Asking before you deliver

Buyers check their own network before they check you. The show describes the order plainly: you tap your personal network first, then you go online. Which makes referrals and testimonials worth asking for, and makes the timing of the ask the entire game.

Here is the mechanism, and it is the most immediately usable thing on this page. Ask for the referral, the testimonial or the case study at the start of the deal, during negotiation. Not after you have delivered.

Why: if you wait until the deal has closed, bigger companies push the request to legal or HR for permission, and legal and HR will almost always say no, because saying yes is a risk they have no reason to take. Ask during negotiation and they will say yes, especially when it is part of what is being traded.

The specific version worth stealing: ask upfront whether, if you do a really good job, you can shoot a short two minute video of them talking about the problem you helped them solve. Not about you, about the problem. Get the permission while someone still wants something from you.

Ask during negotiation and they say yes. Ask after closing and it goes to legal, who say no.

Source: Referrals. Why, How and When?, episode 7 of the Oil & Gas Sales & Marketing Podcast.

The same episode puts a number on how often the ask actually lands, and it is the reason to bother asking at all: earn it first and the data says people will follow through on a referral, a review, or an introduction about 40 percent of the time. That number only shows up once you have asked. It is not a reason to skip the ask, it is the return on making it.

Source: Referrals. Why, How and When?, episode 7 of the Oil & Gas Sales & Marketing Podcast.

Some of those deals, though, you should not be trying to close at all.