The test is simple to state and easy to fail. A CEO can check an angle against what they know about their own company. A claim asks them to take your word for something they cannot see, and the first claim that turns out to be wrong costs you the rest of the message.
Angle or claim: how to tell them apart
| Feature | Angle | Claim |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Gives one company a reason to care | Asserts that something is true |
| Built from | Something the company told you or published, with a date | A market, a program, an outcome or a comparison |
| What the reader can do | Check it against their own knowledge | Trust you, or not |
| How it fails | It is irrelevant, and the reader ignores it | It is false or misleading, and the reader stops trusting you |
| Example | "You mentioned the job files since 2012 move to a new system next spring" | "Companies like yours are earning six figures from AI data" |
The Federal Trade Commission's policy statement on advertising substantiation sets the standard worth borrowing: advertisers need a reasonable basis for objective claims before they disseminate them, implied claims count as well as express ones, and evidence gathered after the fact does not excuse a claim made without it. A private email to a CEO you know is not necessarily an advertisement. A newsletter item, a landing page or a post to your network may well be promotion, and the same discipline protects you in both places: the evidence comes first, the sentence second.
Five kinds of sentence, five kinds of evidence
Almost every sentence in a referral message is one of five kinds, plus courtesies like "hope the season is going well". Each kind has its own evidence, and its own fix when the evidence is missing.
| Sentence kind | Example | Evidence it needs | Where that evidence lives | If you do not have it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company fact | "You've kept every inspection report since 2011" | The company said it or published it, and you know when | Your dated notes; the company's own site or filings | Ask it as a question |
| Program fact | "SourceX pays a referral reward of the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of what it actually pays the company" | The published terms, in their wording, with the version | refer.sourcex.si/terms, Version 2026-10-22.2, since replaced by version 2026-11-04 | Copy the terms' wording or drop the sentence |
| Market claim | "AI developers want real business records" | A dated primary source you would link | Model developer documentation, filings, regulators | Cut it; the company fact carries the message |
| Outcome claim | "This could bring in serious money" | Nothing exists before SourceX's review and a signed agreement | The company's own future agreement | Replace it with the conditions |
| Your incentive | Usually missing | The fact that SourceX pays you a reward | Your partner agreement and the program terms | Disclose it in the same message |
Two of these deserve a warning. Outcome claims have no evidence by construction: nothing about payment exists until a company has applied, passed review, signed and delivered, so the honest version of an outcome sentence is always a condition. And company facts can be true and still not belong in writing. Anything you learned from board materials, a confidential call or another client stays out; ask the CEO instead.
The claim-to-evidence editing checklist
Run this on every template before first use, and on any one-off message to a company you do not know well.
- Number the sentences. Paste the draft and split it, one sentence per line.
- Tag each one as company fact, program fact, market claim, outcome claim, incentive or courtesy. A sentence that carries two tags gets split in two.
- Date the company facts. Beside each, note who told you and when. No source, no sentence; make it a question.
- Match program facts to the terms. Compare word by word with the current version: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap, 50 or more full-time employees at peak. A paraphrase that drifts, such as "the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of the deal", is a false claim with good intentions.
- Source or cut market claims. If you would not put the primary source's link in the message, the sentence goes.
- Read for the implied claim. Reread the draft as the CEO and write down what they would reasonably conclude. "Worth six figures" beside "your data" reads as a company payout; "you definitely qualify" reads as a decision someone has made.
- Condition every outcome. Replace "will" with the conditions that would have to hold: a fit found in SourceX's review, the CEO's agreement, a signed license, delivery.
- Disclose the reward near the ask. The FTC's endorsement FAQ treats a financial relationship as a material connection, says disclosures should be clear and close to the endorsement, and says a single disclosure on a home page is not enough because readers meet individual recommendations without it. Put one plain sentence in the message itself.
- Strike superlatives and crowd claims. "Best", "top", "fastest" and "everyone in your industry" each need a source covering that exact comparison or count. You will rarely have one; remove them.
- Offer one voluntary step. One link, no deadline, unless the deadline is the company's own dated event.
- Forward test. Ask whether the CEO could forward the message to their counsel without embarrassing you. If not, find the sentence that would.
One company, two drafts (Illustrative)
Illustrative. An invented commercial roofing contractor; the partner manages channel relationships at a field-service software reseller and knows the founder-CEO. What the CEO said on a call on 14 October: the company employed about 230 full-time staff at its 2022 peak and about 190 now; job files, inspection notes and warranty claims since 2012 sit in one project system; that system is being replaced next spring.
Before. (1) AI companies are paying millions for data like yours. (2) Your 14 years of job files could be worth six figures. (3) You definitely qualify given your size. (4) Everyone in your industry is doing this now. (5) It takes no effort on your side. (6) Their intake closes soon, so let me know this week.
After. (1) You mentioned your job files, inspection notes and warranty claims go back to 2012 in one system, and that the system is being replaced next spring. (2) SourceX licenses business records like those directly from companies for AI training and evaluation and pays the company for them, under an agreement your CEO would sign. (3) You told me you had about 230 full-time staff at your 2022 peak, above the 50 SourceX screens for; whether the records fit what it needs now is decided in its review, not by me. (4) The first step is a short assessment with no uploads, and if it went further your team would decide exactly what is included. (5) If this led to a license, SourceX would pay me a referral reward; it comes from SourceX and never reduces your company's payment. (6) If the timing before the migration makes it worth a look, here is the link; if not, I won't chase you.
| Before | Tag | Evidence held | Action | After |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (1) Paying millions | Market and implied outcome claim | None | Cut; replaced by the company's own fact | (1) Job files since 2012, migration next spring |
| (2) Worth six figures | Outcome claim, misstated | None: the partner's reward formula is not a company payout | Cut; the company's payout is set in its own agreement | (5) The reward, disclosed with its basis |
| (3) Definitely qualify | Eligibility claim | Only the CEO's headcount | Narrow to the fact; name who decides | (3) 230 at peak; review decides |
| (4) Everyone is doing this | Social-proof claim | None | Cut | (2) What SourceX does, plainly |
| (5) No effort | Effort claim | Contradicted by the process | Replace with the actual first step | (4) Short assessment, the company decides scope |
| (6) Closes soon | False urgency | None | Replace with the company's dated event | (6) The migration, no chasing |
The rewrite is longer by a few words and shorter by every claim the partner could not support. It also does something the first draft could not: each sentence gives the CEO something to check, and every check comes back true.
The opportunity and your incentive, stated so they hold up
The opportunity sentence needs only what SourceX publishes. SourceX licenses business data directly from companies and pays them for it, as their counterparty from agreement through delivery and payment. The company controls whether to proceed, what scope to offer and the terms it accepts. You make the introduction and never export, upload or describe confidential records.
A fit claim in the message may go no further than the published screen, which asks for a full-time workforce of 50 or more at its peak, contractors left out, a documented operating history, rights to license, and an authorized contact, in this program the CEO, who authorizes a licensing discussion and signs. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 70% of the data is in English. SourceX calls its screening profile guidance, not a guarantee of eligibility, and checks relevance to its current data needs only in review.
The incentive sentence needs the terms. The default reward is the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of the Actual Supplier Payout, meaning what SourceX actually pays the referred company, with no cap. SourceX pays it separately; it is never deducted from the company's compensation. It becomes payable only after the Acquisition Partner's acceptance, cleared payment to SourceX, payment of the company, finance approval and your tax and payment details, and the deadline for paying it is 60 calendar days, measured from whichever is later: completed handoff, or the day the Acquisition Partner gives its final written acceptance of the complete, validated dataset. Illustrative: an Actual Supplier Payout of $400,000 would mean a $70,000 reward. Before any introduction, you sign the SourceX Channel Partner Agreement; if yours was signed under the earlier name, Channel Partner Non-Circumvention and Non-Disclosure Agreement, it holds as signed.
None of those numbers belongs in a message to a company except as your disclosure. The CEO's question is what their company would be paid, and nobody can answer that before review. Whether your profession sets its own rules on referral fees is a separate question, covered in whether you have to disclose a referral fee.
One voluntary next step, and what stays unknown
Close with one step the CEO can take or ignore: the application link, or the company fit checker for a preliminary look. Ask before you introduce: an introduction the CEO first hears about from SourceX is, by SourceX's own screening guidance, usually not a fit. Do not attach a deadline of your own; the only honest timing is a dated event at the company, like the roofing contractor's migration.
Four things stay unknown until SourceX's review, and a good message names them as questions rather than answers: whether the records match current data needs, whether customer or other third-party contracts restrict their use, what a license would include and what the company would be paid. For the neighboring skills, see introducing without endorsing the outcome, the one-minute founder explanation and how a program evidence page records each published fact; the guides hub holds the rest.
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.
Once your template passes the checklist and a CEO has asked for the introduction, register for a partner link, compare the company with who qualifies and keep the program terms version beside your evidence notes.