Referrals and more: Current clients are the key to referrals

By Joanne Black

February 08, 2011 at 07:00 PM

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Getting business from current clients is usually the easiest because they already use your product. Unless you have done a poor job with the account or have not kept up with their needs, you are generally in a good place with them.

Current clients are a great place for referrals and can and should be leveraged to bring in new business. This is why companies spend so much time making sure they have great reviews and working with clients to write these reviews.

So why are you still cold calling?

The numbers don't lie: 90 percent of consumers trust peers, based on a Nielsen poll, and less than 10 percent trust an unknown source. Cold calling is perceived a lot like phone spam. If clients want information, they will search for you or at least leave digital breadcrumbs of questions or conversations that you can find and then engage in.

Selling is based on trust, and you can spend the time–and a lot of it–building trust with people who have never heard from you, or you can move further up to leads and prospects you have some trust with.

This is why salespeople have been hearing so much about the value in nurturing campaigns and social media marketing, but little of it seems to apply to anything a salesperson can influence. This is why "Sales 2.0" is growing in popularity; salespeople can have more relevant intelligence on prospects and become great resources to their clients by using social media, and sales leaders see this as a priority.

Joanne Black is a professional sales speaker, sales webinar leader, and author of "No More Cold Calling: The Breakthrough System That Will Leave Your Competition in the Dust" from Warner Business Books. Visit www.nomorecoldcalling.com.

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