- CLIENT CASE STUDY -

B Is For Bonnie Design

reviving an evergreen client referral program

meet bonnie

Bonnie, of B Is For Bonnie Design, is a (seriously talented) brand designer, strategist and coach. Bonnie helps creative entrepreneurs craft elevated brands that inspire connection and conversion without compromise!

Having been in business since 2012, Bonnie has seen alllllll kinds of marketing strategies & trends: Instagram algorithm changes, Twitter chats, short-form videos taking off, Clubhouse, you name it.

But, as an introvert with a chronic illness and lower energy, Bonnie wanted a way to take a step back from her reliance on showing up on social media and focus on generating more word-of-mouth recommendations to book clients for her signature service.

By the end of our Wizard For A Day, Bonnie had a fresh system for tracking referrals with as much manual work as possible removed from the process!

but first, context

Based on my People-Led Marketing framework: Bonnie already had a referral-ready business and meaningful connections, but she needed help optimising her strategic container: her evergreen client referral program.

Thanks to her strong foundations and the relationships she already had, Bonnie’s referral network was working well but she felt like it was very barebones and inconsistent—so she held back on leveraging her referral network and inviting any potential new referral partners as a result.

This meant Bonnie was missing out on opportunities to get more word-of-mouth referrals through past clients & connections who would happily refer her for the brilliant branding work she does for clients!

Bonnie wanted my help to identify areas for growth, spruce up her systems, and breathe life into her referral program.

After talking further, we realised the most pressing goals for Bonnie’s client referral program were:

  • improving Bonnie’s strategy for consistently staying in touch with her referral partners

  • streamlining everything and removing any guesswork for Bonnie & her team

  • creating a system for inviting more people into the referral program

  • setting up automations where possible to save time for Bonnie & her team

It was also very important to Bonnie that her client referral program felt as high-touch and personal as possible in order to maintain great relationships with her referral partners, so it was a priority for me to keep things streamlined in a way that didn’t feel impersonal or generic.

Bonnie’s #1 goal was to walk away with a more polished & strategic referral program that she would be excited to invite new people to join.

starting with referral strategy

When it came to working together, I wanted Bonnie to walk away with a rinse-and-repeat system that allowed for individual intimacy with each referral partner and their audience.

My strategy focused on ways Bonnie could get more leads from referrals in a way that didn’t take up more time or energy than necessary, and utilised the connections she already had.

Instead of having to spend time on social & creating content, Bonnie could harness all the wonderful connections she already has to make sure People-Led Marketing cycle (pictured left) is self-sufficient by turning any new leads from referrals into clients. And, in turn, those new clients would become referral partners themselves!

creating a streamlined workflow for new referral partners & their referrals

Bonnie didn’t want any guesswork for her & her team for each time they invite someone new into the program and each time someone books through a referral.

After reviewing Bonnie’s current referral commission and payouts schedule, I created on a Referral Flow (pictured right). I wanted to make sure there was a clear flow for each referral partner (from pitch to onboarding) and for every referral they send Bonnie’s way (from inquiry to commission payout). Each stage of the workflow was detailed in a Google Doc & accompanying walkthrough video.

Keeping Bonnie’s value on personal relationships and quality > quantity in mind, I:

  • listed out questions for Bonnie & her team to consider before inviting someone into her client referral program, so they are only inviting best-fit people into the program.

  • wrote a list of considerations when reviewing referral partners so they can see who’s getting referrals, who’s booking, and whether or not there’s a disconnect there—and what to do in each case.

  • created unique pitch templates for each scenario for inviting potential referral partners: they could be a past client, a guest on Bonnie’s podcast, a warm connection, or it could be a completely cold relationship—so each of these cases had their own unique approach for pitching the referral program.

sprucing up bonnie’s referral program systems

After we got the strategy down, I got to work on Bonnie’s client referral program and started updating her systems to allow for more automations.

creating an internal hub for tracking referral partners & their referrals

Bonnie uses Honeybook for her client systems, which is limited in terms of referral tracking, so I set up a Referral Partner Hub in Google Sheets for Bonnie to track members of her referral program. As well as the name & contact details for each of her referral partners, I wanted Bonnie & her team to see statistics for:

  • how many leads the referral partner sent to Bonnie

  • how many of those leads booked (& the conversion rate)

  • how many of those leads didn’t book

  • the total amount of commissions earned (in USD)

Better yet, I wanted these to track automatically. ✨

So, I created a second Referral Tracking sheet to keep track of the actual leads Bonnie gets through referrals. This sheet tracks the lead details & commission amounts for each new lead.

With a few swanky formulas, the first sheet links up to the second and Bonnie & her team can see the exact stats for each of her referral partners.

removing as much manual work as possible

Based on Bonnie’s goals, I knew I wanted to get as much automated as possible and take the pressure off her & her team to keep up with any unnecessary manual work.

  • Bonnie uses HoneyBook for all of her invoices, contracts, and client onboarding but she didn’t have a system for tracking referrals inside her CRM. So, I set up Zap so any new enquiries in HoneyBook automatically populate a line in Referral Tracking Sheet, which will save Bonnie & her team a bunch of back-and-forths between HoneyBook and her Referral Hub. (And, remember, this sheet links up with the Referral Partners sheet so Bonnie can track the number of referrals someone has made automatically!)

  • Past clients are Bonnie’s best referral partners so I set up an automation inside HoneyBook so clients are automatically invited into Bonnie’s referral network after working together, with a templated email I wrote in Bonnie’s tone of voice so every invite feels like a personal letter from Bonnie.

  • There were a number of manual emails Bonnie & her team would have to send as part of her referral program: emails welcoming people into the referral network, letting someone know they made a referral, inviting podcast guests into the program, etc. In order to save time writing emails from scratch, I created a library of email templates they can plug-and-play into Gmail each time they need it. I also suggested canned emails to save even MORE time!

an intentional client referral program

I pulled everything I’d done for Bonnie into a Referral Program Playbook Doc for her & her team to reference whenever they need it. This document included:

  • the Referral Flow & walkthrough video to illustrate each stage of the referral process and what to do at each step

  • considerations for inviting new people into the Client Referral Program

  • a link to the Referral Hub in Google Sheets and Zapier automation to auto-fill new enquiries & track referrals for each referral partner

  • email templates for various stages of the Referral Flow

  • a list of the automations I created and links on where to find them

  • next steps & to-do’s for Bonnie and her team to complete the process

“Now we have a referral program that we're excited to share with the world.”

“Zoe is an absolute referral/affiliate marketing genius!

The work she did to help me revamp my existing referral program not only saved me and my team time and energy, but now we have a referral program that we're excited to share with the world.

Since our VIP day together, my assistant has been able to seamlessly integrate all Zoe’s suggested changes and automations. And it's all working beautifully!

It's never been easier for us to track which of our referral partners are sending people our way (all via our Zapier/Honeybook automations!), and the entire process makes it easy for us to invite potential partners into the BRN consistently.

We've already started sending out our new monthly BRN emails to serve our partners even better, and we've been able to integrate the new potential partner outreach process to regularly invite past podcast guests to join this program if it's a good fit. So it's all been going really well!

If you're ready to leverage People-Led Marketing to grow your business, Zoe is hands-down the person to work with.”

— Bonnie, B Is For Bonnie Design

want a magical referral program for yourself?

I’d love to work with you to help you streamline your client referral program to increase your bookings from word-of-mouth. Use the button below to learn more about my day rate and we can get the ball rolling!