Even if referrals come from well-established referral sources, even when pre-arranged fee splits are involved, it's important to thank your business colleague. In this case I received a referral from an established source, and developed the new relationship into an assignment.
In this letter I say thanks and also discuss the 20% referral fee, which was our agreed-upon rate. Darria Fallwell was the potential corporate client. Grant Lorde was the Executive Director of our referral group. Michelle was Dave's bookkeeper.
July 28, 20—
Dear Dave,
After you introduced me to Darria Fallwell, I cultivated the relationship for about a year before we got an assignment. As part of that, I gave extensive free help to one of her former colleagues at Pettigrew & Bonaparte.
As a result of your introduction, and our persistence, she recently hired us for an outplacement assignment—one of the senior execs in her own department, a very messy case.
So far we've hit a home run with it—the candidate is very happy and consulting up a storm while in the job market.
Darria said our competitors (Bosworth and Depew) charge a flat $9,000 for a senior exec assignment. I consulted Les on your pricing, and we decided not to reduce the fee much, as you'll see by our invoice.
I asked Grant Lorde to send me referral fee guidelines based on your introduction to Pettigrew & Bonaparte, and he faxed the enclosed minutes from the Toronto meeting. [The minutes spell out the referral fees.]
I've enclosed a copy of our invoice to Michelle and a check for your referral. Thanks for this introduction, Dave. We would not have had this account without your help and support.
With best wishes,
William S. Frank