You know that axiom about Sales? The one that says, it takes 5-10 touches in order to close a sale? What that means is in order to get a client to buy in on something, you need to “touch” them 5-10 times. That can mean a meeting, an email, a phone call, or just a casual conversation. The same holds true for networking.
I was reminded of this today while attending a local Baltimore Networking group meeting I belong to. In this particular group each business person has a chance to introduce themselves and ask for referrals. That can mean an industry or market they are hoping to reach, or a specific company. I asked the group for referrals to any authors who may be interested in doing an audiobook. Either with me as the narrator, or with them narrating while I engineer and record.
Now here’s the thing…I have been asking this same question to this group for weeks. I think 4 previous times to be exact. Today, the colleague next to me said “Oh yeah, I have a client who is an author, here’s his information”.
This same colleague has been at all the same previous meetings where I asked for this referral before. In a few cases he was sitting next to me, as he was today!
So I contacted the author today and he said he HAS thought about doing an audiobook and would love to learn more!
Was my colleague holding back on me? Mad at me? Didn’t trust me enough with the referral? Probably none of those things. There was probably just something small that had this client jump to top of mind when I asked for the referral to authors today. Maybe he just paid an invoice, or sent a Holiday gift. Whatever the reason, today was the day persistence paid off.
Sometimes it really is that simple.
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