These days, networking has been made easier with social media, where you can easily make a referral, and people on your contact list take it seriously based on the level of trust and reliability that they have for you.
People even take referrals from people they do not know much. At this point, people will believe and trust anything on the internet. If a social media influencer or a content creator post something about a referral, people will immediately flock towards that project even without properly learning about it.
Do not just refer to any cryptocurrency; refer to bitcoin when introducing a newbie to cryptocurrency.
In my opinion it's okay to let them learn about altcoin but you shouldn't focus it on that. The most basic introduction to cryptocurrency will be Bitcoin so just start with that and then later on you can go deeper with altcoins.