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independence4 unconnected
standing

contested · 7 claims against 1

applies to

b2b, no audience needed

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

8 claims · 4 articles · 4 receipts

window

2015-10-21 → 2024-03-13

4 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Partner with people who already have your buyers

Court the businesses that talk to your customers but sell something different, and pitch them on how the arrangement makes them look generous to their own list rather than on what you get. Design a free item with a natural paid upgrade so their gift becomes your funnel, and treat the businesses beside you on the shelf as allies pooling the reputation of the whole category.

Where this splits

Church approaches competitors with a standing commission and Hillman bands together with the businesses beside him, while Kogan reports that reciprocal referral deals with agencies and consultants either never materialise or bring poor leads.

7 claims against 1

Alex Hillman · Austin Church · Zach Swinehart

Court businesses that already reach your buyers

  1. 01Court the people who already talk to your buyers but do not sell what you sell: a video producer courts photographers and developers, a web designer courts consultants and business lawyers.
  2. 02Get a business that already has your buyers to give your product to their customers as a gift from them, instead of building an audience yourself.
the objection · 1 claimGreg Kogan

Reciprocal referral deals bring nothing or poor leads

Do not count on reciprocal referral deals with agencies or other consultants, and do not spend time in communities made up of your own peers rather than your buyers.

  1. 03Pitch the partner on how the giveaway makes them look generous to their own customers, because that is why they lend you their audience.
  2. 04Design your own version of that gift so the free item has a natural paid upgrade, for example a one hour logo offered to a business lawyer's clients.
  3. 05Approach your competitors too, because the busy ones pass on work they cannot take, especially if you agree a commission in advance.

What it returned

  • $100

    A new boutique had a BMW dealership offer its customers a kimono with a retail price of $100 that cost the boutique $16. More than 600 women came in and spent an average of $400, turning $9,600 of stock into $240,000 of sales plus a customer list.

  • Austin points to a standing ten percent referral commission as the norm in creative services.

  • Hillman took this from a wine class: individual wineries are competing with beer and spirits, not each other, and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc reached nearly every US restaurant wine list through that kind of banding together.

  • In his experience the promised mutual referrals either never happen or bring poor-quality leads.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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More in word of mouth

all word of mouth plays

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.