You have had this client. They are excellent at the work. The site looks good, because you made it look good. And six months later they are still saying some version of we are good at what we do and we cannot get the right people to find us.

That is not a design problem, which means it was never yours to solve. It is a distribution problem, and it is the only problem I work on. This page is for anyone who wants a straightforward way to hand that client to somebody, know what happens next, and not lose the relationship in the process.

The three clients worth sending

If you recognize one of these, the introduction is worth making.

The one whose site you built and no one visits. The work is good. The positioning underneath it never got decided, so the site is beautifully executing an unclear idea. You can see it and you cannot fix it inside a design engagement.

The one who lists everything. Six services against nine kinds of buyer. You asked them to pick and they could not, because picking is a business decision rather than a branding one, and no one outside the company had standing to force it.

The one who just found out AI does not mention them. A client asked an assistant who does what they do and got three competitors back. They do not know what to do with that, and it is not a question a designer, a PR consultant, or an accountant should be expected to answer.

Who this page is for

Design firms, branding studios, web developers, PR consultants, fractional CMOs, accountants, and other advisors who work alongside B2B service firms, insurance and staffing companies, professional practices, family-held businesses, marketplaces, associations, and early-stage software or AI startups.

How it works

1. You introduce me. A short email or a warm intro is all it takes. No forms, no portal, and no waiting on a partnership agreement before you can send somebody my way.
2. Your client takes the free two-page read. No call, no cost, no obligation. I read their site and their positioning and send back two pages: what is working, what is not, and where I would start. About a third of the people who take this never go further, and that is fine, because it is a genuine first step rather than a disguised sales pitch.
3. If it is a fit, we talk. The next step is a fixed-fee audit starting at $4,500. A defined scope with a price agreed before I begin, rather than an open-ended retainer.
4. You stay in the loop. I will tell you when the introduction turns into a conversation, and I will tell you when it does not. You are not left guessing what happened to somebody you vouched for.

What is in it for you

• You look good to your client. Recommending somebody who gives away a genuinely useful first deliverable, free and with no pressure, reflects well on the person who made the introduction.
• You do not lose the relationship. A referral to me is not a handoff. I work upstream and downstream of design and branding rather than in competition with it, and most of the referrals I receive lead to more design and positioning work for the referring firm rather than less.
• The work usually creates work for you. A positioning decision has to get built. A new page structure has to get designed. A published price has to go somewhere. I write the strategy and somebody has to execute it, and that somebody is often the person who made the introduction.
• You get credit. If you would like, I will mention who made the introduction when I follow up, so there is no ambiguity about where it came from.
• No exclusivity and no lock-in. This is not a contract. Send one introduction or fifty. No minimum, no fee to participate, and no obligation on either side beyond common courtesy.

A documented partner track for larger firms

If you run a larger agency and expect to send referrals regularly, a one-off email works fine for the first one, but it is reasonable to want something more durable before making this part of how your team operates. For firms in that position I will set up a short, documented arrangement covering:

• A single point of contact on both sides, so introductions do not get lost between people.
• A simple standard for how and when I update you on a referral’s status.
• Clarity on how referral credit and reciprocal introductions work, in writing, so neither of us has to remember a verbal agreement six months later.

This is a page rather than a contract, and it exists for firms that want the relationship formalized instead of ad hoc. Say so when you reach out.

How to make the introduction

Email me with your client’s name, their site if they have one, and a sentence or two on why you thought of me. That is genuinely all it takes. If you would rather do a warm three-way introduction over email, that works too, and I will take it from there and keep you posted.

A template, if it is useful:

“Claude, introducing you to [Name] at [Company]. They do [what the company does] and have been [the specific findability or positioning problem]. Thought of you because [reason]. Copying you both here.”

Want something to attach? Download the one-page overview and send it along with the introduction. It is one page, it opens on a phone, and it says in plain terms what your client would be getting.

If you want to see the work first

Reasonable. No one should introduce a client to somebody whose work they have not read. Work Samples has one public company shown end to end, every document in the sequence, so you can see exactly what your client would receive. No one paid for any of it, and every fact in it is checkable.

What this program is not

• It is not a lead-buying arrangement. I am not paying for names and I would ask the same of anybody referring to me.
• It is not exclusive. Referring a client to me obligates neither of you to anything further.
• It is not a fit for every client. If your client is direct-to-consumer, a defense or government contractor, or a nonprofit on a grant cycle, I will likely tell them so directly and quickly. Past referral partners say they prefer that, since a fast and honest no wastes less of everyone’s time than a slow maybe.

Questions

If you are not sure whether a client is a fit before making the introduction, ask me first. A two-line email is enough, and I would always rather answer that question than have you guess. claude@1000startups.com.