Nearbound Daily #569: Bob Burg's Secret to Endless Referrals

Nearbound Daily #569: Bob Burg's Secret to Endless Referrals

Ella Richmond 4 min

Welcome to the Nearbound Daily Newsletter—the #1 partnerships newsletter in the world keeping thousands of partner professionals on top of the latest industry principles, tactics, and trends. nearbound.com is a project of Reveal. Join the movement here.

 


PRINCIPLES

Learn enough to be dangerous

You don’t have to be a nearbound expert. You just have to know enough to be dangerous.

 

In your role. In your company. In your industry.

 

Most people make the mistake of either:

  1. Trying to understand everything before they start

  2. Starting before they know anything

Make “dangerous” your goal.

 


TACTICS

How to ask clients for referrals

If you want someone to give you a great referral, don’t ask, “Who do you know…”

 

Why? It’s overwhelming.

 

You ask the question and a hundred faces flash through their mind.

 

Unconsciously, they start to panic and the phrase, “I can’t think of anyone right now, but when I do I’ll let you know” comes out of their mouth.

 

That’s when you know you’ve lost the referral.

 

Bob Burg, co-author of the best-seller, The Go-Giver, chatted with Max Traylor and explained a better way to ask for referrals. It’s his secret to endless referrals.

 

When someone knows, likes, and trusts you, they want to help you succeed but you have to help them help you.

 

The secret: Rather than ask general questions, create individual small funnels to make it easy for a person to come up with names.

For example, let’s say you’re talking to someone named Don and you know Don is a golfer. You can say, “Hey Don, I know you golf a lot. Do you play with different people or the same people?”

Pause and wait for Don to respond. He shares the names of the people he plays with.

 

Now you can say, “Don, do you think any of those individuals might be open to or interested in [your product or service]?”

 

You’re only 45 minutes away from mastering referrals.

 

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RESOURCE OF THE DAY

Jason Lemkin & the CMOs of HubSpot and Zapier on the state of the market

The state of the economy is not a good excuse for complacency.

 

The King of SaaS, Jason Lemkin, and two legends of marketing, Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan, got together for an epic episode of Marketing Against the Grain where they shared their thoughts on AI, marketing, automation, and the market.

 

They did not hold back.

 

Here was my favorite point they made:

The current economic climate is not necessarily a downturn, but rather a “side turn,” and many founders are using it as an excuse for not innovating or adapting their products.

Sure, there are a lot of companies struggling to hit their numbers, but instead of writing it off as just how it is, this is an opportunity for you to iterate and find out what works.

 

This is an opportunity for you to get ahead.

 

Read Jason Lemkin’s notes on the episode here.

 

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Stuff you don’t want to miss!

  • May 2nd—The Era of Ecosystem Orchestration is (Nearly) Here—Join 360 Insights and their close partners to unveil their new ecosystem project that stands to redefine their marketplace forever. Register here.

  • May 7th—MartechDay 2024—Join Scott Brinker (VP Platform Ecosystems at HubSpot) and Frans Riemersma (Founder, MartechTribe) to release the latest Marketing Technology Landscape graphic. It’s a celebration of the thousands of talented people working in martech, at brands, vendors, and across the community. Scott and Frans will also be interviewing key leaders for their deep domain-specific knowledge. Register here.

  • Nearbound Summit 2023 Recordings—The future of GTM is Nearbound. Watch the recordings to hear how B2B leaders across departments unite with Nearbound strategies and tactics. Listen here.

 

You’re all caught up.


RECENTLY PUBLISHED ON NEARBOUND.COM

 


See you tomorrow

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If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here to get the newsletter every week.

 

nearbound.com is a project of Reveal.co

Ella Richmond 4 min

Nearbound Daily #569: Bob Burg's Secret to Endless Referrals


If you want someone to give you a great referral, don’t ask, “Who do you know?” Why? It’s overwhelming. You ask the question and a hundred faces flash through their mind. Here's what Bob Burg says to do instead.


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