Sales Leadership Training 

Gold Medal Top Sales & Marketing Blog 2011 Silver Medal Top Sales & Marketing Blog Post 2011 Finalist Top Sales & Marketing Thought Leader 2011 Finalist Top Sales & Marketing Thought Leader 2011

Your email:

Google

Email Me

salesachievementgrader

          Baseline Selling 

Great Sites


topsalesworld
Sales Pro Central

Understanding the Sales Force

Current Articles | RSS Feed RSS Feed

Seth Godin Understands how to Get Referrals

  
  
  
  

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
Up until now, whenever I've mentioned Seth Godin, it's been to take him to task on the subject of the "Death of Selling". Today, Seth made lots of sense with his post on Getting Referrals.  I've also written a post on getting referrals.

Now that you've read both of those posts, here are three important tips to keep in mind:

1.  If  your salespeople aren't comfortable asking for a referral, ask them if they'd be more comfortable making cold calls.

2. When asking for referrals, never allow your salespeople to actually "ask" for referrals.  Instead, have them ask, "who in your circle of friends, might need my help?"

3. If your salespeople have gone through the trouble of asking, make sure they get introduced or else the referral won't know who they are.  When that happens they are still making a cold call.

(c) Copyright 2006 Objective Management Group, Inc.

whitepaper-banner2

Posted by Dave Kurlan on Mon, Nov 27, 2006 @ 08:01 PM

COMMENTS

I'm going to have to eat my words about Selling Power Magazine and say that their cover article this month is about Seth Godin and it's a pretty good article which even seems to understand Mr. Godin.

Godin says that the Sales Funnel and the Cold Call are both dead. Take the sales funnel and turn it on its side and it's a megaphone. These days, it's not even that much about referrals as it is about partnerships with your customers and your referral partners who will use that megaphone to tell others about your greatness.

I'm paraphrasing, but Selling Power hasn't learned that giving away information (one of Seth's ideas and the basis of blogging) is currency of the new economy. I can't link you to Seth's Selling Power article because you have to buy the magazine to get the information. In fact, I'm a subscriber and I can't get the information online - just in my warm and fuzzy paper edition.

So, go get a latte at Borders or Barnes & Noble and read the cover article. It's good.

posted on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 at 8:28 AM by Michael Benidt

Thanks for the comment Michael and while we're at it allow me to point out that Selling Power sent out an email announcement today providing free access, not to their content, but to OneSource, a provider of leads, on December 1 only. http://www.oncesource.com

posted on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 at 10:41 AM by

Comments have been closed for this article.