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Fortinet, the unified threat management (UTM) appliance specialist, posted stellar earnings last week. Revenue for its second quarter was up 35 percent to $103 million and its billings up 22 percent to $110 million. Most impressive, profits are up 111 percent to $14.5 million

Fortinet channel chief Kendra Krause reports the security vendor is receiving a strong volume of customer referrals, which is helping to drive growth.

Where is this growth coming from? Fortinet and companies like it will always say their exception products are driving the business. And, yes, their sales and channel partners are driving the deals. But Fortinet executives gave a fair share of the credit to its customers, who are increasingly referring business to the security vendor and its partners.

“Many of our sales wins came from referrals by customers and partners who use our products, and we believe no other security vendor has as many certifications as Fortinet does,” Fortinet CEO Ken Xie said during last week’s earnings call with investors and analysts. “With over 1,000 of Fortinet’s employees in engineering-related roles, we take innovation, security and quality very seriously, and we’re proud of the products we produce.”

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Referrals are difficult to plan for, hard to measure and exceedingly important to every business. They’re sort of like defense touchdowns in football; you don’t plan for them, but they often make a difference in winning games. Whether Fortinet is cultivating referrals or simply capitalizing on them makes no difference, they are getting new business opportunities from all quarters.

“The referral sources vary,” says Kendra Krause, Fortinet’s vice president of channel sales and operations. “In some cases, an end user says ‘you should also talk to so-and-so.’  In some cases, the end user tells another end user about us, and they call Fortinet. And in some cases when they tell another end user about us, they call the partner. There is not one standard way in which we receive referrals.”

Regardless of where the referrals come from, they all go to the same place – channel partners. Fortinet says it’s funneling its customer referrals back out to solution providers to cost. And that referral and channel closure rate is leading to an uptick in business.

Some technology businesses – vendors and solution providers alike – mistakenly believe customer service and relationships end when the deal closes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Fortinet experience demonstrates the need for continuous engagement with customers – new and old – to cultivate strong ties and earn customer referrals.

Anyone who has ever read Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” knows the easiest and fastest way to penetrate a vertical market is by leveraging customers’ relationships. Every business should ask themselves how many customer referrals they’re getting and what they can do to earn more. That’s the lesson of Fortinet’s success.

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Lawrence M. Walsh is CEO and president of The 2112 Group, a technology business advisory service that specializes in optimizing indirect channels and partner relationships. He’s also the executive director of the Channel Vanguard Council. He is the former publisher of Channel Insider and editor of VARBusiness Magazine. You can reach him at lmwalsh@the2112group.com.

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Larry Walsh:@lmwalsh2112| Channelnomics: @channelnomics