Most sales teams miss quota year over year. Yet, quotas keep increasing, and sales leaders report they have fewer resources. Unfortunately, the account based sales development trend is for companies to invest in new sales technology at the expense of developing their teams’ sales acumen. Every salesperson—from newbies to experienced account based sales pros—must learn, practice, and perfect new skills to excel in this ever-changing world of sales.
As a sales leader, you’re responsible for increasing revenue, while at the same time managing your profit margins. You need your account based sales reps to seed and grow their accounts, not just hit the phones. If you’ve beaten the odds and held your role for more than 18 months, you’ve gotten your team lined up, your strategy in place, and your goals set.
However, two critical account based sales development challenges remain:
- Generating a consistent stream of qualified sales leads
- Getting your reps calling high enough to reach decision-makers
You need a disciplined and dependable approach to build both bottom-line and top-line results. You need an approach that allows your team to fill their pipelines with qualified sales leads, and then to land and expand methodically and consistently. In other words, you need a system for referrals.
The Business Case for Referrals in Account Based Sales
A referral program addresses these challenges and more by helping account based selling teams:
- Get meetings with decision-makers in one call, because they’ve been referred by people their prospects know and trust.
- Bypass the gatekeeper and get welcomed into the C-suite, while their competitors are still making cold calls and pestering strangers on social media.
- Reduce the sales process so they can spend more time with customers and less time prospecting.
- Convert prospects into clients at least 50 percent of the time, usually between 70 and 90 percent.
Got your attention?
It’s Time for Referrals Reinvented in Account Based Selling
If your account based sales team isn’t asking every single client for referrals, they’re leaving good money on the table. And they’ll keep leaving it there, unless they have a disciplined referral system with strategy, skills building, ongoing coaching from sales leaders, metrics, and accountability for results.
Referral selling is simple, but it’s not easy. Achieving referral success means adopting referral selling as a strategic initiative for account based sales development. It’s not an afterthought; it’s a priority. Asking for referrals is not going above and beyond; it’s part of the sales process and the job description.
Ready to commit to referral selling and help your team generate a steady stream of qualified sales leads? Learn more about the No More Cold Calling Referral Selling Program—a three-month, intensive deep-dive for account based sales leaders and their teams.
You have a bias for action; otherwise you wouldn’t be a sales leader. So, let’s get started.