Blog · Rewards
The technique of winning word of mouth
Designing a referral programme means deciding what you offer whoever makes the introduction. It looks like a question of amount: almost always, it isn't, and this anecdote — a real event, involving one client — is the fastest way to understand why.
Published 11 November 2022 · revised 16 August 2026
It really happened
The highest reward wasn't the one that worked
The first version
A company with a high-end clientele, services worth tens of thousands of euros, sets up a referral programme with a four-figure cash reward for every referral that closes.
At first glance it's generous. The response is lukewarm — and especially so from the segment of the audience that mattered most: managers and entrepreneurs.
The second version
The reward changes nature. It becomes an aperitivo with the company's founder, a well-known figure in their field: two hours to get acquainted, get advice, enter their circle. For whoever reaches three referrals, a dinner with a dozen established entrepreneurs.
It can't be bought at any price, and it's earned only through referrals that close. The perception changes completely, and the results follow.
Why it was predictable
People who already earn well don't move for a sum that, at the scale of their own life, changes nothing. They move for something money can't buy: access to people.
And there's a second effect, less obvious: a cash reward makes whoever introduces someone feel like a paid intermediary. An invitation makes them feel like a peer. They're two different positions, and they produce different referrals.
One word at a time
From the carrot to the Match Credit
The 2022 article called the reward "the carrot", and the image is accurate: it describes someone being made to move. The discipline has stopped using it, and this anecdote explains why.
What the anecdote taught
That the right currency, for whoever introduces someone, isn't money: it's other people. In 2022 it was an empirical discovery about one client. Later it became the structure of the system.
What's there now
The unit of exchange is the Match Credit: a right to an introduction, that changes hands. It's the formula R = MC/2, and it needs a mechanism to work — delegated reciprocity, which lets someone promise reciprocity without having to deliver it in person.
Whoever introduces someone is called a Connector and receives what they give: people to meet. And it's consistent with the Sixth Law — whoever puts their own reputation at risk should not be compensated with a token, they should be treated as a peer.
The carrot moves whoever is hungry. Whoever isn't hungry wants a seat at the table.
The first step
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