Refer a firm and earn a share

You know other people running services firms. Some of them are staring at the same thin pipeline you had before you started working signals. If Stage 1 is helping you, the most useful thing you can do for them is send the link. Now you get paid for it.

What it is

Every person on Stage 1 gets their own referral link. Share it with a founder, a CRO or a seller at another firm. When that firm signs up through your link and pays for a plan, you earn 20 percent of what they pay.

Not once. Every payment, for as long as they stay on a paid plan.

How the credit works

Your link points at getstage1.com with your code on it. The code rides along from whatever page they land on to the sign-up form, so they can read the pricing page, the method and three blog posts before they start a trial, and the credit still comes to you.

When they sign up, their workspace is tagged to your code. Each time they pay an invoice, Stage 1 records your share of that payment. Trials don't pay, so trials don't earn. The first paid invoice does.

You can't refer yourself. A sign-up from the same email as the link's owner doesn't count.

Where you find it

Settings, Refer and earn. Your link sits at the top with a Copy link button. Under it, four numbers. How many firms signed up through your link, how many are paying, what you've earned all time, and what's owed to you now.

Payouts go out monthly once you pass $50, for payments the firm has already made. Refunds and chargebacks come off the next payout. Questions go to hello@getstage1.com.

Who to send it to

Send it to people with the problem Stage 1 solves. A founder at a 40-person data consultancy who still sells every deal. A new CRO at a managed services firm who inherited a pipeline built on hope. A practice lead who's been told to find their own work this year.

Don't blast it. A referral is a small vouch, and the same rules apply as any intro. Send it to someone you'd tell about it over coffee, with a sentence on why you think it fits them.

Saw you're building out the sales side this year. Stage 1 is what I use to find accounts that are moving and get in through people I know. Worth a look, and the trial doesn't need a card.

Why this fits services

Services firms find clients through people. Your own best deals probably came through a former colleague or a client who moved companies. Founders of services firms trade notes the same way, in peer groups, alumni networks and the occasional late dinner after a conference.

A referral from someone who uses the tool beats any ad we could run. It's the same reason a warm path beats a cold note. And if you want the broader version of this for your own firm's pipeline, a referral pipeline that doesn't depend on luck covers it.

If you advise services firms for a living, the partner program on the partners page is built for you.

Share the link with the people who'd thank you for it. The 20 percent follows.