I’ve talked to so many company leaders and sales execs lately who are facing the same problem: before the recession, they acquired all of their new business through referrals. But ever since the economy weakened, the referral “pipeline” has dried up. They are frankly terrified because they have no processes in place to develop new business. This phenomenon especially hurts companies in industries that saw deep business downturns–construction, real estate, marketing and PR, to name just a few.
In some industries, there was so much opportunity, so much business, and so much money that companies grew exponentially even though they were devoid of rudimentary methods to generate new business. They were undoubtedly marketing but they were not doing much in the way of targeted selling. They were in fact proud of having a totally “referral based” business.
Today they know how risky that is–but that doesn’t mean they know what to do about it. Today’s newsletter addresses that problem with some concrete steps: read it here at Five Ways to Regain Your Referral Business.
