Succeeding with Referrals

Once you’ve found your top influencers, start onboarding. If you haven’t read about why referrals are so important in scaling GTM or how to find the best partners, you can read my last blog post about referrals. Remember you’re still selling here, but instead of a product, you’re selling yourself / the company. 

Approach building your referral program the same way you would with a typical sales pipeline. You want to be intentional about who you’re reaching out to, track every step of the process with a CRM, and focus on retention post onboarding. 

You’re now managing a team of SDRs, so you must manage / track goals. If they aren’t performing, you need to move on quickly to ensure the success of your program. I like to cycle out 1-2 referral partners per quarter to keep things fresh. 

You should also think about setting the partner up for success. They could already have connections, but I’ve found relationships with influencers most successful when giving them direction. One great strategy is to build a shared list of the top 100 companies you’d like to speak to. Your referral partner can then better understand your customer profile, get a head start on introductions in case they have existing connections at those companies, and build momentum. Using a pre-built list, one of my referral partners netted me 6 net-new meetings per week (on average) for a quarter.

As teams get into more competitive waters, it’s imperative they find creative ways to outcompete, with building out a well-thought-out referral program being one of them. This type of program can be a great tool to boost sales in market downturns or as a general augmentation of your GTM, but it’s important you build a process around it to ensure the referral program’s success.

Follow along here and on X if you’re interested in learning more about navigating sales in our increasingly digital world.