Here’s what you might have missed from No More Cold Calling this quarter.
It’s an exciting time: The time of year to construct your business future. What will you do differently in 2024?
You’d better have some innovative strategies, because the same-old doesn’t cut it. Even If you’ve had a stellar year, you’ll be outsold if you stay with what you’ve always done. You’re savvy. You’re resourceful. It’s time to get a move on.
I’m doing the same on two fronts (so far):
1. I’m introducing a Referral Selling System to ensure companies build a referral culture, source only qualified leads, get meetings with their prime prospects, and close business quickly.
Everything is a system. As James Clear says in Atomic Habits: “The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
So, I’m sharing a system that will help businesses continue playing the game and rise to the level of their goals. (Stay tuned for more!)
2. I’m adopting a new AI platform (shhh, it’s still in beta) to create targeted messages addressing the needs and concerns of sales leaders in a fresh way. Yes, this woman with gray hair keeps learning, which is not always comfortable, right?
3. The third will come to me, and I’m OK with not knowing what it is right now. But I’m saving space for when it does.
I challenge you to do the same: Set goals for how you’ll innovate in 2024 and save space for new opportunities.
I’m tired of hearing sales leaders complain about not having enough leads, struggling to get access to decision-makers, and not making quota. Get moving with a solid, results-oriented business strategy. Cold outreach doesn’t work. Referral selling—and the tenets of a referral-selling system—help you get ahead, stay ahead, and ace out the competition in any economy.
Stop! What will you do differently in 2024?
For more on referral selling, check out these blog posts from No More Cold Calling this quarter:
Expand Your Sales Team By Asking Clients for Referrals
One of the first things I ever wrote about was enrolling your clients as part of your sales team. How do you do that? By asking clients for referrals to their peers. After all, who knows the value of your products and services more than the people who are already paying for them? They know what you have to offer and what types of prospects can benefit from it. They’re perfectly positioned to introduce you to qualified prospects and sing your praises while they do it. A growing body of research backs up what I’ve been saying for decades: At least half of those referred prospects will convert to customers. In my experience, it’s more like 70 percent. (Read “Expand Your Sales Team By Asking Clients for Referrals”)
Social Selling: What You Should and Should NOT Do
Salespeople have forgotten the social part of social selling. Instead of using social media to make connections and strengthen relationships with potential prospects and referral sources, they pitch, spam, and annoy their contacts. They actually think it’s helping them sell. It’s not, because that’s not what social media is for. Social selling is a misleading term. Done right, it doesn’t actually involve selling, which is good, because no one wants to be sold to on social media. Social media is a place to begin conversations, which leads to building relationships, which can yield real-world sales. It is a place for networking, research, and engaging audiences, not for pitching prospects. (Read “Social Selling: What You Should and Should NOT Do”)
The Irrefutable Referral Business Case
How many people should you ask for referrals to get five new clients? No more than 20. In my experience, at least half the people you ask for referrals will introduce you to your ideal prospect. Referred prospects convert to clients a minimum 50 percent of the time (most salespeople tell me it’s closer to 70 percent). So the ratio of referral requests to new clients is roughly four to one (4:1). And that’s a conservative estimate. The referral math looks like this. (Read “The Irrefutable Referral Business Case”)
Sales Tech That Doesn’t Work
Digital communication only takes us so far … period. Even the best sales technology isn’t as valuable as business relationships. But it’s easy to forget that in the digital era. These days, people are literally addicted to smartphones, and salespeople are so reliant on social media that they forget to be social. Technology should enable us and make us more productive, and most of the time it does. But our total dependence on technology makes us susceptible to invasions of privacy and paralyzes our ability to do quality work. Simply put: Sometimes technology holds us hostage. It’s time to turn back the clock and focus on the human, person-to-person connections that drive sales. (Read “Sales Tech That Doesn’t Work”)
