Focused Networking Case Study
Donna Fox
 Business coach: Clients include CEOs and COOs of growing companies, as well as
leaders of entrepreneurial projects in large companies
 Owner of Austin Career Coaching, new 5-coach career coaching organization
 Former CEO of a growth company
 Former senior manager at Dell and AMD
 MBA, The University of Texas at Austin
Started coaching business in May of 2008
Built on a small number of referral sources: primarily (a) former peers in EO and YPO; and
(b) high-quality B2B professionals. Emphasis on quality people and relationships over
quantity of either. Many of my referral sources became clients and many of my clients
became referral sources. This happened very naturally.
Core referral base is now about 20 people.
Emphasis on providing referrals. Generally provide 2-3X more referrals than I receive.
Results: Replaced my CEO salary with coaching income within 8 months. Now
taking the career piece of my practice – scaling it by protecting the core process and selecting
collaborators/associate coaches very carefully. All of my coaches have come from my
network!
By focusing on building a small number of high quality referral relationships Donna was able to focus on
adding intense value to this select group of individuals who had already proven they would reciprocate. These
relationships provided referrals to the first set of clients, some even became clients themselves. In phase 2
Donna worked to provide the same level of connection/resource value to her clients in addition to her high
impact, high value coaching services. Through this process clients were trained and coached on how to refer
through the real examples and introductions she made for them.
Today’s core of 20 individuals is a manageable number of high touch relationships that continue to produce
results. Nearly all new core referral partners are brought in by the current core. Little time is spent finding
new relationships. Clients and core partners act as bird dogs and pre-screen potential future partners.
Scott Ingram
Founder & CEO
512-646-2700
scott@networkinaustin.com
www.NetworkInAustin.com
On Twitter: @ScottIngram & @NetworkInAustin