Derek Morgan
Derek Morgan is the founder of Referral Marketing Ideas, the creator of the Referral Marketing Formula™, and Co-Founder and CEO of Refer2u. He is based in Brisbane, Australia, and works with B2B businesses whose growth depends on trust and introductions rather than on advertising spend or cold outreach.
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Background
Derek has worked in B2B growth since 1987, working across referral marketing, business networking, content marketing and social selling. That work led to a consistent observation: most businesses do not have a referral problem, they have a structure problem. Referrals arrive, but nobody can say when, from whom, or how to produce more of them.
He created the Referral Marketing Formula to close that gap. It is a nine module framework across three phases, Design, Build and Launch, and it is designed to turn informal referrals and random networking into predictable, relationship-led growth.
Refer2u followed as the platform built to operate the framework at scale. Frameworks create clarity. The ecosystem creates results.
Derek Morgan led affiliates and partnerships at Referit until the business closed in June 2025. He founded ReferU2, since rebranded to Refer2u, and developed the Referral Marketing Formula through that work. Referral Marketing Ideas publishes the Formula. Refer2u is the Referral Partner Ecosystem that brings it to life.
Career
Derek Morgan has worked in referral partnerships since 1987, across financial services, professional services, home services, recruitment and technology. The Referral Marketing Formula came out of that work rather than out of a study of it, and the pattern it describes held in every one of those industries.
, financial services
Derek started his sales career in financial services in 1987, the year of the October crash, with MLC. He moved to a regional building society specialising in superannuation industry consulting, working alongside other financial services businesses, accountants and local professionals. The referral relationships in that work were not a marketing tactic. They were how business was done.
, home services
Derek joined a carpet cleaning business and helped treble it in two years by building a referral partner network of real estate agents. The tools available at the time were a Yellow Pages advertisement, a fax machine, a pager and a Motorola brick. The results came from the relationships, which is the point that has held ever since.
, recruitment
Contract placement, in an industry where the quality of a placement depends almost entirely on who will vouch for whom.
to , financial services
Derek returned to financial services and stayed for twelve years. From 2006 he focused on business succession and estate planning, working with business partnerships and multi-family planning strategies. That work required lawyers, accountants, insurance brokers and financial advisors on both sides of a transaction to collaborate around a shared client outcome.
Coordinating an entire ecosystem of trusted advisors around one client is a harder problem than reciprocal referral, and it is where the deeper thinking behind the Referral Marketing Formula was formed. The referral partner relationships and networks built through that work produced sustained referral flow as a byproduct rather than as a goal.
to , NewBusinessReality
Derek founded NewBusinessReality, building applications and working as a fractional business development consultant with startups, scale-ups and enterprise businesses. Across those engagements he saw how consistently businesses of every size execute partner programs badly, and what separated the ones that worked from the ones that did not.
to , enterprise technology
Derek moved into enterprise technology sales as a business development manager, then into channel partner management. The role gave him a close view of how a large technology business designs and runs a partner program at scale, including the parts that do not work, and it sharpened the argument that sits underneath the Referral Marketing Formula today.
to , Dataweavers
As business development and account manager at Dataweavers, a platform for the cloud automation of customer experience ecosystems, Derek built and managed the partner relationships that drove new business, working directly with vendor account executives and business development managers across the Sitecore ecosystem. That collaborative partner motion produced multi-million dollar contracts.
, Referral Marketing Ideas
Derek founded Referral Marketing Ideas to publish the Referral Marketing Formula as a structured methodology, built to teach small and mid-sized businesses how to execute referral partnerships properly rather than by instinct. He took the role of Head of Affiliates and Partnerships at Referit in the same period, until that business closed in June 2025.
onward, Refer2u
Derek founded ReferU2 in July 2025, since rebranded to Refer2u, as the platform that puts the Referral Marketing Formula into practice. Referral Marketing Ideas publishes the methodology. Refer2u is where businesses run it.
Where the Formula came from
The Referral Marketing Formula is nine modules across three phases. It was not designed in one piece. Each part came out of something that worked, or something that failed, in the work above.
The ecosystem model
Business succession and estate planning taught the underlying model. When lawyers, accountants, brokers and advisors have to coordinate around a single client outcome, the relationships that form are structural rather than transactional, and they produce referrals continuously without anyone asking for them. Most referral advice starts from reciprocity. The Formula starts from a shared outcome, which is why it holds in professional services where reciprocity is constrained.
The LASER Value Framework™
The LASER Value Framework™ came out of watching technology businesses go to market badly across marketing, sales and partnerships. The common failure was not effort or budget. It was that nobody could articulate value in language a partner could repeat. LASER was built deliberately to be usable by any business rather than only by technology companies, and its job is to create alignment around value before any promotion happens.
What enterprise gets wrong
Working inside enterprise channel partner management showed Derek how large technology businesses build partner programs, and how much of that machinery exists to serve the machinery. Complex language, complex strategies, heavy data requirements, expensive platforms and dedicated headcount, none of which a business under a hundred people can carry, and much of which does not produce partnerships even in the businesses that can afford it.
Working with startups and lean scale-ups showed the opposite is true. A business development manager, account manager or customer success manager equipped with the right strategy and the right language can carry a fractional partner management role inside their existing remit.
That is why the Referral Marketing Formula is taught as a methodology rather than sold as a platform, and why Refer2u is built for businesses that do not currently have a dedicated partner team.
What he works on
The Referral Marketing Formula. The nine module framework, taught through Referral Marketing Ideas.
Refer2u. The referral partner ecosystem where partners implement, track and scale the framework together.
Speaking and mentoring. Derek speaks on referral marketing, partnership strategy and B2B networking across Australia and internationally.
Coined terms and frameworks
Derek is the author of several frameworks and distinctions used throughout the Referral Marketing Formula, including the LASER partnership value framework, the 1:1, 1:More, 1:Many Leverage Model, the distinction between alignment and discovery, and the concept of unidentified opportunity cost.
Appearances
Derek Morgan speaks regularly on referral marketing, Referral Partner programs and B2B growth without ad spend.
| Episode | Show | Host | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stop Networking, Start Thinking Like A Partner (Ep 914) | Networking RX | Frank Agin | |
| How to Build a Referral Marketing System That Actually Works (Ep 109) | Strategy Action Show | Jason | |
| How to Build Predictable Lead Flow with No Ad Spend | Tech Exec Insights | Jeremy Balius | |
| This Is How to Weather a Trust Recession (Ep 814) | Networking RX | Frank Agin | |
| Mastering Referral Marketing: Strategies, Systems, and the Power of AI | Money Mindset Mentoring | Steve Hamoen | |
| How to Grow Your Business with Referral Marketing (Ep 83) | Coach James Short | James Short | |
| The Most Powerful Yet Often Overlooked Strategy for Business Growth (Ep 88) | Conscious Leadership with Alex | Alex Terrey | |
| Build a Referral Machine | Business Owners Smashing It Online | SmashGo |
Where to find him
Derek Morgan writes the Referral Marketing Ideas newsletter on LinkedIn and publishes the Referral Marketing Ideas video series. He can be reached through Referral Marketing Ideas in Brisbane, Queensland.