47% of top sellers start with a referral (S: Sales Insight Lab)
84% B2B sales start with a referral (S: Edelman Trust Barometer).
In order of deal close speed:
New business from existing clients
Ex clients who've moved roles
Referrals
Cold prospects.
Role movers and referrals are critical sales strategies if you want to stay in business. Generating focused insight to share that keeps you useful to them is marketing task No. 1. They are your dripping roast. They are a far better investment than a splurge on those cold spam, cold calls and speed dating.
Yet, incredibly, my experience is that many B2B businesses rarely ask for referrals as a key part of their B2B Marketing Strategy. And, client managers get so focused on today that they don't properly track movers for tomorrow.
A multi-vertical and/or horizontal business strategy also hinders the steady drip of referrals. More often than not clients move within a sector. If your business is generalist, then it becomes less likely that you'll see so many leads from these movers. You'll probably have delivered less well when they were a client vs. expert alternatives, have less true insight to share; have lower brand credibility within multiple sectors.
Given tracking role movers and always asking for referrals are vital to growth, then focusing your business strategy so that they can deep fill your sandwich is a priority. Or you're hanging your marketing and sales team out to dry. No one likes hunger accompanied by spending what's left of the lunch money on trying to persuade cold prospects to buy...whilst others enjoy their roast lunch.
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