How many invitations are you getting a week to become a friend of someone on their online networking site? Invitations from social sites like Facebook and business sites like LinkedIn come to my mailbox daily. Then there’s MySpace and Going and MeetUp – the list goes on. It seems like a game or a treasure hunt, “…whoever collects the most friends win….” Remember in the early days of frequent flyer programs when you’d stand around saying, “Well I’m a 50K on United” and another salesrep would trump you by saying, “I have Platinum status on American!” Some of these people have collected online friends like they collect airline miles – I mean seriously, who really knows the 500 people they’re connected to in LinkedIn, for example?
I had these thoughts rattling around for a while but it was Seth Godin’s recent blog that got me to put it down on paper. Seth asks, “I wonder if there’s a more useful measure: who trusts you?”
I agree! Can you really know more than 150 people that well? Enough for them to trust you and vice-versa?
* eBay has seller ratings to help buyers determine if they can trust a seller.
* TrustPlus is a new site that lets you view the reputation of others while building your own reputation.
* Inquisix has member referral ratings for each of our members to help determine if members want to exchange referrals with each other.
Having lots of online friends is nice. Knowing who you can trust online is even better.
All About Referral Selling 