Something That Makes Me Squirm But I Still Do It: Asking for Referral Fees
If you nurtured the lead, and don't ask for a referral, that's on you
What’s Strategic Pivotery?
Hi, I’m Meg. I’ve been consulting with startups as a fractional product marketing leader for many years, and started this ‘stack to help burnt-out tech workers build $$$K+ consulting practices using the same GTM frameworks that scale unicorns.
I’ve scaled GTM and foundational messaging at Brex, Ashby, Jasper, Wand (among many) and have now built a thriving solo practice. I’m not a life coach helping people find balance; I’m a former startup operator teaching other operators how to monetize their hard-won expertise. I teach folks how to use the same tools they learned surviving startup life to build premium fractional businesses.
Want to launch your own fractional consultancy, get GTM help, or monetize your toxic startup experience? Book a strategy session :)
Being default helpful has gotten me far but…
In my last post, I shared tactical ways to generate leads by being genuinely helpful to your prospects and superconnectors in your network. I outlined how my personal professional brand has 3 anchoring concepts:
Helpful: sharing connections and resources in the most productive way
Refreshing: looking at something from a fresh set of eyes (this positioning is especially valuable to startup marketing leaders)
Inspiring: I’m the person who will say the thing everyone else is thinking, but is too afraid to say, such as “I want to disrupt the status bro” or “where I work is not my identity or a marker of my worth”
I’d argue that being refreshing and inspiring is akin to being helpful, but maybe with a dash of lemon for refreshment and aperol for liquid inspo. At the heart of me, my heart wants to be helpful.
And that is why it’s hard for me to monetize my natural, helpful impulses — whether it’s asking folks to pay to “pick my brain” or baking in a late fee for overdue contracts.
Luckily, I’ve had some really validating conversations with other fractional execs about a related area that I've been wrestling with for years.
Here's the thing: I've spent over 20 years being the person people come to when they need a connection. "Do you know anyone who...?" "Can you introduce me to...?" "Who would you recommend for...?"
And for most of those years, I said yes and made the intro for free. Because that's what good humans do, right? We help each other out.
But here's what I've finally started to realize (and actually act on in the past couple of years): There's a massive difference between a casual "hey, do you know someone" and me leveraging my carefully cultivated relationships to tee up a warm, qualified introduction or recommendation.
So why is it so difficult for me to ask for a referral fee?
Because it felt like asking to get paid for "just being helpful,” like I was asking for a personality tax or being greedy or transactional about something that should be pure and generous.
But then I started actually asking.
And people were totally fine with it.
They understood that a warm intro from someone they trust is worth way more than cold outreach or applying on job boards and hoping their profile shines through across 1000s of applications.
No one talks about referral fees but everyone is referral-curious
This post came about because of several validating conversations I had with other fractional execs.
First, a startup I knew very well was looking for a killer demand gen and marketing automation strategist, and I immediately thought of
, whose The Best Brew is a great follow.I told Jen I wanted to recommend her for the gig, and then ovary’ed up and said “Got a temperature check for you - I've been leaning into helping folks get opportunities as much as I can. Are you open to a referral fee if you end up getting a gig that I help curate?”
She said the words I needed to hear: “Yes, I’m open to that” and commented that she’s hoping to source more gig leads herself (!)
Market insight #1: this is not a crazy ask, and as a fractional / portfolio careerist, this is something she wants to add to her product line / income streams (just like me!)
Next I chatted with one of the ultimate brand authorities in startupland,
, whose stack From the Source is the realness we all need (she will give you that push to just publish the damn thing).I relayed that I had started asking for referral fees and she said “This is blowing my mind! I’ve been making intros for free for years, but you are inspiring me to start charging for them.”
Her reaction blew MY mind, since Samyutha is the ultimate superconnector, operator, and intrapreneur at every company lucky enough to have her. She should unquestionably charge for this level of savvy.
Market insight #2: referrals are one of those things that no one talks about but everyone should actually talk about
Then I got to know Natalie Hoop through Manual Override, a 6 week accelerator programmed by Hello Generalist (TY
and ). Natalie is a multi-hyphenate multi-talented fractional strategic Ops guru - Rev Ops, Sales Ops, Fin Ops… she fixes your startup chaos.When speaking about referrals, she said she knew people who were converting this into an entire business. They charge a flat fee for an intro, they charge a % if you get the gig, some of them are even curating mini trusted networks where you pay to play.
Market insight #3: if someone else is making a whole business out of their network, don’t discount the power of your own (and also I’m not asking enough in my fees!)
The last piece of market validation around referrals came from a very close friend and former colleague. When she started on her fractional journey, I offered to connect her to a few opportunities that I didn’t have capacity for. And then - despite feeling very awkward since I love her dearly and was worried about mixing business and pleasure - I asked her if she’d do a referral fee if she got the gig.
It was an immediate yes (relief!). The opps didn’t pan out, but we kept up our cross-country texting on ridiculous tech bro shenanigans, and then the ultimate confirmation that she was ok with the referral fees came recently when she offered to intro me to an opp she no longer had capacity for.
I jumped on the opp (great logo, warm intro, special insights from her about how to land the role), and she followed that with “I was inspired by your business savvy and took a dose of Big Meg Energy. With that, I’m asking for a referral fee if they close with you.”
I’ve never been happier to say yes to paying someone else. FYI: Big Meg Energy is the deep passion, enthusiasm, and hype house vibes I bring to promoting and encouraging my teammates and friends. I like to think it’s in the style of the Girls4Eva banger B.P.E, and I’m excited to bring it to my upcoming clients who are working on launching their own fractional biz.
Market insight #4: you can ask for a referral fee from a friend - it’s all about the positioning and messaging
Why it’s ok to monetize your expertise and relationships
Over the past year, I’ve had more than four conversations on this. Many of the reactions are along the lines of “Wow, I wish I had the guts to ask for this.” Very similar to when I tell folks that I’ve started charging to “pick my brain”: they know they should do the same, but it’s very hard to ask that first time. It gets easier every time, I promise!
The conversations I’ve been having around this reminded me that this isn't about being money-hungry. It's about recognizing the value of what we bring to the table.
When I refer someone for an opportunity, I'm not just passing along a name. I'm putting my reputation on the line. I'm using relationships I've spent decades building. I'm doing the work to understand both sides and make a thoughtful match. Very often, I coach the person being referred on how the players think and what they’re looking for.
So even though it’s hard every time to ask, I remind myself that when I’m making a referral, I’m leveraging:
Two decades of relationship building
My reputation and credibility
Deep knowledge of both the opportunity and the person
The trust and good will I've built on both sides
The time and thought I put into making the right match
That has value. Real, tangible value that helps people land opportunities they might never have found otherwise. These tend to be fractional gigs, mostly powered by word of mouth and personal asks, not public JDs you find online.
I am still working on when and how I charge, and I don’t do it for every intro. If someone's just starting out or between gigs with no income, I'm still going to help however I can (deferred referral, some kind of skill swap, I’m open). And sometimes an intro is just an intro - no cultivation required.
But when I've done the work to build the relationship with the hiring company, when I'm making strategic warm introductions that actually move the needle? That's consulting work. That's business development. That deserves compensation.
The fractional/consulting world is wild right now. AI has disrupted everything. Budgets are tight, timelines are compressed, and good opportunities are harder to come by. But that also means the right connection (and more importantly, personal recommendation) at the right time is more valuable than ever.
If you've been hesitant to ask for referral fees like I was, maybe it's time to reframe how you think about it. You're not asking to get paid for being nice. You're asking to get compensated for leveraging professional relationships you've spent years building.
Your network is a (fiercely protected) asset. Your reputation is currency. Your ability to make the right connections is a skill. Don't give away your expertise for free just because it feels "nice" to do so. Being helpful in this targeted way should net you more than a “thanks.”
A few templates for how to ask
I love crafting language for all kinds of outreach, but this ask was probably the gnarliest. Here are a few tips and examples:
The best way to be useful is to be honest (s/o to Milly at Generalist World for this gem)
So if this is hard for you to ask for, tell the person!
Personalize the ask (infuse your personality into this if you can)
Tee up your gratitude on their expertise (you are selling them on how you’re going to sell them through so easily because of their excellent skills)
Make the value you’re bringing clear (an “intro” is not as powerful as a “personal recommendation to the hiring manager or decision maker”)
Template 1: Ask for a temperature check
Once you’ve offered to make a strategic recommendation to the decision maker, you can ask for a temperature check as a way to gauge their openness. It puts the ball in their court to say no to something very reasonable ;)
Glad you'd like an intro! I have a temperature check for you - I've been leaning into helping folks get opportunities as much as I can. Are you open to a referral fee if you end up getting a gig that I help curate? Looking at something like x % of the contract fee for X months or lifetime... Template 2: Be a bit more vulnerable in your ask
If you’re referring this person, you should know them fairly well and can gauge if infusing a bit of vulnerability will be effective.
This is difficult for me to ask for, but I’m getting better at it ;) Since this will be a completely warm intro and I will tee up your skills, position you well, and coach you on all the players — would you be open to X% of your engagement contract for X months as a referral fee to me?You own this opportunity, so like my mom says, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
One final note on them em dashes
I have been an em dash power user since my teens (just ask my AP English teacher). I’m deeply annoyed that every LLM and AI has been trained to use them, and even more annoyed at the advice that I need to avoid them so that I can prove I’m not using AI to write my posts.
As the Morning Brew published recently, I use em dashes because I’m a lazy human and I also write in my true speaking style - which uses a ton of verbal em dashes. Trust me, if this was written by AI there’d be way fewer swear words.
Ways you can support Strategic Pivotery
🙊 Book a strategy (or vent) session
Want to discuss how to launch or expand your consultancy? Need help getting unstuck and back on the right track? Pay to pick my brain / book a strategy session with me. Share an agenda, and we problem-solve for the most helpful and actionable next steps per minute.
☕️ Buy me a chai latte
Not ready for a virtual coffee chat but still want to support me? Strategic Pivotery is free (and I’d like to keep it that way, at least for now!). If you find it helpful, it made you smile, or I got a belly laugh — buy me a coffee (well, chai latte - I don’t drink coffee). I prefer monetary validation to another mediocre white dude telling me “you’re actually really good at this.” Thanks, bro!
I love the ❤️ too - like, comment, share, restack this post so it gets discovered by the dark internet.
☎️ Tell me!
Are you charging for referrals? If so, how much? Let’s get this stuff out in the open!
so happy that I sparked so many folks saying "I need to do this too." My litmus test is "are mediocre white dudes monetizing this? yes? then I should absolutely be doing that too"
This is gold, Meg! Thank you thank you!!