For the complex sale you need enthusiastic referrals to help you build your reputation, differentiate yourself, demonstrate your value proposition, shorten your sales cycle, and drive revenue.
So how do you ask for referrals? I wrote a post called, "Asking for referrals does more than Generate Leads," based on the Harvard Business Review article, "The One Number You Need to Grow" by Frederick F. Reichheld.
During two years of research, Reichheld discovered, that the answer to this basic question, 'Would you recommend our products/services to a business peer?', correlated directly to growth rates.
Jim Lenskold and Bill Lee just wrote a practical article on MarketingProfs which builds on Reichhelds's research and ideas. MarketingProfs: Turning Customers Into Your Sales and Marketing Department
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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for "the complex sale."
Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.
Leads Too Valuable For Sales People AloneWhy Most B2B Sites Fail to Convert Sales LeadsFinding Your B2B Lead GenerationSales and Marketing as a TeamTarget Marketing - Whats a Lead?Generating Leads from Tradeshow/ConferencesSales and Marketing the Six Sigma WayScoring For Better LeadsYahoo Patent Filing Sheds Light On PageRank Customer Referrals: Viral Marketing Goes Old School
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