Last week I was in California speaking to M-Squared and the Bay Area Consultants' Network. During my visit, I had a chance to get together with Joanne Black, author of No More Cold Calling.
On my flight home, I read her book from cover-to-cover. Initially I was skeptical since I'm not a big fan of networking. But Joanne assured me her approach was different.
She's right. Here's the review I posted today on Amazon:
If you're not asking for and leveraging referrals to increase your sales, you're making a big mistake. This is especially true in today's corporate environment where decision makers seldom answer the phone, roll all calls to voicemail and never call you back.
In No More Cold Calling, Joanne Black outlines a pathway to build your business via referrals. She very pointedly differentiates between hopeful networking versus strategic referral generation. She stresses the need to:
- Clearly define your ideal customer.
- Focus in on their critical business issues.
- Know your value proposition and ROI.
- Invite others to open the door for you.
For those of you who have read my book (Selling to Big Companies), you'll find this to be a perfect compliment since it tackles a subject I only briefly touch on. And, if you hate to ask for referrals, you need to read No More Cold Calling too.
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