So, you’ve heard of an amazing client who would benefit from our consultative work. This is great. This is beyond great. 95%+ of our work comes from trusted referrals. Also, we don’t advertise in any capacity. This makes you the lifeblood of our business.

We’re deeply grateful for the opportunity, and hopeful that we’ll be able to work something out. Let’s talk about how to refer us in a way that maximizes the chance for a deal to get across the finish line. Because that’s why we’re here!

Introduce us through email

Since we’re a business, it makes sense for us to work with other businesses. We wish the businesses we collaborate with to be actual. As a result, we disengage fully from unpaid models that fail to structurally nourish the collective.

In practice, this means that if you’re trying to introduce us on LinkedIn, Instagram, or whatever they’re calling Twitter this week, then your intro is going to be dead in the water, full stop. And we all want it to not be! You don’t want your pal to end up with a snake oil-selling dashboard bro. We are both cooler than them and better at our jobs.

Get their email address. Here’s our email address. Then write a good ol’ fashioned email intro. Party like it’s 2005!

Some resources that may be of interest

If people are wondering whether we’re legitimate: valid. Here are some helpful resources that you can send along to them, in descending order of importance:

• Our case studies, which show the economic impact of our work over the course of more than a decade.
• Our four books, which hopefully convey some vague sense that we know what we’re doing.
• Our library of evergreen resources about value-based design.
• Everywhere else we’ve appeared on the internet. Apparently we’re popular! Gosh.

Who to refer to us

Our work is consultative in nature. As a result, we speak exclusively to the person with final authority to buy our work.

If you’re trying to introduce us to an internal project champion who’s really excited about us, but they don’t have the ability to press the button to make the money happen, then they can be on the thread & calls and talk us up all they want, but we will be including & focusing on the actual buyer without exception. If the buyer is also the champion, great! If they aren’t, which is common to large organizations, then if there’s resistance on this point we’ll unfortunately have to walk.

This might sound like a weird thing to insist on, but after over 500 applications, we’re confident that it’s the only way we can do our jobs right. We’ve never seen a situation where we were able to close without the buyer arriving to this work. So it’s our job, first & foremost, to connect with the buyer and convey that this work is of urgent interest to the organization. This is the work.

What will happen after you refer us

First, we’ll profusely thank you, obviously. Then we’ll throw you on BCC.

If the client is a good fit for consultative work, we’ll then ask them to fill out an application. Fairness is the name of the game here, and our application asks a lot of important questions about whether our work will be a good fit. We don’t want to waste anyone’s time with a big fancy meeting that won’t end up mattering, so this is why the application is important. We don’t do strategic calls before someone applies; that’s what these are for.

If it becomes clear the client is appropriate for one of our other offerings, we’ll point them there and call it a day.

Two more administrative bits

We don’t negotiate consultative work over email threads. We do so through conversation. If the client isn’t willing to read our welcome packet or be fully present for a Zoom call, then our working style probably isn’t a great fit.

And finally, we don’t work for free. If the client wants an audit, they can buy a roadmap from us for cheap.

Your reward: the box

If we move forward on consulting work with someone you referred to us, once they pay in full for their first quarter, we will mail you The Box.

The Box is consumable. The Box has resulted in unconditional squeals of delight from everyone who receives it. We’ll need your address & any dietary restrictions.

If you live outside of North America, you will receive a slightly different, but no less excellent, Box. Borders are weird, but we have to respect them.

Finally, thanks again

We’re deeply grateful for your interest, especially given that nobody has any idea who to trust in our softly burning world. Buying design is weird & scary, even in the best of times! You never know if their method is legit. You never know how the work will turn out. And if you’re reading this, you may not know what we’re actually like to work with.

Ultimately, we know we do good work. Plus, we’re fun to work with. And we’re proud to get a pretty big impact whenever we’re given the chance.

Thanks for reading, and please ping us if you have any questions!

— Nick Disabato