Over the past few decades I’ve built, run and scaled referral groups across Australia and the UK, and along the way I’ve trained members who have gone on to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in referral business. Like most things in life, you learn the most by doing, and I discovered firsthand what really drives results and, just as importantly, what gets in the way. That experience is what shaped Local Recommend.

It’s also where “people before profit” stops being a nice phrase and becomes something real. In simple terms, every decision we make comes down to one question: does it improve our members’ experience and strengthen referral flow? If the answer is no, and it’s really about getting more out of the network, we don’t do it.

That said, like anything that challenges the traditional way of doing things, a bit of success can attract a bit of noise. Not everyone is comfortable when a model is built differently, especially one that is transparent, member-led and focused on outcomes rather than control. In any industry, when something works well and starts to gain traction, it can be met with misunderstanding or resistance, and if anything, that just tells me we’re focusing on the right things.

At the end of the day, Local Recommend is a referral network built from decades of my own experience, designed for members and focused on one thing: helping good people do more business with other good people.