Referral Programs Are Dead… Here’s What To Do Instead

So, if we're being a little bit real, it's a little weird to ask your clients to send their friends to you. Now, granted, if it happens to come up in conversation that that client's friend is looking for a hairstylist, maybe then some, right? Then that person, your client will bring you up in, in this conversation, right? But your client is not just gonna all of a sudden, now that you've asked them to send them people or that you've offered them 20% off their next service, your client's not all of a sudden gonna text all the people in their phone and be like, "Hey, you should go see Hunter, and then we both get 20% off," right?

And a lot of these people may already have hairstylists. Like, it just is a little bit awkward. And as we're seeing and as probably many of you are experiencing, the traditional "just ask your clients to send you, send you people" and their traditional referral programs, like rewards in exchange for getting people clients or getting, getting referrals from your clients is just not really working in today's day and age. I honestly, working with hundreds of stylists day-to-day on a very intimate level, I literally do not have one example of a traditional referral program even working for them right now.

Of course there's people who get clients and referrals through word of mouth just because their client experience is really next level because they're putting things into place such as the advanced things that my students do in my programs, like setting up a really awesome pre-visit experience and post-visit and really next level in the chair, all that stuff, right? If word of mouth is becoming such a prominent and important thing to focus on, which I think it is in today's day and age, we need to figure out how can we put a strategy into place to make the most out of it that actually works? And something that me and my students have been working on for a while is looking at, what is the modern version of this? And figuring out why the old thing didn't work to then use that information to make the new thing work.

And so we're gonna be talking to you today about why is it that our, that traditional referral programs are dead, and what are we doing now in today's day and age to actually incentivize your clients sending you more people and how to actually roll it out and do it all. And so for this conversation, we have Jodi Brown to facilitate as per usual. So I'm gonna pass it over to Jodi Brown to get it popping, and then we'll get into it. Hey.

Okay. I'm so excited about this because I totally agree. It's like a weird kind of landscape that we're in because on one hand, a direct referral is probably the most powerful, like, trust builder, right? But on the other hand, referrals don't work the way that they used to.

And like I've even said for years, like, nobody is like, "Hey, text my hairdresser. She's awesome." Like, if anything, you're gonna get a referral straight to check out your Instagram or your website or whatever that looks like if it comes up organically. And I think that the way that people find hairstylists now is completely different.

Back when referral programs were really successful, th- like, there was no real easy way to find a new hairstylist other than, like, through traditional advertising, through location, like, the new hot salon in, like, downtown, whatever that looked like, right? The only other way was word of mouth. And the way that people find stylists has changed so much, and so of course you're right. The way that we shape referrals and the way that we ask our clients to give us referrals has to be radically different in order for it to work.

Oh, yeah. And, you know, from my own personal experience of really exploiting my clientele, I think of, like, the things that actually worked for me was, number one, social media. That was absolutely my number one referral source. But the other part of it was word of mouth, right?

Yeah. And, but, as with anything, if you ever sit in a one-to-one coaching call with me, so like in our mastermind group you get a hour-long coaching call with me every month and we track your data and your KPIs really diligently, and it informs us on a lot of different things that are going on in the business. And one of the things that we really love to look at is what is working, why is it working, can we do more of it, right? And so when I look at my referrals just coming fro- coming from word of mouth, it's like, okay, well, is this happening just by just randomly I'm just getting word of mouth sources from here and there and I'm just being talked about, or are there specific things actually happening, like certain events or a large th- thing, I don't know, that's recurring that is actually getting these word of mouth referrals in?

And then we i- a- and if so, we should be doing more of that, right? And so for me, it was my own clients actually talking about me to their network through modern social channels. And so that's where we wanna take, like, the old referral program situation that we've always been used to and we normally have, and we wanna move it into that, right? Yeah.

Particularly, I had these specific clients in my clientele who just had a fair bit of influence in my local community. One of my friends, Lauren E. Bliss, she came to see me to get her hair done, and this girl has a fuck-ton of hair. So shout-out to you, Lauren, for your, for us having to take a long time to do your damn beautiful hair.

But we ... I loved working with Lauren so much because she was so much fun and such, such a great person to have in my chair, but also from a business perspective, she had such a large reach into her local community because she was a business owner herself. And her demographic that she was working with was very similar to the demographic that I was targeting and that I was best branded for, right? And so whenever Lauren would come to see me, she would always post these stories on Instagram of a selfie with her hair all done, and she would tag me and be like, "Oh my god, @hairbyhuntyslayitagain," like, yada yada.

And I cannot tell you guys how many fucking clients I got from this girl just doing that, okay? And this is, like, me not doing...... Anything, right? This is me just doing her hair, doing a good job, and creating a great relationship with her, and then her, from her own willingness, going on her story and talking about me and showing off her hair.

Th- this was a massive part of me growing my clientele after the foundation of growing it with social media, 'cause I gained her from social media, right? But then I get these people from social media, who now are going to be sharing me with other people, and then it compounds, right? Like, once you have moving momentum, you're able to build and build and build momentum on top of that even more, faster, better, easier, more efficiently, all the things, and this was a perfect example of that. And so I can't imagine what would have happened if I then took what was working at the time, if I noticed what was working, and figured out, "How can I make this happen strategically, consistently, and predictably?"

How much more could I have grown? If this was organically helping me naturally so much, then I should have capitalized on that and made it a strategy. And so that's exactly what I teach now in Modern Stylist Movement and to my programs, is creating a brand ambassador program. So I kind of thought as Lauren as, like, a great brand ambassador.

Like, she was the face of the perfect client that I would have in my chair. She also had the same, uh, network of people close to her that would also be pretty ideal clients for my chair as far as what their lifestyle is, what they're looking for with their hair majoritively. And so with a brand ambassador program, what we're doing is, we're no longer just asking somebody to send us in and the new client gets 20% off and then you get 20% off your next service. What we're doing now instead, which feels so much more natural, and I believe actually gets you tons more reach- Mm-hmm.

is incentivizing your clients to take actions of advertising you on your behalf and then rewarding them for that, right? So that's what the brand ambassador program is. And I am so excited because in. I rolled this out three years ago, and it was really cool how we rolled it out, because a points program of any sort, a loyalty program of any sort, the one big thing with it is that it's a pain in the ass to kind of keep up with, like to track whether or not this person referred this person or not, or if this person did this action or not.

And so I did roll out with a solution for making this as easy as possible, setting it up to be the most successful as possible, but the 2026 and beyond version is going to be really, really badass, and so I'm building it out right now, which is what inspired me to make this episode today. So where should we go from there, Jodi? What are your questions, or what do you think that the people's out there's questions are that are listening to this right now? Okay.

So I- I'll start with a question, but the first thing I just wanna say is that the thing I love so much about this, Hunter, is the fact that you are literally getting people to evangelize for your brand where they are actually looking for hairstylists. Like, they're gonna be in that mode, and like, the old way is like, "Oh, hand out this business card with your name on it." Where is that going? In the bottom of someone's bag, best case scenario, like, left on a table somewhere, worst case scenario.

In this situation, in this method, they are coming to your social media. It has all of your links. It has all of your next steps. The friction is removed from taking the next step, which is brilliant.

Yeah, I- I love that point that you bring up. Like, they're going straight into the curated funnel that you've created- Yeah. versus just relying on the word of the person. Like, it's- it's different than like, your client saying, "Hey, my stylist is really great.

You should book with them," and then that's it, versus it's on the native platform that that person would then go and see more of you to find out if you actually are great. So you already have the trust that, "This person that I know already, they trust you. They got great results with you. I see that they got great results, and they can go onto your page, and they can prove even more so that they can trust you."

I agree with that, and I think that's a great advantage to this. And then just generally, just to like put out there why I think this is also a great idea, I mean, th- let's say that we do the old, like, old school method of like, uh, asking, you know, five of y- uh, ask your clients to text five of their friends to send to- to- to go to you, right? Okay, that's five people, but sometimes, a lot of the time, these people have hundreds of people in their network on their social media that are in your community. And so you posting, or them posting, right, reaches so many more people and in that native way, which is super advantageous.

And so I think that incentivizing that, rewarding your clients for that, is really powerful. And I think one of the biggest objections that I have to this, uh, is the, or a- a- in any circumstance, is the fact of discounting or incentivizing or giving things for free, right? And I wanna address that for anybody who's maybe thinking about that here, because I think that, when you put it in the perspective of, "This person is reaching hundreds of people for you," and whether it be time or money, you will always be paying resources in order for you to get new clients, right? In one way or another.

And so what I would rather be spending my time and money on is somebody else doing the work for me, where there's gonna be a much higher level of trust built much quicker because somebody else is doing it. I mean, we are in a day and age in which we are all so desensitized and we are all so over being influenced, and we don't trust the source anymore. Right. We don't trust the source.

Like, you don't trust the commercial that is selling itself because you're like, "Of course they'll s- they're gonna say all these amazing things about themselves," right? "Like, they're trying to advertise themselves." And I think that people are even going to think and see that about hairstylists, right? So- But if they're hearing about you first from somebody else that they already trust, like, that's just so powerful, and I think it's very much worth it to give a-...

free bottle of shampoo, a free haircut even, in exchange for them doing a fair bit of action, of advertising for you, for you to get in front of hundreds of people in your local community. It's literally like you would pay hundreds of dollars in ads to get that same result with less trust, right? Yeah, 100%. With less trust, so actually even better results with these people doing this for you.

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And so, like you said, you can bypass so much of the work for yourself and you can, like, bypass that initial introduction as well. So, I think the next thing that we get to is what do these incentives look like and why are they, like, why do we need to create incentives? Like, let's kinda talk about that process when it comes to getting your clients to take these actions. Yeah.

So, I mean, obviously they have to be worth it enough for somebody to wanna take action, right? And you get to decide whatever that looks like for you. Like, you need to make sure that, uh, you ha- you feel confident with what you are, uh, uh, giving away in exchange for what you believe the, uh, the, what is worth it in return, right? But it also has to be sexy enough for the client to actually want to go ahead and, you know, still post on social, because that's still work for them, right?

Or it's still them putting themselves out there, or taking up a space on their feed if they're super curated and, especially for the people in your clientele who may have a lot of influence, they may take what goes on their feed or on their story a little bit more seriously. So, you are asking for something in exchange, except I think it is definitely a little bit easier, less awkward, and more natural in today's day and age than soliciting their friends through text message or something like that, right? Right. Um, but regardless, you wanna make sure that the, the, you get to choose what your point system looks like.

And in what we're building for you to m- keep track of this and for things to be- get redeemed, you get to just create the system the way that you wanna create it and it's all taken care of for you in the backend. But, you get to decide, "What is my point system? How many points does this person need total in order to get whatever rewards I set?" So, let's say, again, it's like one full free-size product is 50 points.

One free s- full-service is 500 points, right? And then you have the actions that will actually allow your clients to gain points. So, that could be specifically on Facebook, post on your feed and tag me a picture of your hair with your face in it. And I think that being detailed is helpful because then you're making sure the person's actually posting something that is going to be likely to get you results, right?

Versus, something else that may not, something else that may not be ideal, right? Um, and so you come up with your actions, you come up with the rewards, you make sure that the points that they gain for each of those actions is relative to what you believe is worth, uh, what the rewards are in exchange for those things. And then you roll it out to them. They submit, uh, when they've done those actions and then it'll automatically all track on the backend, like, how many points each person has.

And when they wanna redeem it, then you just go ahead and you say what they're redeeming and then it takes it off their account. And then they can do it again, basically. I love that. Um, okay.

And so, I just wanna bring this up because I think this idea of gamification and rewards and all of these things are so slept on by so many industries and I just wanna give, like, a little example of how well this stuff can actually work. And I know, Hunter, that you're always, like, looking to big corporations to see kind of, like, what's working there to bring it into our industry, right? So, when we look outside at, like, some of the most successful corporations and some of the most successful businesses, they all have some type of reward program. All of them.

Like, Sephora has different tiers based on your purchases. I can't honestly think of, like, a big company that I shop with that doesn't have a rewards program. And one of the most notable ones, and I heard this fact and I was like, "That is insane," is Starbucks. So-I don't actually drink Starbucks a lot.

So this is, like, I don't have their app on my phone, but I know that, like, 99.9% of the people that I know do have this app, and they do, like, stars. So they give away free products, they give away free, you know, drinks, or food items, or whatever it is after you spend a certain amount. You can also invite friends to get these stars.

And 40 to 60%, so on the low end since 2020 in some markets it's been 40% of sales, in the US in 2025 it was S- 59% of sales came through Starbucks reward program. Wow. Like, that is- That's wild. insane.

Yeah, dude. And, like, you could argue, you know, like, this is for loyalty, right? Which- Yeah. at the time of recording this at least, like, I would say that, like, your experience by itself should be breeding enough loyalty, and they shouldn't need, like, some sort of incentive to come back to you for our particular situation.

Yes. But what this proves is the gamification, is the- Yes. working for the rewards, is that, that type of stuff, right, and especially, like, through some sort of medium, like that platform, right, is it works, right? Yeah.

And there's a reason why these companies are willing to give away those free products, those free drinks, those free whatever elesers, is because it is very much worth it and lucrative for them at the end of the day. And that's why this concept for you guys, I think, is a really, really great idea that more people should be taking into consideration, their word of mouth efforts. Yeah, absolutely. And, like, they're not just giving it out for your purchases either.

Like, they are ... All of these companies, most of the ones I can think of, have some sort of referral based incentive. Yeah. So even, like, the investing platform that I use, it share this link with someone else and will literally deposit money into your investment account.

Yep. Like, it's, it works so well. And so I love that gamification aspect, for sure. Yeah.

Uh, I tried Factor meals recently. Mm-hmm. And I liked it for a couple weeks, um, but I just stopped 'cause I did end up getting sick of, sick of the meals, and just, like- Okay. sick of, like, the whatever.

But regardless, my mom was the one who, like, was telling me about it, and she ... Every single time they send you a box they have a little card in there, and it's like, "Give this to the person and then you get a free meal," or whatever it may be. And she signed me up and she got a free whatever eleser. I don't think I got anything for that.

Um, and then my upstairs neighbor, I actually asked her to bring in my Factor box one day, 'cause it had to get refrigerated and I was away, and she had to open up the box to be able to, like, put everything in the fridge. And she saw the card, and she was like, "Oh, like, I'll sign up for this 'cause I, it looks interesting and I'll try it, and you get to, like, get all this stuff." And I was like, "Hell yeah." So it works, right?

Yep. Like, it works. Totally. Um, and, again, like, this is all through, like, this isn't, like, asking you to text your friends.

Like, it's just, like, you know? Like, so this stuff works, and there's a reason why the companies do it, and, and I'd recommend that you guys do it as well too. Okay? Now, one thing I do want you to consider here though, all right?

What I've taught for years, ever since I rolled this out, when we think of a brand ambassador, okay, this isn't just anybody, because I assume that if you are gonna have people out there being your walking billboards, let's say, you have clients who may not be the best representation of your brand, or may not have the social media presence. They don't even have to have a crazy social media presence, but you know that the way that they would execute this on social media may not be reflective of your brand and the people that you're trying to attract. Right? Yeah.

Also, let's say that you have people in your clientele who have a very, very small, very bland presence on social. Like, let's say that their network is, like, 50 or less people, which is super small for social media. Then maybe you wouldn't wanna give them a bunch of free shit in exchange for them doing these things. Like, there's no ROI there.

Right? So what I've taught for a while is actually making this an invitation only program, and I think there's a lot of benefits to that. Number one, of course, you are only giving free shit to the people who are actually getting you, getting h- who actually have networks, right? And, again, these do not have to be influencer level.

I mean, I'm talking at least maybe, like, let's say 200 followers. Okay? Like, that's awesome. But anything, like, less than that, I'm kind of like, "Mm, I don't know.

Like, is this person, does this person have enough reach to even, to even show anybody anything?" You know? Um, but that's gonna be relative to who the client is, your area, how e- everything moves, whatever it may be. So you're gonna have curated people who you're giving free stuff to, who you know have a bigger market that they're reaching.

You will also make those specific people feel really special, I feel like, for inviting them to be a brand ambassador, I think which breeds more loyalty as well too, um, and it incentivizes them to post more. Like, they feel, like, all excited about it, you know? Yeah. The other thing too is when you have a smaller amount of people that you are working with to do this stuff for you, it's easier to nurture them because you're not trying to ...

It, it, it's easier to kind of, like, equip them with what they need to be posting this stuff for you- Mm-hmm. versus if you have an entire huge clientele base that you have to keep up with to make this happen and actually work for you. Um, and it's just generally easier to manage. Plus, from an admin perspective as well too, right, from having to log all these people's points, give people links to things.

So just keeping it smaller, in my opinion, I think is the best way to go about it. You can expand it to as large as you want to, if you really want to. I would just take all the things that I said into consideration, I guess. Yeah, for sure.

Does this ... Do you have, like, a certain number in mind that you recommend that stylists start with? Yeah, I think five to ten is great. And, again, they don't have to be influencer level.

Like, that's not what we're talking about here. I'd actually rather them be just, like, semi-relevant and connected to the community some way. I mean, my ... Lauren, e- Lauren is- Mm-hmm.

a great example. Like, she, uh, probably had, like, 2,000 followers, which could sound like a lot to a lot of people-But the reason why it worked so well is because she's so connected to people in the community already. I mean, that was really advantageous for me being somebody who had no network in that local community. Like, I was brand new to the area, and so like, my own social, like, I had no leverage over my own existing audience, and I had to build that from scratch, right?

Whereas she, uh, grew up there, you know. She knows and is, uh, connected- I do. to so many people, and she and her business serves a lot of people in that community who are my ideal clients. And so, like, finding those types of people are really, really powerful and the most ideal people to find.

And so yeah, five to 10 people I think is a great number to kinda shoot for. I love that. So then, once you've kind of chosen your rewards systems, once you've decided how many points things are worth, once you've decided who you want to invite to the program, do you have any tips for the people listening on how to actually roll this out? Yeah.

So, we're in the midst of, no promises, building something for you to make this happen and make it really easy as far as from a software perspective. But regardless, I think that you should just invite somebody when they come to see you in person, and be like, "I've been thinking about you, and I think that you'd be a really great fit for this. You get to get all this free shit if you g- do enough, uh, actions. And all you gotta do is just sign up through this quick little form, agree to the terms and conditions," 'cause I do think there should be terms and conditions to this situation.

And then, you just make sure that they're equipped with everything that they need. So, like, make sure that you're taking pictures of them at the end of the appointment, right? But other things will be, like, user-generated content, is what the term is in today's day and age, where, like, your client may take the picture themselves, 'cause sometimes that will do well too, right? But just making sure that they know all that they need to do, equipping them with everything they need to understand what to do, and making sure that it's a system to make it easy, right?

Right. Um, I think that's the biggest thing here. It should be easy for the client. It should be easy for you to keep up with and track and make it fair for everybody, so that way, it's not a headache, and you're actually willing to continue forward and in, in, uh, incentivizing it, pushing it to happen, and that your client actually follows through with doing those things.

Yeah. Love that. So yeah. That's the brand ambassador program.

Go do it. It's a great idea. And if you want more information about how we do it in Modern Stylist Movement, you can reach out to me directly. If you're an MSM student listening to this right now and you're interested and you're curious, and you haven't heard of this strategy before, reach out to me and I'll point you in the right direction.

But I think that it is becoming a increasingly so relevant and worth it strategy to definitely try out in your own business in today's day and age to get more of those word-of-mouth referrals, because they are traditionally, historically, in every industry, in every business, most likely the highest type, the hi- highest quality type of new client referrals you can possibly get. So, let's get more of them. Let's get the advertising done for us, 'cause I know you hate posting on social media yourself, my friend. And I hope this was helpful for you.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Modern Hairstyles podcasts. Thank you, Jodi Brown, for being here and facilitating the conversation as per usual. Peace out, girl scout. Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2026 Hunter Donia LLC.