ARTICLES
Asking for Referrals Feels Pushy for a Reason
Every time you think about asking for a referral, something in you flinches. You know your best clients came from introductions. You know the people who could send you more are sitting right there in your phone. And you know, in theory, you should just ask. But the...
Are you investing in the wrong relationships?
A few weeks ago, I was doing something most people in my position never do. I was calculating how much revenue I had referred to two of my Strategic Connectors. Not what they'd sent me. What I'd sent them. The number for each: over $250,000. That stopped me. Not...
The Referral Metric That’s Been Misleading You
For years, I taught salespeople how to ask for referrals. It was one of many modules in the sales training work I did and like most referral training, it was built around a leading metric: how many referrals did you ask for? Ask more, get more. Track your asks, track...
Outbound Is Getting Harder. What If the Answer Isn’t More Activity?
There’s a familiar pattern that plays out inside many professional services firms when growth slows or pipelines become less predictable. Outbound gets harder. Response rates decline. Prospects have more information before they ever engage with a salesperson. AI makes...
Why Referral-Driven Sales Teams Are So Hard to Manage
I learned this lesson the hard way years ago—long before I had any framework for how referrals should actually work. At the time, I was leading a team of sales professionals at a marketing agency. Like many firms, we relied heavily on referrals and relationships to...
You’re Working with the Wrong People
I used to think people who offered services similar to mine were competition. So I kept my distance. Then I started building relationships with a small group of them—intentionally. What I found was surprising. We weren’t competing. We were collaborating. Referring...
If Referrals Drive Your Revenue, Your Approach Deserves a Strategy
You’re busy as hell networking. Intro calls. Coffee meetings. Events. Follow-ups. And yet, referrals are inconsistent at best. That’s not an effort problem. It’s a strategy problem. Most people respond to this by doing more. More meetings. More follow-ups. More...
You’re Measuring the Wrong Thing in Your Referral Strategy
The Scorecard Blind Spot There are three primary ways professionals grow their business: Marketing Direct sales outreach Referrals Marketing has dashboards.Sales has scorecards.Referrals — even when they are the primary revenue engine — often have nothing. No leading...
The Blind Spot in Your Referral System
The Symptoms I Ignored for Too Long I knew something was wrong with my referral system for a long time On paper, everything looked right. I had strong relationships. There was real goodwill. There was alignment. The right kinds of people were in my network. But I...
Stop Asking for Referrals. Start Helping First.
I’ve never loved the advice to “just ask for referrals." Not because it never works — it does, sometimes — but because it misunderstands how relationships actually work in B2B services. Especially for seller-doers. Especially for people who care about trust,...