After 30 years in business, what surprises me most isn’t what changed—it’s what didn’t.
This June, I’m celebrating 30 years in business. Thirty years of watching companies grow, struggle, reinvent themselves, and chase the next big thing.
And if I’m honest, what surprises me most isn’t how much has changed; it’s how much is still exactly the same.
Technology has transformed sales. We went from phone calls to email. Email to social selling. Social selling to automation. AI now promises faster outreach, more personalization, and greater scale.
Yes, the technology has changed, but the strategy (and the thinking behind it) is stuck in the past.
Technology Changed. Growth Thinking Didn’t
One thing remains stubbornly the same: Companies still believe growth comes from reaching more strangers.
That belief drove me crazy 30 years ago. It still does.
Before I started my business, I spent some time cold calling. I wasn’t very productive. I’d make three calls … and then call a friend and chat for 20 minutes. At the time, I didn’t know why I actively avoided this common sales tactic. Now I do.
I wasn’t avoiding work. I just knew that cold calling didn’t work. I knew that sales success was based on trusting relationships, and pestering strangers wasn’t going to help me foster them.
The Question That Changed Everything
The real turning point came when I started my business in 1996.
Back then, referral selling wasn’t even on my radar. I was working with an outplacement firm integrating a sales plan into their business plan. At the same time, they were conducting a customer satisfaction survey with 50 of their best clients.
I added one final question: “Would you be willing to be a referral for this company?”
The highest possible score on the survey was 7. That question came back at 6.5.
I felt like I had cracked the selling code, found the holy sales grail, solved the business development puzzle.
I couldn’t wait for the next management meeting to share this discovery. I walked in and announced, “Fifty of your best clients said they’d refer you. Are you asking for referrals?”
The answer? No.
That answer fascinated me, so I started talking with salespeople and sales leaders I knew. I asked what they thought about sales referrals. They told me they loved getting referrals and that referrals led to better conversations, easier access, faster decisions, and stronger relationships.
Then I asked the logical follow-up questions:
- Do you have a referral strategy?
- Referral metrics?
- Skills-building for your reps?
- Accountability for asking?
No, no, no, no.
That was the common refrain in 1996, and it’s just as common today.
The Referral Sales Opportunity Most Companies Still Ignore
Thirty years later, companies still invest enormous energy trying to create trust with people who don’t know them. Meanwhile, they overlook the trust they’ve already earned with existing clients—which could yield new sales opportunities via referrals.
That’s the surprise. Not that referrals work. Everyone agrees they work. The surprise is that so few organizations treat referral sales as their primary growth strategy.
Maybe companies already have more growth opportunities than they think. Maybe trust isn’t the problem. Maybe what we do with trust is.
That’s the topic of my next blog post. Because referral selling isn’t a tactic. It’s a growth strategy.
