TL;DR

• Referrals are one of the most powerful and cost-effective growth channels for digital agencies.
• There are four main sources: Current clients, Partners / adjacent businesses, Past clients, & Personal and professional contacts
• Ask for referrals at the point of peak happiness, when industry changes occur, or when tech changes.
• Different roles will be responsible for referrals at different-sized agencies, but make sure that SOMEONE is owning it.
• Use simple, confident language and tailor your ask to your audience: Current clients, Partners / adjacent businesses, Past clients, & Personal and professional contacts.
• Create enablement materials that reduce friction: ICP one-pager, service snapshots, and SHORT case studies.
• Integrate the referral process with your sales process and use your CRM to track them.
• BONUS growth driver: Make your contact look like an absolute rockstar, and tag along when they move on.

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I’ve spent the last year analyzing where digital agencies are headed and, more importantly, why some are thriving while others are stalling out.

Join me at AmpUp 2025 hosted by GatherUp, where I’ll share the biggest trends reshaping agency models, margins, and mindset.
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Operationalize Referrals

Welcome to part 3 of 3 on growing digital agencies!

First, we covered the bedrock of agency growth: Limiting Client Churn.​

Then, we dove deep into the Three Core Frameworks for Growing Accounts.​

Today, we're talking referrals.

When they’re working, referrals are one of the most powerful and cost-effective growth channels for digital agencies.

At least that’s what agency leaders said in our How Digital Agencies Grow research. Client referrals and partner referrals were the #1 and #3 sources of agency revenue.

Unfortunately, they don’t always work.

When demand is high, most recently in the mid-2010s and 2021, referrals seem to flow in effortlessly and make it almost easy to keep a pipeline full.

When demand for digital services slows, 2022 onward, referrals dry up almost instantly.

This happens for two reasons:

1. Sometimes the market sucks. You can do everything right, and a major component of growth, the market, is fully outside of your control.
2. Most agencies haven’t operationalized referrals. They take the “I hope something comes in soon!” approach, but they don’t build referrals into their team’s DNA.

We can’t do anything about the market.

But if we add systems around referrals, we can rely on them to drive growth even during more challenging economic times.

That’s what I’ll be covering today.

A condensed guide to help operationalize referrals across your organization.

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Who to Ask

First up, we need to know who we’re asking for a referral.

There are four main sources:

• Current clients
• Partners / adjacent businesses
• Past clients
• Personal and professional contacts

Current clients are by far the best referral source.

They have direct, recent experience with your work, and they’re typically motivated by genuine appreciation after having a good experience with your team.

This is infinitely more powerful than any kind of fancy incentive structure.

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When to Ask

Now that we know who we’re asking, getting the timing right is important.

Current clients

The moment of peak happiness: This is your best opportunity. Ask for referrals right after delivering a major win, when the client is excited and appreciative. These are the emotional high points after things like completing a major milestone, a project launch, or when they send a “this is amazing” email.

You can have your AM or PM flag these naturally, or use a survey if that’s more your style. NPS surveys can work well here.

Don’t wait too long, though, since perceived value can fade over time. Be sure to ask when excitement is fresh and outcomes are top of mind.

Industry impacts: This is where being an industry specialist really helps. When industry shifts happen, it’s a natural time to reach out to current clients and do a check-in. When there are significant industry shifts, the kind that get talked about at industry events and in publications, this is a fantastic time to add in a referral request.

It can be as simple as saying: “We’ve been tracking [TREND] recently, and it seems to be doing X, Y, and Z, in your space. Do you know anyone else in your industry who’s dealing with this that you’d be willing to introduce us to?”

Any time your client’s landscape shifts is a natural time to check in, deliver value, and ask if others are feeling the same pressures.

Tech changes: Similar to industry impacts, tech changes can be another great time to reach out. You’re probably already doing this for your clients anyway, so adding in a referral ask here makes sense.

For both the industry impacts and tech changes, it’s a good idea to have some collateral about the impact or change. Put together some of your SME’s thoughts into a brief and pass that along.

Partners / adjacent businesses

Other businesses that serve the same ICP but in other non-competing roles can be fantastic sources of new referrals.

As with any of these, it works better when you nurture the relationship for a while vs. going in cold.

Referrals from partners tend to be ongoing, not one-offs. Once trust is built, they can feed you leads regularly as long as the relationship is maintained.

Furthermore, these firms understand what makes a client a good fit and can often pre-qualify referrals.

Each of these relationships will be different, so it’s tough to recommend a blanket cadence. I’d look at something quarterly to start with and then adjust as necessary from there. These need to be more than “give me leads” calls. Try to find some low-hanging projects that you could collaborate on. Introduce your marketing teams and let them come up with something cool. While you’re doing that, ask about market conditions leader-to-leader. Share what you’re seeing.

If they’re a larger, more established SaaS or PaaS firm, and they have a partner program, get involved in it.

Past clients

When you reengage, asking past clients for a referral should be the second thing you do.

The first, is to ask them for new work directly.

If they don’t have any new work at the moment, then you can naturally segue into asking for a referral.

For these, the moment of peak happiness has long passed, but you can still rely on industry impacts and tech changes to do a lot of heavy lifting here. You’ll also need to overcome some inertia and maybe do some reminding about what you do. The enablement materials can do a lot of that.

I like a reengagement cadence set for 6-9ish months after a project’s complete.

Personal and professional contacts

We need to distinguish between personal contacts, like friends, and professional contacts.

I don’t love trying to rely on personal contacts for referrals. It’s fine if it comes up organically, but I’d rather talk about how the Cavs are going to take it all this year.

Professional contacts are another thing entirely. I know a number of people who’ve done very well for themselves by being good connectors. That’s actually a lot more difficult than it sounds, but if you have the skillset for it, you can do well here.

Unfortunately, unless you’ve trained your professional network to understand who you help and what you do, referrals from personal contacts tend to be vague, misaligned, or nonexistent. They're not useless, but they aren’t dependable, which is why they live at the bottom of the list.

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Who Asks and How Frequently

Minimal Resources (<10 FTEs)

In owner-led firms, the founder should be personally responsible for asking. Build it into your project closeout checklist. One ask per client, per project, is often sufficient, but don’t overthink frequency too much.

Moderate Resources (10–25 FTEs)

Involve project leads and account managers in spotting the right moments. Partners or directors typically make the ask, but employees should help identify the timing.

Adequate Resources (>25 FTEs)

With more scale, everyone should participate. Train team members on how to spot happy clients and how to introduce the ask, even if leadership closes the loop.

This is where you can really start to formalize this process:

• Task individuals with asking for referrals
• AMs for current clients
• Sales and/or leadership for partners
• Leadership for past clients
• Add internal referral prompts to project delivery workflows
• Have marketing and sales create referral resources

Some firms incentivize employees who generate quality referrals (either with bonuses or internal recognition). Use CRM workflows to ensure no opportunities are missed and the ask is coordinated across teams.

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Outreach Templates and Scripts

Use simple, confident language and tailor your approach by source. Here are some samples:

Current Clients

• Lead with appreciation: “Thanks again for partnering with us. I’m glad we were able to help you [insert outcome].”
• Be specific about your ICP: “We typically help [title] at [company type] with [problem].”
• Actually ask for the referral: “If someone in your network is facing something similar, would you be willing to introduce us?”

Business Partners or Agencies

• Frame it as mutual: “We’re looking to partner with firms that serve similar clients but offer different capabilities. Happy to send leads your way too.”
• Be direct: “If you ever have clients struggling with [your expertise], we’d love to help out.”
• If you like them, involve your teams: “We have a virtual conference coming up, it'd be great to have our teams co-present on something, let's loop marketing in.”

Past Clients

• Rekindle the relationship: “It’s been a while since [project]. I hope things are going well.”
• Ask about more work first, then, if there's nothing there, move naturally to a referral ask.
• Reference past outcomes, then make the ask: “We’re looking to help more firms like yours do [insert value prop.]. Would you be willing to introduce us?”

Personal and professional contacts

• Focus on education: “I help [ICP] with [problem]. If anyone in your network fits that description, I’d appreciate an introduction.”
• There'll typically be a lot more inertia and friction along the way with these, so be prepared to reiterate who you serve and what value you deliver.

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Enablement Materials

Make it dead simple for others to refer you. This is about reducing referral friction as much as possible.

• ICP One-Pager: Outline who you help, what problems you solve, and how someone can identify a good referral.
• Service Snapshot: Describe your core offerings, your differentiators, and a few client results.
• Case Studies: Include a few short client success stories. A good format is: Client type → Problem → Solution → Outcome. Please make sure these are short.

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Integrating with Your Sales Process

Treat referrals as a pipeline source.

• Tag referrals in your CRM: Include referrer info, track their quality, win rate, and average deal size. This can be a lot to set up, so just use a spreadsheet if you have to.
• Create a referral funnel: Just like sales stages, track: Referral received → Intro made → Qualified → Proposal → Close
• Use your CRM: Automate follow-up and thank-you steps.

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B-B-B-Bonus!

Here’s that fourth agency growth driver that I don’t see talked about enough.

Make your contact look like an absolute rockstar, and tag along when they move on.

Too many shops lose both the account and the contact when a CMO leaves. And they leave pretty damn regularly.

Ideally, your account team should make additional contacts within their org., so you have a better chance of being retained.

Secondly, if you do your job right, when that CMO joins a new company, you should be one of their first calls.

This isn’t a big enough topic to warrant its own newsletter, but it’s incredibly powerful when you get it working right. As with anything in this business, it’s all relationship-driven.

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Final Thoughts

Firms that operationalize referrals often find they're significantly more effective than other lead sources, but only if they follow up promptly and treat them like real leads.

Set quarterly referral KPIs for account teams.

Build referral asks into your delivery milestones.

And when someone gives you a lead, close the loop quickly. Keep them updated, and thank them whether it closes or not. This helps maintain the relationship.

Referrals can be high-trust, high-conversion, and low-cost, but they only work consistently if you systematize the process.

Until next time!

-Nick