the referral leak you can't see
Brought to you by The Art Of Positioning Podcast
You're getting referrals. Things are moving. So the channel works, right?
Maybe.
But most firm owners never actually check what their referral network is saying (vs how many referrals) when their name comes up.
Think about Oura Ring.
No traditional advertising. No billboards, no paid campaigns pushing product.
Just people telling other people at the gym, in the office, on calls.
5.5 million rings sold, projecting $2 billion in revenue for 2026, and their CMO even dishes that 50% of new members still find out about Oura from a friend, family member, or coworker.
It only worked because people knew exactly what to say.
"It's the ring that tells you how recovered you actually are, sleep, readiness, everything. I stopped guessing."
One sentence. Specific enough to land. Specific enough that the person hearing it immediately knows whether it's for them.
That's not just good product. That's positioning doing its job out in the world, without anyone from the company in the room.
Most firms never quite get there, because the people who want to recommend them can't quite find the words.
So they say something warm and vague instead: "She's brilliant at accounting." or "They're really good, you should talk to them."
Warm. Well-intentioned. Completely vague.
When someone lands in your inbox off that kind of intro, they don't arrive certain, they arrive curious.
Which is fine, but it means you're now doing most of the llegworkon the call that the referral could have done before the call.
You're qualifying, re-explaining, convincing.
And you can feel it.
And ya know what? It’s not a referral problem.
That’s actually your positioning being *ucky, showing up inside your referral channel and adding time and effort that you didn’t have to.
Why this happens to firms that are actually good 👇
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Selling your family business feels like the end.
You've poured decades into it. Your kids grew up in the shop. It's not just revenue, it's your legacy.
Then what? Most owners drift. Wendy Murphy, the CEO of Timber Tech Truss LP didn't.
She partnered with private equity. Acquired two competitors in 18 months. Stairs. Prefab walls. Instant vertical integration.
But here's the truth no one tells you: Acquisitions sound sexy until you're neck-deep in integration hell.
Systems clash. Cultures resist. Your org chart explodes. Customers get confused about what you even do now.
Wendy stayed ahead because she knew three things most don't:
Buyers ignore emotion. Balance sheets don't care about your 40 years of sweat equity.
Alignment trumps profit. Values first, or the deal implodes during due diligence.
Integration never ends. 90 days to observe. Years to stabilize. Weak leaders kill momentum.
She grew up building trusses with her parents. Sold Timber Tech Trusts. Tripled headcount. Still runs it like family.
This is your map if you're selling, buying, or watching boomers retire without successors.
Listen to the full The Art of Positioning Podcast episode here.
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It's almost always the same pattern:
The firm grows.
They take on a wider range of clients because the work is good and the opportunities are there.
They say yes to things adjacent to their core. Nothing dramatic, ya know, just softening of what they're specifically known for.
Their clients still love ‘em.
But when those clients try to describe them, there's more to cover.
The description is broader:
"They do a lot of different things."
"They're kind of hard to explain, but they're great."
One firm owner I spoke with recently told me he'd built almost his entire client base through referrals, over years.
Good relationships, consistent volume. But when his ideal clients came up in conversation, what his network said was: "They can probably help you."
Probably.
After years of excellent work, probably.
That sentence can't qualify a client before they reach you. It can't tell the right person you're for them. And it can't tell the wrong person to keep looking.
Let's fix it👇
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😎 Often, I see businesses hit a wall when their offerings and brands don't complement or build on each other, so I built a tool to find the best solution for your mix and goals.
It's honed in, where you get direction right up front as needed.
Align your offers and brands today.
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🏏 Badass Tip: The one question that shows you where you actually stand
Go back to your last three referred clients.
Ask them, casually, one question:
"What did [person] say about me that made you reach out?"
Write down the answer word for word.
Don't edit it, don't interpret it yet.
Just get what was actually said.
Then ask yourself one thing: if your most ideal client, the one you'd clone if you could, heard that sentence from someone they trusted, would they know immediately that you were EXACTLY for them?
Not probably. Not maybe. Immediately.
If yes, your position is working out in the market.
If it's anything less than a clean yes, you've just found where the leak is.
And it's not in your website copy or your LinkedIn bio or that last ad campaign.
It's the gap between what your best clients understand about you (how you’re remembered) and what they say when you're not in the room.
That gap is the thing to fix.
Because, and this is a hill I will die on, no amount of new marketing stacks effectively on top of a position that your own advocates can't describe precisely.
What it costs you to leave it
The frustrating part is that this kind of leak is invisible until you look for it. The referrals keep coming. You keep converting some of them. Things feel like they're working.
But you're leaving money on the table every time a great referral arrives vague, because it takes three calls to close over months, or doesn't convert at all.
And you're spending energy convincing people who should have arrived already convinced.
Your referral network is one of the most valuable assets your firm has. The people in it trust you, like you, and want to send you work.
The only question is whether they have the right words to do it well.
If you're reading this wondering whether this is happening in your own network, it probably is. Most firms at your stage have never actually checked.
Run the question this week. See what comes back.
And if what comes back shows you there's a gap, and you want to work out exactly what your network should be saying, and why they're not saying it yet, drop me a DM. That's exactly what a positioning assessment is for.
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Looking for the piece that started this thread? Check out the partnerships version of this same problem.
