through, and now at 1000Steps, it’s the same process we follow. Do a great job, maintain relationships, nurture, go the extra mile, and the referrals come.

How do you build your model?

• If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
• Build a model, and execute it.
• Work out the component parts (which I’ll lay out after this), and firm up your model.

Note, It doesn’t matter if you’re an enterprise company, a startup, engineering firm, consulting firm, you can all follow this. If you do it properly, the net result will be unlimited referrals.

Start with this:

• Map all your contacts.
• Map all your clients, and the contacts in those companies.
• Build a client management model that makes them, Like you Like your product Trust you Trust your product
• Do things for them that don’t make you money.
• Do things for others that don’t make you money.
• Get your message and content out there.
• Overdeliver on service.
• Be clear on who they are, client, partner, or centre of influence.
• Be clear on where you are in the trust relationship framework.
• Execute for 5 years. Yes, long term, this is one of the main issues. I am here for the long game, are you?

Why isn’t referral as a channel working for most?

• We’re too transactional.
• We’re not building trust or taking the right time.
• We don’t have a plan.
• Our clients don’t like or trust us enough.
• Our contacts aren’t motivated to help us.

There are 3 types of referrers:

• Existing Clients – They refer because they love what you do. If they don’t, you’re not doing a good job. Fix it now.
• Partners – They refer because it benefits them. If they don’t, find what motivates them. Money, ego, status, brand, it’s usually financial. One great piece of advice, if you’re a primary revenue source, you’ll do better.
• Centers of Influence – They know you, like you, trust you, and want to help. But they’re like orchids, treat them well, and they bloom. Neglect them, and they disappear.

Time

7 hours of face time. 3 hours, and you might get referrals. But 7 hours of lunches, golf, a walk, workshops, it all adds up. You know what I mean. Time = Trust. Also, don’t be a shark. Don’t be transactional.

Do things for free

Ignore the morons who say, “Don’t do free stuff.” They’re wrong. You need to give back in a non-transactional way. Not to get something, just because it’s the right thing to do.

Some examples of what I’ve done in the past year:

• Delivered a workshop in Brussels for free, 1 full day, no cost.
• Filmed videos on Orchard Road for a client, 3 hours, free.
• Worked as a Global Scot, helping Scottish companies expand.
• Helped the Global Scot network in other ways.
• Worked with SBN (Scottish Business Network), also for free.
• Ran a webinar for a friend’s contact.
• Helped someone who was made redundant build a job hunting model using Navigator.
• Gave feedback to a struggling startup.
• Supported students in the startup space NUS (National University of Singapore).

None of these were done to get anything in return. I did them because I loved doing them, but, as you know, some of them have come back in unexpected ways.

Stay visible

If people forget you exist, clients, partners, anyone, how can they remember to introduce you? LinkedIn posts, interactions, webinars, whitepapers are are all critical. Who can refer anyone to a transactional ghost.

The 3 types of referrals

• Direct referral with a need – Gold.
• Direct referral without a need – Still great.
• Implied referral – Someone uses your name in an intro or message. Also great.

All of them work.

But here’s the key: you need to ask.

If you don’t ask for help, and don’t follow a process, you’ll have no control. But remember, you can’t ask unless you’ve got:

• Trust
• A likeable product and persona
• The right way to ask

The Right Way to Ask

• Ask for help.
• They say yes.
• Book a meeting and ask if it’s okay to review their LinkedIn,ask them to think of people who’d benefit from what you do. Be specific.
• Prepare the list and book a Zoom or coffee meeting.
• Go through the list, only get intros to people they know.
• Follow up with all introductions.
• Update the referrer on what happened.
• Try to help them if you can.
• Repeat.

It’s a simple model, but it takes massive effort to get it right. It’s not easy. Think of it like planting an apple tree, it’ll take 1–2 years before it really starts producing.

One last story

A good friend of mine sells expensive software, $250k/year as a starting point, thus big sales. His target? Enterprise retail clients. He mapped all his contacts, Accenture, old colleagues, former clients, friends. Using that base, he gets a steady flow of 1–2 new contacts a week. Yes, they have product-market fit. Yes, he’s technically brilliant and ethical. Yes, people like and want to help him. That’s how you scale. Very few of his leads come from marketing, it’s all referrals and his network.

Referrals are easy to get working. You already have the people. But you can’t get referrals though, if you don’t have trust, haven’t spent time with them, if you don’t ask, or if you’re transactional.

For me, I always think, How can I help them first? What can I do to build trust?

The byproduct, and it really is just a byproduct, is a lot of referrals.

If you want to systemise a referral‑first model and make it scale, we can help.
👉 Book a Strategy Call with 1000Steps

FAQ About B2B Referral Strategy