Introductions from people who trust you deserve more than a WhatsApp forward.
Gully Sales builds the network of advisors, consultants and complementary suppliers who can introduce you, with written terms, one rule for credit, and a reply your partner can see happening.
- A named list of people positioned to introduce you, and why each would.
- Written fees, claim windows and a rule for the disputed deal.
- Every introduction logged, answered in an agreed time and reported back.
Gully Sales Private Limited works with businesses across India. Start with a free audit of the introductions you already receive.
In one paragraph
What is Referral Partner Programme Design?
A referral partner programme turns people who are close to your buyers into a managed introduction channel. Gully Sales decides which advisors, consultants and complementary suppliers to sign, what they receive for a closed introduction, how each referral is registered and credited, and how quickly your team responds. Introductions arrive named, recorded and answered, not remembered later.
The problem
Your warmest introductions are happening, and nobody is looking after them.
Most Indian SMBs already win business through introductions. An architect mentions your name to a builder. A chartered accountant suggests you to a client. A supplier passes on a buyer they cannot serve. It works, and because it works nobody manages it. There is no list of who these people are, no agreement on what they receive, and no way to tell an introducer what happened to the person they sent. The channel that costs you least is the one you run with the least care.
You will recognise it as
- You can name two or three people who send you business, but not how much they sent last year.
- A fee was promised out loud to someone who introduced a customer, and nobody is certain it was paid.
- Referred enquiries land in the same pile as cold ones and get the same slow response.
- Two people have claimed credit for the same customer, and no rule exists that settles it.
- An introducer stopped sending names months ago and nobody noticed.
- Your team asks "do you know anyone?" at the end of meetings, and nothing structured follows.
What it costs the business
- The cheapest and highest-converting source of business you have stays flat, while budget goes to colder channels that need more money to produce less trust.
- Introducers quietly move their recommendations to a competitor who thanks them, updates them and pays what was agreed.
- Your salesperson argues with an introducer over money on a deal that was already closing, and a useful relationship ends over terms nobody wrote down.
- Nothing about introductions can be forecast, so they are treated as luck and left out of every plan you make.
Why it persists. Referrals feel like a relationship, and putting terms on a relationship feels awkward. Owners worry that a written arrangement will make a friendly contact feel commercial, or that a fee will look like something worse. So it stays verbal. Meanwhile the person doing the introducing has no idea whether the effort was worth it, because nobody ever told them what happened to their contact. Silence, far more often than money, is what ends a referral relationship.
If it stays unresolved. The people closest to your buyers keep introducing you for another year or two, then stop, and you never learn why. Rebuilding that goodwill costs far more than the terms you avoided writing down, and by then those advisors are recommending somebody else out of habit.
What changes
Introductions arrive named, credited and answered the same week.
In the first weeks
- A written record of every person and firm who has introduced business to you, and what it produced.
- One agreement and one fee basis, so nothing depends on what was said in a meeting.
- A registration step, so credit is settled at the start of a deal rather than at the end.
In how the work runs
- Referred enquiries are flagged on arrival and answered inside an agreed time by a named person.
- Every introduction carries a status the partner can be told without anyone digging for it.
- Approved fees are raised and paid on a fixed cycle, so nobody has to chase your finance team.
In sales and marketing
- Partner-sourced pipeline becomes a line you can see, question and plan against.
- Referred enquiries convert at their own rate, which you can compare with every other source.
In what management can see
- You know which partners are active this quarter, which have gone quiet, and which never started.
- Coverage becomes visible: the cities and segments where you have an introducer, and where you have none.
Over the longer term
- A referral network that keeps producing when a salesperson leaves, because the terms and the history sit with the business.
- Introducers who stay because they hear what happened and are paid when you said they would be.
Gully Sales controls the design, the agreements, the registration and response process, the recruitment approach and the reporting. How many introductions actually arrive depends on your partners' own networks and on how your team treats the people they send. We report both, plainly.
Who it is for
Who a referral partner programme suits.
The businesses it suits
- B2B companies whose buyers take advice from architects, consultants, auditors or contractors before choosing.
- Manufacturers and service firms already winning work by word of mouth with no record of where it came from.
- Companies with a long sales cycle, where a warm introduction removes months of trust-building.
- Businesses entering a city or segment where they have no presence yet but do know people who do.
- Firms that sell alongside non-competing suppliers to the same customer at the same moment.
- Franchisors and brands wanting a low-commitment first step for people not ready to become full partners.
What usually prompts the call
- Somebody asked what they get for sending you a customer, and you did not have an answer.
- Two claims arrived for the same deal and the argument reached your desk.
- A large referred enquiry was answered four days late and went somewhere else.
- You are opening a new territory and want a foothold before appointing a dealer there.
- A long-standing introducer has stopped calling and you do not know what changed.
What Gully Sales does
The work, component by component.
The referral proposition
We write what a referral partner receives from you and what you receive from them, in one page. It covers the fee or the reciprocal arrangement, the recognition, the access to your senior people, and the reason an introducer's own reputation is safe in your hands. For most professional introducers the fee matters less than knowing their client will be looked after properly.
- Why it matters:
- People introduce you to protect their standing with a client. If the offer talks only about money, the introducers you most want will politely decline.
- You receive:
- A one-page referral partner proposition, in a version you can send and a version your team can say aloud.
- Business value:
- Your first conversation with a possible introducer starts from something written, not from an improvised promise.
Who should be introducing you
We work backwards from your last two years of won business to find who was standing next to the buyer at the moment of decision: the architect, the consultant, the auditor, the IT vendor, the equipment supplier, the earlier customer. Then we describe that profile precisely enough to recognise the next one, by trade, client type, geography and how often they meet your buyers.
- Why it matters:
- A network assembled from whoever is friendly produces friendly conversation. One assembled from adjacency to your buyer produces enquiries.
- You receive:
- A referral partner profile with named categories, qualifying criteria and a working target list by territory.
- Business value:
- Recruitment effort goes only to people whose ordinary working week already contains your buyers.
Recruitment and signing
We approach the target list the way a buyer's advisor expects to be approached: a short case for why their client benefits, what the arrangement is, and what is being asked of them. We handle the sequence, the meeting material and the objections, and take each willing partner through to a signed agreement with the fee basis, claim window, confidentiality and exit written down.
- Why it matters:
- Verbal referral arrangements fail at exactly the moment they matter most, when a large deal closes and two people remember the terms differently.
- You receive:
- Outreach sequence, partner pitch, a referral partner agreement template and a signed-partner register.
- Business value:
- You gain introducers on terms both sides have read, and a record of who agreed to what, and when.
Onboarding the first weeks
A signed partner is not yet a working one. We run a short onboarding: who their contact is at your company, how to pass a name across, what information you need with it, how fast you will respond, and what they will be told afterwards. We deliberately ask for one introduction early, small if necessary, so the whole path is tested while both sides are still paying attention.
- Why it matters:
- Most referral partners never send anything. The reason is rarely unwillingness; it is that nobody showed them how, or the first attempt disappeared into silence.
- You receive:
- Partner onboarding pack, a named contact with a response commitment, and a first-referral walkthrough.
- Business value:
- Time to a partner's first introduction becomes something you manage rather than something you wait for.
What a partner can say
Introducers are not your salespeople and should not be trained as though they were. We give them what they need and nothing more: a short description of what you do in their client's language, the three situations where you are the right call, one or two proof points, and a simple way to hand over, whether that is a WhatsApp message, a short form or a call to a named number a person answers.
- Why it matters:
- An introducer's credibility is on the line every time they speak. Hand them a heavy deck and they will stay quiet rather than risk saying something wrong.
- You receive:
- Referral partner one-pager, a trigger list, a handover template and a WhatsApp-ready introduction message.
- Business value:
- Partners describe you correctly and can hand a name across in under a minute, from wherever they are.
Fees, credit and incentives
We design what a referral earns and when it is earned: a percentage of value, a fixed amount per closed introduction, a reciprocal arrangement where money would be inappropriate, or a small tier for partners who send regularly. Every claim is tied to a registration date and a validity window, paid on order or on collection, with the invoice and documents your finance team needs set out.
- Why it matters:
- Most referral disputes are not about the amount. They are about when credit begins, how long it lasts, and what happens if the customer was already in your system.
- You receive:
- Fee schedule, registration and claim rules, one worked example, and the payout and documentation process.
- Business value:
- A partner can calculate what they will earn, and finance can approve it without an argument with sales.
Governance and conflict
We write the rules that stop the programme colliding with the rest of your selling: what happens when a referred account already sits with a dealer, when your own salesperson had opened that conversation first, when two partners claim the same name, and when a partner refers a customer you should not take. Escalation goes to a named person with a stated response time.
- Why it matters:
- Referral programmes usually break where they touch the direct team or the existing channel, not inside themselves.
- You receive:
- Rules of engagement, a deal registration and duplication check, and a written escalation route with owners.
- Business value:
- Disputes get decided by a rule that existed beforehand, so the relationship survives the decision.
Performance and review
We build the small set of measures that show whether the network is alive: active partners, introductions received, quality, conversion, revenue closed and fees paid. Each partner gets a periodic conversation about what they sent and what came of it, and the network as a whole is reviewed for coverage gaps, dormant names and too much dependence on one or two people.
- Why it matters:
- A referral network decays quietly. Without a scheduled review, the first sign of trouble is a whole quarter with no introductions at all.
- You receive:
- A partner performance report, a dormancy list and a quarterly network review with recommended actions.
- Business value:
- You see the channel's real contribution, and act on a partner going quiet while the relationship is still warm.
What you will have at the end.
- A referral partner proposition, written in one page for sending and for saying aloud.
- A partner profile and working target list, drawn from who stood next to your recent buyers.
- An outreach sequence and meeting material for approaching professional introducers.
- A referral partner agreement template covering fees, claim window, confidentiality and exit.
- A signed-partner register, recording the terms and start date agreed with each partner.
- An onboarding pack with a named contact, a response commitment and a first-referral walkthrough.
- A partner one-pager, a trigger list and a WhatsApp-ready handover message.
- A fee schedule with registration and claim rules, and a worked example of a payout.
- Rules of engagement covering direct sales overlap, existing channel and duplicate claims.
- A referral capture and status process inside your CRM, or a simple shared sheet if you have none.
- A partner performance report showing introductions, conversion, revenue closed and fees paid.
- A quarterly network review naming dormant partners, coverage gaps and the next partners to recruit.
How it runs
The engagement, step by step.
- 1
Audit the introductions you already get
We go through your won business and separate the deals that arrived through a person from the ones a campaign produced. We interview the salespeople who handled them, list every introducer we can find, and record what was promised, what was paid and what was never followed up. This becomes the baseline that everything later is measured against.
- You provide:
- Access to won-deal records for the last one to two years, and time with the people who handled those deals.
- We produce:
- A baseline note listing known introducers, volumes, conversion and any money already promised or paid.
- Done when:
- You have a written count of what informal introductions produced for you last year.
- 2
Define the proposition and the partner profile
We decide who this programme is for and what they get out of it. The profile is built from adjacency to your buyer rather than from friendliness, and the proposition is tested against the objection a professional introducer will actually raise: what does this do to my relationship with my own client.
- You provide:
- A working session with the owner or sales head, and any commission arrangements already in force.
- We produce:
- The referral proposition, the partner profile, and a first target list by category and territory.
- Done when:
- You can say in one sentence who you want introducing you, and why they would agree.
- 3
Write the rules before signing anyone
The agreement, fee basis, registration and claim window, and the rules of engagement with your direct team and any existing channel are written and settled internally first. Finance confirms how a partner will invoice and be paid. Sales agrees what happens when a referred name is already sitting in the pipeline.
- You provide:
- Finance and sales sign-off on fee levels, payment timing and the documents a partner must submit.
- We produce:
- The agreement template, fee schedule, claim rules, rules of engagement and the escalation route.
- Done when:
- Nothing in the programme depends on somebody's memory of a conversation.
- 4
Recruit and sign the first partners
We approach the target list in a defined order, join you in meeting the willing ones, handle the questions and take them through to signature. We start with a small first group rather than a launch, so any problem in the process appears while it is still cheap to fix.
- You provide:
- Warm introductions where you already have a relationship, and someone senior for the first meetings.
- We produce:
- Outreach run and logged, meetings supported, signed agreements and the partner register set up.
- Done when:
- A first cohort of referral partners has signed on written terms.
- 5
Onboard and enable each partner
Each signed partner is taken through onboarding: their named contact, the handover method, what you will do with a name and how quickly, and what they will hear back afterwards. We ask for one introduction early so the entire path is tested end to end while everyone is still engaged.
- You provide:
- A named partner contact with time to answer, and a response commitment your team will genuinely keep.
- We produce:
- Onboarding pack, partner one-pager, handover message and the capture process in your CRM or sheet.
- Done when:
- Every signed partner knows how to introduce someone and has done it once.
- 6
Run the response and payout cycle
Referrals are registered on arrival, routed to a named owner, answered inside the agreed time and given a status the partner can be told. Approved fees are raised and paid on a fixed cycle. We sit on that cycle for the first months so it becomes a habit rather than an initiative that fades.
- You provide:
- A salesperson who responds within the commitment, and finance to release approved payouts on the stated date.
- We produce:
- A running referral log, partner status updates, and a monthly reconciliation of approved fees.
- Done when:
- No introduction sits unanswered and no approved fee is overdue.
- 7
Review, prune and grow the network
Each quarter we report active partners, introductions, conversion, revenue and fees against the baseline, name the partners who have gone quiet and say why, and recommend the next group to recruit or the terms to adjust. Dependence on one or two partners is flagged as a risk before it becomes one.
- You provide:
- Attendance at a quarterly review and decisions on the recommendations put in front of you.
- We produce:
- The performance report, dormancy list, coverage map and a recruitment plan for the next quarter.
- Done when:
- The network is a managed asset with a plan, not a list of old acquaintances.
Ways to work with us
Design it once, or have the network recruited and run for you.
Referral programme design
The rulebook without the running: proposition, partner profile, agreement, fee and claim rules, rules of engagement, onboarding pack and partner material, handed to your team with a walkthrough so they recruit and manage the network themselves.
Design and recruitment sprint
Everything in the design, plus we build the target list and run the outreach, the meetings and the signing for a defined first cohort of referral partners, then hand back signed agreements and a live partner register.
Managed referral network
Gully Sales runs the network month after month: recruitment, onboarding, partner communication, referral capture, chasing responses, fee reconciliation and the quarterly review, while your team sells and your finance team releases the payouts.
Programme repair
For a referral arrangement that already exists and is causing arguments. We audit what was promised, settle the credit rules, rewrite the agreement and reset the response and payout cycle with the partners you want to keep.
Why Gully Sales
What you are actually choosing when you choose us.
We write the rules before you sign anyone
Most referral programmes are designed after the first argument. We put the registration step, the claim window and the overlap rules in place first, which is the only time they can be agreed calmly by everyone.
Sales and marketing sit in the same room here
A referral network needs a proposition, an outreach approach and a sales team that actually responds. Gully Sales builds all three, so the programme is not passed between an agency and a sales head who never met.
Built for how Indian SMBs really work
Introductions here arrive on WhatsApp and over the phone, usually to a person rather than a system. We design the capture around that reality, not around software your partners will never open.
Honest about what a referral partner will not do
A referral partner introduces and then steps back. We keep that boundary explicit, so you do not end up expecting selling and follow-up from someone who agreed only to make a phone call.
The relationship stays with your business
Named contacts, written terms and a recorded history mean the network survives a salesperson leaving, which is exactly when most informal referral books quietly disappear out of the door.
Where it applies
The same service, in different businesses.
Building materials manufacturer
- The situation:
- Architects and interior designers specify products long before a builder asks for a quotation, but the company only meets those specifiers by accident.
- How it applies:
- A referral partner programme aimed at design practices, with a specification-stage handover, sample support and a fee tied to a registered project.
- Likely benefit:
- The company is present when the specification decision is made, instead of arriving later for a price comparison.
Industrial equipment supplier
- The situation:
- Plant consultants and system integrators recommend equipment brands to the very factories the sales team is trying to reach cold.
- How it applies:
- Consultants are signed as referral partners with registration per plant, a technical one-pager and a named engineer who responds within a day.
- Likely benefit:
- Enquiries arrive already endorsed by the person the plant head trusts on technical questions.
Accounting and compliance services
- The situation:
- Clients routinely ask their banker, lawyer or software vendor for a recommendation, and that recommendation goes to whoever answered most recently.
- How it applies:
- A small network of professional introducers on a reciprocal arrangement, with clear scope boundaries and a same-day response promise.
- Likely benefit:
- The firm becomes the default recommendation inside a defined set of advisors, without paying for advertising.
Interior design and contracting
- The situation:
- Past clients and site engineers often offer to introduce a new project, but nothing is captured and the offer fades within a fortnight.
- How it applies:
- A light referral programme covering past clients and site professionals, with a WhatsApp handover, a thank-you protocol and a fee on signed projects.
- Likely benefit:
- Offers that used to be polite conversation turn into recorded project enquiries with an owner.
Software and IT services
- The situation:
- Implementation partners and complementary vendors meet the same mid-market buyers but have no agreed way to pass work to each other.
- How it applies:
- A two-way referral agreement with registration, an agreed fee or reciprocal credit, and an account check before either side approaches a name.
- Likely benefit:
- Both companies gain qualified introductions without either one giving up its own customer relationship.
Franchisor or multi-city brand
- The situation:
- Local business people are interested in the brand but not ready to invest, while good franchisee enquiries are expensive to generate.
- How it applies:
- A referral tier for local introducers who point out suitable candidates and sites, with a fee payable on a signed franchise agreement.
- Likely benefit:
- Candidate flow comes from people who know the local market, at a cost tied to signings rather than to enquiries.
Questions buyers ask
Before you enquire, the answers you will want.
What makes a referral programme economically attractive to both sides?
For you, a referral costs nothing until it produces business, and a referred buyer usually arrives with trust already in place. For the partner, the value is rarely only the fee. It is that their client gets looked after, that they hear what happened, and that they can offer a solution without doing the work themselves. A programme that pays well but leaves partners uninformed still fails. We design both halves.
How is this different from referral marketing aimed at customers?
Referral marketing asks your existing customers to introduce people like themselves, usually at scale and for a small reward. A referral partner programme signs a smaller number of professionals and businesses who sit next to your buyer by trade: consultants, architects, auditors, complementary suppliers. Each can send repeatedly, the deal sizes are larger, and the arrangement is written rather than campaign-based. Plenty of companies eventually run both.
How is a referral partner different from a dealer or a distributor?
A referral partner introduces and steps back. They do not stock, quote, invoice, negotiate or support the customer, and the customer relationship stays with you. A dealer or distributor buys, sells and often services in their own name. The distinction matters commercially: a referral partner earns a fee for an introduction, while a dealer earns a margin for taking on risk and work. Confusing the two creates arguments about money and control.
How long does the engagement take?
It depends on how much already exists. The audit and design stage moves quickly, because it is mostly decisions. Recruitment takes longer, since you are approaching busy professionals and waiting for meetings. Onboarding is fast, but the first introductions follow each partner's own client calendar, which nobody can compress. We work in defined stages with a review at each one, rather than committing to a date we do not control.
What inputs are required from our side?
Access to your won-deal history, so the baseline is real rather than remembered. A working session with whoever decides commercial terms. Agreement from finance on how partners will invoice and be paid. And one named person who answers referred enquiries inside the promised time. Where you already know potential introducers, a warm introduction from you will do more than any outreach we can run.
What should we pay a referral partner?
There is no single answer, and we will not quote one before seeing your numbers. The fee has to be worth a professional's attention and still leave the deal profitable after your own cost of selling. We build it from gross margin rather than revenue, and state clearly whether it is payable on order or on collection. In some professions a fee is inappropriate, and we design a reciprocal arrangement instead.
How do we stop arguments about who gets credit for a deal?
With a registration step and a claim window agreed before anyone signs. A partner registers a name, you check it against your existing pipeline and channel within a stated time, then accept or decline with a reason. Accepted registrations stay valid for a defined period. If two partners register the same buyer, the earlier registration holds. Written rules settle nearly every dispute before it reaches the relationship.
What if a referral partner sends a customer our dealer already covers?
That case is written into the rules of engagement before the programme opens. Usually the existing channel keeps the account and the referral is declined at registration, with the reason given quickly so the partner is not left guessing. Sometimes a split is agreed instead. What matters is that the answer exists in advance and applies to everyone, rather than being decided by whoever argues hardest.
4 more questions
How is success measured?
Against the baseline recorded before we start: active partners, coverage, partner-sourced pipeline, time from signing to a first introduction, response times, conversion of referred enquiries compared with your other sources, revenue closed and fees paid, disputes and how fast they were settled, and partner retention. We report what the work produced and keep it separate from what your market did anyway.
What is excluded from the scope?
We do not pay your partners, hold their money, or sign agreements on your behalf. We do not give legal or tax opinions on the agreement or on how fees should be treated; your own advisor should review the template before you use it. We do not sell to the referred buyer for you unless you separately engage our outsourced sales service. And we never promise a volume of introductions.
Will a written agreement make our contacts uncomfortable?
Usually the opposite happens. Professionals are used to written arrangements and are more comfortable introducing a client once the terms, the confidentiality and their own position are clear. What actually makes people uncomfortable is a vague promise they later have to chase. We keep the agreement short and readable, and the version you send a partner first is a page, not a contract nobody finishes.
Can this run alongside our existing dealers and our own sales team?
Yes, and it is safer to plan for that from the first day. The programme is built with overlap rules already in place: what happens when a referred account sits with a dealer, when your own salesperson opened that conversation first, and who decides. Your direct team is briefed before any partner signs, so a referral arriving is a normal event rather than a threat to somebody's number.
Talk to us
Plan your channel growth programme around the introductions you already get.
The free audit is a working session, not a pitch. We look at who has introduced business to you, what was promised, how those enquiries were handled, and whether you need a full programme, a light arrangement or simply a rule that ends the current argument.
- No obligation and no sales script
- A reply from someone who does the work
- Your details are never sold or shared