Design phase
Design establishes who you serve, who can introduce you, and why a partnership is worth their time.
By Derek Morgan
Published · Updated
The Design phase establishes who you serve, who can introduce you, and why a partnership is worth their time. Clarity precedes scale, and every failure later in the Formula can usually be traced to a shortcut taken here.
Before any partner is approached, three decisions must be made operational. Which customers you serve best. Which businesses already hold trusted access to them. And why a partnership is worth their time, expressed in the partner's terms rather than yours.
The three modules in this phase are sequential. The ideal customer profile is the pattern partners recognize in conversation. The ideal referral partner profile applies the same standard to partner selection. The value statement articulates why collaboration benefits the partner. Skipping or softening any one of these steps produces partner conversations without a standard to qualify against.
Work through the modules in order. Each builds on the last. Definitions and links to the full module pages are below.
Modules in the Design phase
Module 1. Ideal Customer Profile Builder. WHO you are building for
The Ideal Customer Profile Builder is the first module of the Referral Marketing Formula, and it defines precisely which customers your business serves best before any partner activity begins.
Module 2. Ideal Referral Partner Profile Builder. WHO can introduce you to your ideal customers
The Ideal Referral Partner Profile Builder defines which businesses already hold trusted access to your ideal customers, so partner selection becomes a qualification decision rather than an opportunistic one.
Module 3. Value Statement Builder. WHY partners should collaborate with you
The Value Statement Builder articulates the value a partnership creates for the partner, expressed through the five LASER levers, rather than restating the value you create for customers.
The Referral Marketing Formula
This phase is one of three in the Referral Marketing Formula™. The hub lists all nine modules, the glossary defines key terms, and each module page covers the frameworks and questions in full.
Using Refer2u
A phase is a sequence of decisions. Refer2u is where those decisions stay visible as you move from Design through Build into Launch with each partner.
Learn the framework on the Referral Marketing Formula hub. Put it to work in Refer2u.