The existing guide on measuring quality instead of volume warns that unqualified referrals consume time without results. It does not say how much, or whose. That is the gap this study is designed to close.
What the program already fixes, and what nobody has measured
| Category | Statement | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Program fact | Introduced companies need 50 or more full-time employees at peak | Program terms, Version 2026-10-22.2, since replaced by version 2026-11-04 |
| Program fact | If SourceX already had an earlier lead, account or email correspondence with a company, review treats that company as a duplicate and a later partner earns no credit for it | Program terms |
| Program fact | Client-owned material, consumer personal data and an introduction the decision maker does not know about usually fail the fit screen | SourceX who-qualifies page |
| Program fact | When a reward is canceled because a referral turns out to be ineligible, the reason is recorded, which gives the study a written decline reason to group cases by | Rewards page |
| Conditional | Whether any introduction is accepted, licenses data or produces a reward | SourceX review, a signed agreement and the payment conditions in the terms |
| Proposed thesis | The cost of a misfit depends mostly on how late it is discovered, not on the misfit itself | A question for the study, not a finding |
| Term | Meaning in the protocol |
|---|---|
| Unqualified introduction | One declined for a reason the partner could have checked at metadata level before introducing: headcount, location and language, no authorized contact, or client-owned records |
| Discovery point | The step at which the misfit became known: partner screen, owner reply, application or review |
| Diarist | A person who logs their own time on a case |
| Elapsed days | Calendar days from the partner's first ask to the case's final status |
| Relationship cost | Change in the owner's willingness to take another introduction from the same partner |
Four comparison groups, not two
A study that compares only "qualified" and "unqualified" hides the most useful contrast. Every case enters one of four groups at its final status.
| Group | Definition | Why it is needed |
|---|---|---|
| Progressed | Passed review, whatever happened later | The cost of a normal, wanted introduction |
| Declined, not checkable | Declined for a reason only review could see, such as no current demand for those records | Shows the cost nobody could have avoided |
| Declined, checkable | Declined for a reason the partner could have found with a metadata question | The unqualified introduction this page is about |
| Duplicate or attribution | Reviewed as a duplicate or outside the 90-day window | A cost with a different cause: timing and prior contact, not fit |
Decline reasons use the codes in the rejection reasons study, so "checkable" has a written definition rather than a judgment call. The poor-fit patterns page lists the patterns behind most checkable declines, and what happens when two partners introduce the same company covers the duplicate group.
Who pays, and who keeps the diary
| Diarist | Typical activities | Consent | Expected gaps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partner | Screening, the permission ask, explaining the program, follow-up, the conversation after a decline | Opt-in when the partner joins the study | Low; partners choose to take part |
| Owner or delegate | Reading the introduction, internal discussion, the application, calls with SourceX | Separate opt-in, asked at application or by the partner | High, especially for declined cases; reported, never filled in |
| SourceX reviewer | Duplicate check, eligibility review, calls, writing the decline | Part of the study's operating plan, logged by role, never by name | Low |
The time-cost diary research protocol
Activity codes. Each entry takes one code, so minutes can be summed by activity across cases.
| Code | Diarist | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| P1 | Partner | Screening the company before any contact |
| P2 | Partner | Writing and sending the permission ask |
| P3 | Partner | Answering the owner's questions |
| P4 | Partner | Follow-up and status checks |
| P5 | Partner | The conversation after a decline |
| O1 | Owner | Reading and considering the introduction |
| O2 | Owner | Internal discussion with colleagues or advisors |
| O3 | Owner | Completing the application |
| O4 | Owner | Calls or messages with SourceX |
| R1 | Reviewer | Duplicate and attribution check |
| R2 | Reviewer | Eligibility review |
| R3 | Reviewer | Calls or messages with the company |
| R4 | Reviewer | Writing and sending the decision |
The diary sheet. One line per activity, with no company names and nothing from the company's records.
| Field | Example | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Case ID | C-0142 | Assigned at entry; the key to the case stays with the study lead |
| Date | 2027-02-03 | The day the activity happened |
| Diarist role | Owner | Partner, owner or reviewer |
| Activity code | O2 | One code per line |
| Minutes | 25 | Rounded to five; a guess beats a blank |
| Others involved | CFO | Roles only, never names |
Logging rules.
- Log within 24 hours of the activity, while memory is fresh.
- A weekly two-minute prompt asks each diarist whether anything went unlogged.
- A case closes at its final status; the partner and owner each answer two exit questions: "Would you take, or make, another introduction like this?" and "At what point did you know it would not proceed?"
- Diaries never record the company's records, financials or customer names.
Variables. Minutes by diarist, activity and stage; elapsed days; discovery point; group; the two exit answers; partner tenure in the program; company size band.
Analysis, fixed in advance. Time data is skewed by a few long cases, so the headline is the median minutes per case with the interquartile range, by group and diarist, and the full distribution is published. The pre-registered test of the thesis compares total minutes across discovery points within the checkable-decline group. Missing owner diaries are reported as missing; partner and reviewer totals are shown with and without the cases that lack an owner diary.
Money values. Hours come first. A dollar figure is added only from each diarist's own stated rate, collected in the exit questions and shown separately by role. The analyst never chooses a rate, because a chosen rate would become the finding.
One case, filled in (Illustrative)
Illustrative. A fictional case with invented entries, to show how the sheet fills; not a measurement.
A partner introduces a 38-person engineering firm whose founder is a longtime client. The founder applies. Review declines it on headcount, code E1, a reason the partner could have checked.
| Diarist | Code | Minutes | Stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partner | P2 | 15 | Ask |
| Owner | O1 | 10 | Ask |
| Owner | O2 | 30 | Ask |
| Owner | O3 | 40 | Application |
| Reviewer | R1 | 10 | Review |
| Reviewer | R2 | 20 | Review |
| Reviewer | R4 | 15 | Review |
| Partner | P5 | 20 | After the decline |
Discovery point: review. In this invented case the misfit could have been found at P1 with one question about full-time headcount at peak, before the owner spent any time at all. The comparison the study makes is exactly that: the same misfit, discovered at the partner screen, should show one short P1 entry and nothing else. The company fit checker is one way to make that check before any message.
Counting the cases that go missing
- Partners who decline to keep diaries. Their introductions still count in the program's case totals, so the report shows what share of all introductions the diaries cover.
- Owners who never reply. The partner's P2 entry is still a cost. The case is coded "no response" and kept.
- Abandoned diaries. A diary that stops mid-case is shown as partial, with its last logged stage.
- Recall. Entries made more than 24 hours late are flagged, and the analysis is repeated without them.
What the comparison can and cannot claim. Group differences are descriptive. Partners who send checkable misfits may be newer to the program, or work in industries with smaller companies, so results are shown within partner tenure and company size bands. The study cannot say that screening harder causes lower cost; it can say how cost varied with the discovery point in this cohort.
The release kit
- The diary template, activity codes and exit questions, word for word.
- The consent texts for partners and owners.
- The pre-registration, with every deviation listed.
- Minutes by group, diarist and activity, as distributions, not only medians.
- Coverage: diaries kept versus introductions made, by group.
- A one-page partner worksheet: the four groups, the discovery points and a blank diary line, dated, with a method note and a link to this page.
When the protocol would point the wrong way
A cheap misfit. Illustrative: an owner receives a permission ask, checks who qualifies, sees the company is too small and replies "not us" in three minutes. Total cost: one P2 entry and one short O1 entry. If most checkable misfits look like this, the advice "screen harder before introducing" is wrong, and the better advice is "ask early and let the owner self-screen".
An expensive good case. A progressed introduction with long calls and a slow review can cost more minutes than any misfit. That is a wanted cost, which is why the progressed group is in the study: it shows what the time buys.
The thesis fails if total minutes in the checkable-decline group do not rise with a later discovery point. Then the cost of an unqualified introduction is not about timing, and the study should look at who the partners are instead.
Other limits. Logging changes behavior: people who time their work may work faster. Owner diaries will be thin in declined cases, which are the cases that matter most. Relationship cost is a stated rating, not an observed loss of business. And a cost found in one cohort may change as SourceX's program criteria change.
Where to begin. Run a two-week pilot with five partners and their reviewers, partner and reviewer diaries only, to test whether the codes cover what people actually do; add the owner diary only when the codes hold. A partner can start alone: for the next ten introductions, log P1 to P5 minutes and the discovery point, then compare. For how a declined case is explained, see understanding why a referral was declined; for how cited results must be permissioned, see partner results research; for how the diary fits an annual report, see the research blueprint. A message-level view of the owner's side is in what makes a company introduction feel trustworthy. The SourceX Channel Partner Agreement is signed before any introduction is submitted.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
Screen before the ask so a misfit costs one question rather than three people's afternoons: register for a partner link, check each company against who qualifies, and read the program terms before you introduce an authorized owner who wants the conversation. The guides hub collects the other study designs.