Welcome to The Reference Steward^SM — the blog for customer reference professionals. I’m Promise Phelon, and my partner Steven Nicks and I founded The Phelon Group to help companies build and innovate their reference programs, and fully leverage their best customers. Today marks an important milestone in the CRP community because for the first time we have a common place to share, learn and grow this exciting field. In addition to this blog, you can connect and network with your peers at the Reference 360 Discussion Forum^TM. Right now you can probably find someone in the CRP community who is facing similar challenges or has faced them in the past and is willing to share lessons learned. There is a great collection of knowledge among reference professionals. And there are growing challenges that affect us all. Traditional reference tools are losing their credibility as buyers go around formal references to seek candid opinions. Executives are cutting budgets for programs that can’t demonstrate solid metrics. Competition for references is growing as we recruit from a smaller pool. Budgets remain stagnant among growing responsibilities. Yet at the same time, we at The Phelon Group see an amazing opportunity for reference professionals. As companies shift toward customer-centricity, executives are evaluating customer—facing functions to see which are poised to manage the customer relationship on behalf of the entire company. And they are starting to see that reference programs have been doing it all along. The time has come to elevate those programs from tactics to strategy. One more exciting contributor to this community is the Customer Reference Council. We’ve brought together some of the most innovative and forward-thinking CRP professionals. We are working with these leaders to further the stature, credibility, influence, and understanding of the strategic role reference customers and reference programs play in corporate strategy. It’s a very exciting time to be part of the customer reference community, and my colleagues and I greatly look forward to sharing and learning with you. Promise Phelon, Partner promise.phelon@phelongroup.com