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Can I Date Your Sister?

10 Jul

Very nice article by Michael Katz about why asking your clients for referrals is a bad idea. His analogy is that asking customers for referrals is like someone asking you if they can date your sister. As I’ve written before, I agree about not asking your customers for referrals and instead ask them to be references.

Michael sends out an e-newsletter focused on writing better e-newsletters. You can read why Michael feels the same way I do about customers and referrals here. If you’d like to listen to the newsletter instead, click here.

And why a penguin below? Because Michael’s company is called Blue Penguin Development.

penguin_standing

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Successful Referrals Require More than Just Your Reputation

26 May

Paul McCord has an excellent series of posts on the 4 requirements for a successful referral.

pillars

Pillar 1: Your Relationship to Your Client
Pillar 2: Your Client’s Purchasing Experience
Pillar 3: Your Client’s Relationship to the Referred Prospect
Pillar 4: How You Contact Your Referred Prospect

Paul says that clients don’t like to give referrals. I agree, I think they’re much better at being a reference then pro-actively giving you a referral.  But referrals can be earned and Paul details the “how” which mostly revolves around your reputation with your client.

What’s really interesting is discussed in Paul’s 3rd pillar.  He says, “Your referred prospect will view YOU the same way they view your Client– Good, Bad, or Indifferent”  I absolutely agree.  Inquisix’s data on the quality of a reputation given shows that the better the relationship between the the person giving the referral and their referred colleague, the better the referral experience.  The first hint of a bad referral is how the referral is handled, which is Paul’s 4th Pillar.

So the primary reputation factor in a good referral is not between the person asking and the person giving the referral. Rather, it’s between the person giving the referral and their referred colleague.

Pillars 3 and 4 are why Inquisix allows members to rate each side of the referral via reputation points.  If you give a referral, that member will rate you on the quality of the referral given.  If you get a referral, that member will rate you on how well you treated their trusted colleague. Your Inquisix reputation rating of giving and getting referrals then becomes the badge that all other members can use to validate your credentials.

memberrating

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Inquisix on the Business Insanity Radio Show

18 May

barrymoltz

Barry Moltz has a radio show where he will, “… talk about all the craziness of small business.” Last week’s theme was sales & marketing networking thru social media and he invited me to talk with him. You can listen to my portion of the show below.

[audio:https://michaelkreppein.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/barrymoltz1.jpgwp-content/uploads/2009/05/barrymoltzinquisixinterviewmay2009.mp3%5D

Barry had a few guests on his show along with me, including Alyssa Dver from my last post.  His show was also the inspiration for my post on why the cold calling process is like, “putting lipstick on a pig” which generated quite a few comments. If you’d like to listen to the whole 30 minute talk, go to Barry’s website here and listen to episode #40. You’ll find a wealth of information on his site so enjoy.

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Improve Your Message Before You Call

7 May

Since I have that fancy letter “C” as the first letter in my title as Chief Sales Officer, I get quite a number of cold calls.  Of course it just makes me cringe to be called by someone who hasn’t even spent a minute looking at our business and developing a message about their solution that I’d care about.  But I do enjoy critiquing in my mind their pitch.

Some would like to rename cold calling.  I recently heard it called “introductory calling” in an interview done on Barry Moltz’s talk radio show.  I don’t know, seems analogous to putting lipstick on a pig.

lipstickpig

Instead of just renaming the term, Nigel Edelshain of Sales 2.0 has written a 24-page ebook on turning cold calls into social calls.  He reviews the new Sales 2.0 techniques and tools to “…help you with the three most critical factors: talking to the right people, establishing relationships and using changes in your buyer’s environment.”

You can download Nigel’s book for free here.  Adding his blog to your RSS reader is also well worth it.

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Innovative View To Inside Sales Metrics

27 Apr

I worked with Trish Bertuzzi of The Bridge Group on a few inside sales consulting engagements when I ran PeakSales Consulting in the late ’90’s.

Her company specializes in improving the Insides Sales department, especially when the group is involved in the full sales cycle till close. So they’re well qualified to publish reports on Inside Sales Best Practices. Trish’s latest offering is the “Periodic Table of Insides Sales Metrics” which I think is a really neat way to summarize the important data relevant for building a top-tier Inside Sales Group. Best of all, the table is free to download from The Bridge Group website.

trishtable

If you’re local to Boston and would like to hear Trish speak, why not print out the table and get her to autograph it at the Sales 2.0 Conference on May 21, 2009? I’m first in line!

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Minding Your Money Interview with Inquisix

25 Mar

Tom Cafarella, Inquisix member, owner of accounting firm CMB Accounting and host of “Minding Your Money” on TV, interviewed Michael Kreppein of Inquisix recently. Tom and Michael spoke about the challenges facing small businesses, specifically how they can find new business.

http://www.viddler.com/simple/59f0d3df/

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White Paper Available – Inquisix Referral Networking

4 Mar

Whether you’re a front-line sales rep hunting for new business, a consultant delivering solutions, or small business owner communicating with customers, board members and employees, it’s all about selling: selling to win new business or selling to retain customers in an increasingly competitive marketplace. So what’s the deal with the buzz around emerging Sales 2.0 solutions? Which approaches are best able to fill the pipeline? How can you integrate informal networking with the latest technologies?

This White Paper by Michael Kreppein, Inquisix’s Chief Sales Officer, explores the value of referral networking by using Inquisix to combine your in-person with your online networking.

Please download the White Paper in pdf format by clicking the link below.

InquisixWP
Inquisix White Paper on Referral Networking

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How To Integrate Your Online Networking with In-Person Events for Best Results

27 Feb

We had a great turnout to Friday Feb 20th’s Executive Club of Boston event hosted on BlitzTime. I was invited to talk on integrating your online networking with your in-person networking efforts.  While the audience on the 20th couldn’t see the attached presentation, it’s what I used to prompt me during my speech.

[flashvideo file=”wp-content/uploads/2009/02/inquisixonblitztimeflash.swf” /]

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3 Networking Must-Do's

16 Jan

I was in Westboro, MA earlier this week attending the Corridor Nine Chamber of Commerce‘s networking night.  The event was very well attended by local businesses with over 350 attendees mingling amongst the food, drinks and violin trio.  Very nice, very professional.  Best of all, I caught up with 2 Inquisix members, Rick and Brigitte.  Both knew the Inquisix story and articulated our benefits to other Chamber members.  Thanks!

Now that it’s been a few days since the event, I’m reminded again that many people attend these networking events without a plan.  Do they just show up for the free hors d’oeuvres and open bar?

Three (and only three) MUST-do’s at networking events:

  • Show Up – A surprising number of people attend these events and aren’t prepared.  Showing up means more than arriving.  Did you bring enough business cards to hand out?  Did you bring a pen to jot notes on the back of the cards you receive?  Can you articulate your message in 5 seconds?  There’s too much noise to get a 30 second elevator pitch across so get your message down to 5 seconds.  But the ones who had their 5 second pitch down?  Those people I remember!
  • Follow-up – Even more surprising is the number of people who exchanged cards and never follow up.  Again, why bother showing up?  Why not a simple email, “I enjoyed meeting you at the Chamber event last night and hearing what you do.  I had a chance to look at your website this morning.  Look forward to connecting to you at a future event.  All the best.”  That message is appropriate even if you don’t think the other person can help you.  Because you just never know when someone you’ve met will reach out to you.  Again, the people with the best 5 seconds all reached out to me later this week.
  • Give to Get – Still a shame with all the networking tips freely available on the web that people forget that giving begets getting.  The most active man in the room was Rick.  He spent his time introducing people in the room to each other.  If they had trouble articulating their message, he helped them.  If they forgot the first step in following up (collecting business cards), he gently offered his as a reminder.  Did Rick spend any time telling people what he did?  No, he led by example.

3 simple to-do’s.  No, 3 simple must-do’s.

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Creating a Referral Machine

7 Jan

John Jantsch has a great blog post about creating a systematic process for creating referrals that everyone in the company should be using.

You can find the link here.  I don’t see anything dramatically unique in his steps but they’re all important and it’s surprising how many people forget some of the steps.  Of course his big reminder is to “make giving referrals a business strategy…best way to get is to give.”

He closes with “…everybody’s in marketing…” to which I’d reply, “…everybody’s in sales!”

Happy Referring!

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