Cold Call or Referral?

When the economy weakens; how do you get more business?  If you are in sales, the choices are narrowed down to making more cold calls or doing more business by referral.  As a salesperson, you typically do not have the money to pay for advertising, so normally you make more calls or work your network.

If you know me, you know that I prefer to do business by referral.

I was having a conversation with an otherwise intelligent business owner recently and he stated that his sales people should be concentrating more on cold calling than on building their business by referral in groups like BNI.  I asked why.  He stated that BNI requires too much time during normal business hours.

I was stunned.

Why in the world would you want your sales people to spend more time and more expense for less results? I know that cold calling can work; if you know your cold call numbers and can consistently reach those numbers, then it will work for you.  But at what expense?

Personally I would rather be referred in by a someone that is a trusted referral source. The referral source can provide a warm introduction as well as an opportunity for you to walk in the door with instant credibility. When was the last time you cold called a business and walked in the door with instant credibility?

Now, doing business by referral costs something too; TIME.  It takes more time to develop relationships and to educate a referral source than it does to cold call.  I prefer to invest my time in developing my referral sources.  Want to know why?  Once you have a well educated referral network, you can and will gain more business in less amount of time, with less effort. Oh, and your closing percentage increases!

I am a member of BNI and an Assistant Director for the BNI Southwest Virginia Region.  I am also a student in and a Trainer for the Referral Institute and the Referrals for Life Program. I also build my network, my sales and my consulting business through various online and social resources such as LinkedIn.

How do you gain more business; cold calls or referrals?

John Lusher

Getting things done

I have asked this question before, but not in this format: Why is it that we accomplish more the day before we leave on vacation or go on a trip than on normal days?

I think urgency drives our actions. If you have a deadline at work or school, when do you do the most work? At the last minute! Why is that? Why can we not restructure our thinking so that the urgency is spread out over a few days instead of the last possible day?

We have all enjoyed the tradition of cramming for an exam while in school, and I think a lot of us, myself included, cram too many tasks into one day, prior to leaving on a trip.

I remember listening to a Zig Ziglar tape, yes tape; this was years ago, about how you accomplish more the day before vacation than any other day. Obviously I did not apply what I listened to, but I am committing myself to changing that; I want to get more done in less time so I am not cramming at the last minute!

Some of these are rhetorical questions or thoughts running around in my head. I am curious about your thoughts; let me know if you cram at the last minute or if you have conquered your schedule and to-do list. If you have conquered your schedule and to-do list, let me know how you did it!

One way that I am working on to make better use of my time; narrowing down the social networking sites that I use. I am focusing on one site for personal or fun use, and two sites for business connections or professional use. I think this will eliminate some of my time wasters and I will report back to let you know if it works.

My other tool is to keep my inbox in check. Let’s face it, when we receive an email, the smart action is to act on it and then eliminate it. But sadly we, and that means me too, just keep the emails around for some reason. Not anymore, the in boxes will be at zero!

Let me know what you think and get busy!!

John