This week I want to talk about something that lives at the very center of who I am and how I do business:  I want to talk about beauty.

Beauty in business, beauty in marketing and I want to make an argument.  One I will make at length and, I hope, convincingly, that for the right type of business and the right type of person, doing business by referral, business by relationship, can compete with and in many ways exceed the return on investment from any other form of marketing.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking.

You’ve seen the LinkedIn posts from the experts. You’ve read the articles proclaiming that referrals are dead, that they can’t scale, that they’re a relic of a bygone era. Here’s what those people are really talking about when they criticize referrals: they’re talking about passive strategies. They’re talking about sitting back and somehow hoping to earn referrals without asking, or worse, begging for them. That’s not what I’m talking about. Not even close.

I’m not here to argue that referrals are more effective. If you’re reading this, you probably already know that. What you’re striving for, what you’re after, is something deeper. You want to know: how can I have a truly blessed intersection between getting the business I want, getting the business I feel like I need, and being more human? That’s where referrals win. Unquestionably.

Here’s what nobody talks about in all those marketing webinars and growth-hack threads: the toll it takes on you. The toll of treating people like numbers. The toll of waking up every morning and opening a dashboard instead of opening your heart. I’ve watched people build massive businesses on the back of funnels and automation, and I’ve watched those same people wonder why they feel hollow inside. Why the success doesn’t taste like they thought it would. I think the answer is simple: they traded beauty for efficiency. They traded the human experience for a conversion rate.

If you’re interested in taking your business a step further, head over to my Substack to read the full article and subscribe to Can I Borrow Your Car.