No More Cold Calling

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

I accepted his standard invitation, thinking he might be a good connection, and sent him a personal message, inviting him to contact me with any questions about referral selling. His response: “What is referral selling?” The second you respond, you get a sales pitch. So, why aren’t they getting referrals at scale?

Referrals 177

Referrals Cold Calling Lead Rank Lead Scoring 177

No More Cold Calling

OCTOBER 1, 2021

I’m sure you’ve been the recipient of: Endless spam emails offering to send you lists and then writing to ask if you saw their last email. You’ve heard the phrase, “How much spaghetti can I throw at the wall and hope something sticks?” And relationships are how deals get done. How do I sell effectively on social media?

Referrals 316

Referrals Decision Maker Cold Calling Social Media 316

No More Cold Calling

JULY 29, 2021

The buyers had no idea why they were meeting, and the salesperson didn’t ask enough discovery questions to offer tailored solutions. The salesperson left without getting agreement on next steps or scheduling the next call. This is not how you wow buyers, build relationships, and convert prospects into clients.

Closing 409

Closing Sales Qualified Lead Lead Rank Lead Scoring 409

No More Cold Calling

APRIL 15, 2021

Not getting the ROI you expected from your lead-gen tactics? Every sales leader says their #1 prospecting challenge is getting leads in the pipe. How could we, when we’re all typing instead of talking to potential clients? How do you ensure that your sales team gets in the door before your competitors?

Lead Gen 397

Lead Gen Sales Qualified Lead Leads Marketing Qualified Lead 397

No More Cold Calling

JUNE 24, 2021

How to ask for referrals and other FAQs. After more than 25 years as an expert on referral sales, I’m still asked exactly the same referral selling questions today. In no particular order, here are the most common referral selling questions I hear … 1. We need to be ABA: Always Be Asking.).

Referrals 256

Referrals Outsourcing Services Sales Outsourcing Meeting 256

No More Cold Calling

APRIL 11, 2024

Image attribution: Yan Krukau ) You don’t want PITA clients, but if they agree to pay double, at least you know what you and your team are getting into. Image attribution: Yan Krukau ) You don’t want PITA clients, but if they agree to pay double, at least you know what you and your team are getting into.

Referrals 156

Referrals Cold Calling Exact Energy 156

No More Cold Calling

APRIL 3, 2020

Don’t panic—here’s how to get your phones actually ringing again. They take an internal focus, instead of recognizing that lead generation—referral lead generation in particular—is their ticket to the C-Suite. (Or Well, here it is … Commit to Building Your Referral Business. So, what do you do?

Pipeline 414

Pipeline Prospecting Ideal Customer Profile Referrals 414

No More Cold Calling

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

Your referral network is your net worth in sales. “How do I ask for a referral from customers I haven’t spoken with in two years?” ” That’s what a client asked me a couple years ago, and I was baffled by his revelation. When should you ask for referrals? There’s a lesson here.

Referrals 227

Referrals Customer Revelation Networking 227

No More Cold Calling

MARCH 31, 2021

If you were asked last year how your day was, your answer would have been: “It’s 2020.” They recognized that asking clients for referrals was the way to gain access to prime prospects. How do I know this? How about you? Why the sudden interest in referral sales? They freaked out.

Referrals 371

Referrals Cold Calling Sales Qualified Lead Call-back 371

No More Cold Calling

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

Why the sudden interest in referral sales? Layer the pandemic over that economic downturn—well, it gets worse. Referrals are as old as time. Sales leaders have an ongoing challenge to get more qualified leads in the pipe, but seller access has evaporated. Earn the Right to Ask. Referrals are based on trust.

Referrals 323

Referrals Sales Qualified Lead Marketing Qualified Lead Lead Generation 323

No More Cold Calling

APRIL 13, 2023

Learn more about the science (and art) of referral selling in my new webinar with Finlistics. It’s interesting how you meet people, and when you sell by referral, you meet a lot of interesting people. It was also the start of Finlistics’s relationship with referral selling. This was going a little above the speed limit.

Referrals 156

Referrals Webinar Metrics Maximizer Networking 156

No More Cold Calling

OCTOBER 27, 2020

What do the following have in common: Referrals, Meetings, Minimal Marketing, and Maximum Impact? Get the referral, get the meeting. Sonia is absolutely right about that, and she even created this unique video that brings the referral message home. Sonia is dedicated to referral selling. How about you? .

Referrals 317

Referrals Hiring Webinar Metrics How To 317

No More Cold Calling

MAY 25, 2023

Referrals help you stand out in a sea of B2B sellers. How do B2B buyers tell one internet security company from another? How could we, when we’re all standing behind screens? They buy what the software does for them—how it saves time, decreases costs, engages customers, tracks referrals, etc. That’s pitiful.

B2B 177

B2B Buyer Referrals Sales Qualified Lead 177

No More Cold Calling

APRIL 22, 2020

In sales, asking for help used to mean you were a wuss. It felt like asking for a favor or pleading with prospects for business. Good news: The mood around asking for help has done a complete 180. These days, we’re all reaching out to clients and colleagues, asking how they’re doing, and finding out how we can help them.

Referrals 358

Referrals Cold Calling Call-back Research 358

No More Cold Calling

JANUARY 16, 2020

Here are five important steps to make your team referral sales experts. I’ve been there—given a quota (usually without my input) and a list of client companies, and then told to “go at it” and do whatever it takes to get meetings. Referral selling is not just one more initiative to introduce to your organization. Sound familiar?

Referrals 328

Referrals Sales Management Hiring Scale 328

No More Cold Calling

MARCH 30, 2023

Way back in 2015, I published a blog post: Girl Power: Men with Daughters Get It. And we’ll get there a lot faster with you on our side. ” Referrals shouldn’t be the exception either. As we wrap up Women’s History Month 2023, I’d like to give a shout-out to the men in our lives. Not hard to do, right?

Referrals 156

Referrals Cold Calling Social Media Call-back 156

No More Cold Calling

AUGUST 14, 2019

There’s always a silver lining to getting sacked. I didn’t plan to start my referral business so soon. My employer gave me two weeks to get my accounts in order. She asked me to stay for three months on a part-time, temporary basis. From Consulting Business to Referral Business. Was this company asking?

Referrals 291

Referrals Cold Calling Survey Scale 291

No More Cold Calling

JULY 27, 2023

She finally asked her team: “Did you ever close business over email?” My colleague thought it was rather presumptuous of the prospect to ask him to drop everything and hop on a plane. The chance to get all the decision-makers in one room was worth the inconvenience and the extra money. They weren’t even close to making quota.

Decision Maker 156

Decision Maker Referrals Face-to-face Social Media 156

No More Cold Calling

APRIL 26, 2021

Referral sellers have been relationship-building their way through the pandemic. Video conferencing is a great way to get face to face with clients. But while it may be as close as you can get to in-person, it’s not, and you’re not. But not referral sellers. How do you get access to your prime prospects?

Sales Meeting 287

Sales Meeting Meeting Referrals Face-to-face 287

No More Cold Calling

JULY 20, 2018

Don’t assume your team knows how to ask for referrals. Tim told me his team was “doing referrals.” He figured they knew how to get referrals because he told them to do it. I asked how that approach was working for him. 5 Misconceptions About Asking for Referrals.

Referrals 288

Referrals Sales Qualified Lead Social Media B2C 288

No More Cold Calling

DECEMBER 27, 2022

When I read about how sales has evolved to be buyer-centric and relationship-driven, I was ready to scream. Want to Get Referrals? Tim told me his team was “doing referrals.” He figured they knew how to get referrals because he told them to do it. I asked how that approach was working for him.

Referrals 156

Referrals Prospecting Lead Gen Cold Calling 156

No More Cold Calling

MAY 2, 2019

They never took the time to learn how to sell. They didn’t learn how to sell in their previous roles. But it’s easy to understand the confusion, considering how many pushy, arrogant salespeople give the rest of us a bad reputation.). Still don’t think it’s important to learn how to sell? For more than 50 years, the U.S.

Small Business 316

Small Business Small Business Referrals Hiring 316

No More Cold Calling

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

on how he asks for referrals. I never pass up the chance to chat about referrals. Here’s how Mario describes our conversation: Joanne shares how you should ask for referrals and reveals the exact questions you should ask to qualify those referrals. This was his 126th episode.

Lead Generation 267

Lead Generation Referrals Sales Qualified Lead Leads 267

No More Cold Calling

DECEMBER 30, 2021

The most valuable business relationships that salespeople have are those with our clients—the people who know our value, give us repeat business, and provide us with referrals to other great clients. I’ll post more updates on LinkedIn and will ask you to comment and tag people you know. I admit those were excuses.

Referrals 194

Referrals Small Business Small Business Cold Calling 194

No More Cold Calling

JANUARY 14, 2021

And they wouldn’t have that problem if they knew how to get referrals. On each live episode, I’ll cover a digestible topic (mostly regarding referrals) in just 15 to 30 minutes. Frankly, this is how I learn—in short segments. Frankly, this is how I learn—in short segments. So why is your outreach still cold?

Gatekeeper 265

Gatekeeper Referrals Cold Calling Telemarketing 265

No More Cold Calling

NOVEMBER 16, 2018

If you think referrals don’t scale, you’re just doing it wrong. Sales leaders often tell me that referral leads are their most qualified, most convertible leads. Then in the next breath, they tell me referral business doesn’t scale. Scaling a referral business is a series of steps that must be taken.

Scale 313

Scale Referrals Hiring Sales Qualified Lead 313

Sales 2.0

MAY 20, 2020

There’s a professor of psychology at Oxford University called Robin Dunbar and his research helped quantify just how connected we are. If you have the virus (and let’s say you are asymptomatic so you don’t know you have it) if you interact with 10 people at a party, then they interact with 10 people at a family get together etc.

Cold Calling 501

Cold Calling Referrals Networking Campaigns 501

Alice Heiman

MARCH 7, 2023

If a referral closes up to 70% of the time, why are we spending most of our effort on strategies that close less than 1% of the time?! One strategy that avoids these issues altogether is to create a referral program within your company.  Referrals were hit and miss. Everyone gets inbound referrals.

Referrals 131

Referrals Top of Funnel Closing Strategy 131

No More Cold Calling

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

If you’re like most sales leaders, you’re tracking the wrong referral metrics and spinning your wheels. Craig had only one referral KPI, and it was the wrong one: the number of prospect meetings that his reps conducted. It may seem obvious, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get. The Referral Metrics That Matter.

Referrals 258

Referrals Scale Cold Calling Social Media 258

No More Cold Calling

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

How to connect beyond the click when asking for referrals. She’d tried asking for referrals to George on LinkedIn, but she felt their introductions lacked the emotion needed to convince George to meet with her. This time, she arranged a call with her colleague to get the referral. What a difference!

Referrals 253

Referrals LinkedIn Social Media Ideal Customer Profile 253

Sales 2.0

JULY 8, 2022

Teams of people spend their life pushing to get a few more chips out of each silicon wafer. I picture how a company in the high tech chip business could survive when only 1 in 100 of their chips was usable (or 1 in 1,000). Do you know how you help? I used to work for a major semiconductor manufacturer.

Prospecting 370

Prospecting Outsourcing Services Cold Calling Hiring 370

No More Cold Calling

FEBRUARY 15, 2018

Getting past the gatekeeper shouldn’t be so daunting. Why is getting past the gatekeeper and finding qualified leads so challenging for salespeople? The goal is reaching the right person, which means getting past the gatekeeper. One assistant told me many cold callers lie and tell him the CEO asked them to reach out.

Gatekeeper 306

Gatekeeper Webinar Metrics Sales Qualified Lead Decision Maker 306

No More Cold Calling

JANUARY 23, 2020

For that, salespeople need to know how to have business conversations, how to build relationships, and how to take responsibility for delivering what they promised. It’s our job as consultative salespeople to guide our clients on what it takes to get the results they expect and to be with them throughout the sales execution.

Guarantee 329

Guarantee Referrals Sales Qualified Lead Cold Calling 329

No More Cold Calling

JUNE 29, 2019

As Eisenhower put it, “Our people, from the very highest to the very lowest, have learned that this is not a child’s game and are ready and eager to get down to fundamentals.”. Don’t miss this opportunity for your own training in the Virtual Referral Selling Workshop Series beginning Tuesday, July 16. Enter the Referral Code Save300.

Referrals 222

Referrals Social Media Sales Qualified Lead Cold Calling 222

No More Cold Calling

JUNE 7, 2018

I’ve just returned from three conferences, and the #1 challenge I heard sales pros repeat again and again was how to get leads in the pipe. And how can a B2B referral program drive up those numbers? How could we, when we’re all standing behind screens? Wait, wasn’t technology supposed to solve that problem?

Referrals 276

Referrals Sales Qualified Lead Leads Marketing Qualified Lead 276

No More Cold Calling

DECEMBER 7, 2018

Referrals aren’t favors. Salespeople often downplay the importance of referral networks or just don’t know how to ask for a referral. Don’t get distracted; don’t get embarrassed. Relationships and referrals are what business is all about! They don’t know how to ask for a referral the right way.

Referrals 310

Referrals How To Cold Calling Lead Generation 310

No More Cold Calling

OCTOBER 1, 2019

I know what you’re thinking: “Hold on, Joanne, that’s not how it works.”. If you make the mistake of being 100 percent heads-down getting deals done, you won’t have qualified leads in your pipeline for next year. You have increased pressure to get revenue in the door before year-end. You’ll be well positioned for Q1 and beyond.

Referrals 209

Referrals Pipeline Sales Qualified Lead Cold Calling 209