The ultimate sales app

But why waste your valuable sales time with a cold outreach when your call could be welcomed by your prospect? Referred prospects expect to hear from you. They actually want to talk to you because someone they know and trust has vouched for you. Your relationship with your referral source gets you in the door, and your sales savvy helps you close the deal.

Referral selling is the most powerful business-development strategy in existence. Here’s why:

• You score every meeting at the level that counts.

• Prospects are presold on your ability to deliver results. Your sales time shortens by at least 20 percent, and you arrive with credibility and trust already earned (not an easy task for most of us).

• Referred clients are more profitable, their deal sizes are larger, and they’re more likely to offer you further referrals. Referral selling is your biggest competitive differentiator. You get in early and uncover problems before your competition knows what hit them. But to get those referrals, you must logoff, pick up the damn phone and have a real live conversation.

Bring back balance

New technology is alluring. It’s easy to get sucked into the digital universe. But while we’re constantly checking our phones to ensure we don’t miss something “out there,” we’re missing opportunities to connect with the people right in front of us. Our relationships are what really matter — in life and business. This is true for everyone, but even more so for salespeople, whose job is to build relationships.

So what do you do? Simple. Use technology to facilitate your sales process — to conduct research, find referral sources, organize information and provide buyers with the tools they need to make the right choices. But don’t rely on it to make a sale.

Sign up for The Lead and get a new tip in your inbox every day! More tips:

• • How to ask for a referral
  • In defense of conversation
  • 5 tips to build your referral sales