5 min read ⌚ 

Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales

You have heard about the importance of networking.

You may have even handed out a few business cards thinking you were doing it.

However, that is not how networking goes.

Read our summary of “Endless Referrals” and learn the right way to network, as well as the importance of getting referrals.

Who Should Read “Endless Referrals”? And Why?

True networking has one purpose: to get people to “know, like and trust” you. This and only this will be the reason that makes those people buy what you offer.

However, how do you become one of these trustworthy, likable people?

Bob Burg believes that the answer to this question lies in the way you communicate. You should place the focus on the other person and make them talk about themselves; you should do the referring first and so on.

Burg continues to remind you throughout the book that selfless help will get you many benefits.  

If you are someone who wants to learn how to network the right, productive way, we recommend “Endless Referrals” to you.

About Bob Burg

Bob Burg is a writer, speaker and founder and president of a communications company in Jupiter, Florida.

“Endless Referrals Summary”

If you want to keep your sales up, you should focus on building an “endless” list of referrals.

Why should you do it?

Because this simple, yet powerful list of prospects will boost your confidence and fuel your belief in your product and service.

The list will also enable you to kee and emotional distance from the process of sales since you will no longer worry constantly about where you will find another prospect if you do not close the current one.

If you are in the sales business, you should know by now that the best and most reliable way to build a sales practice is to have a strong network.

Sales networking, by definition, is “an arrangement of people crossed at regular intervals by other people, all of whom are cultivating mutually beneficial, give-and-take, win-win relationships with each other.”

Joe Girard, the guy who made it into the Guinness World Records Book by selling more cars than anyone else for 14 consecutive years, created the “Law of 250.”

According to this law, each person has a “sphere of influence” of 250 people.

How did he come up with the idea?

By finding out the average number of people invited to a funeral or a wedding.

So, what this means is that every time you add a person to your network, you also add 250 indirect contacts.

The “Endless Referrals System” functions based on one main principle: “All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to those people they know, like and trust.”

Networking is not giving your e-mails and handing out business cards to whomever you meet.

When you are networking, you should get the prospects to “know, like and trust” you.

You can achieve this by initiating a conversation in which the other person enjoys. You can do this by letting the other person do the talking and asking various questions and subquestions.

In the key lessons below, we offer you ten questions which you can tailor to fit people in different professions.

Also, use the “FORM” method: Family, Occupation, Recreation, Message.

The reason that the “FORM” method is so useful is that no single person on this planet has nothing to say about at least one of these areas.

If you succeed following our advice, you will be able to achieve great results, which you can duplicate endlessly.

Okay, now that you know how to network, it is time to move on to when and where to network?

The answer is simple: everywhere and everytime.

Do not limit your networking to just events which are tied to your business. They are great places to start, that is for granted, but your networking should not end there.

Key Lessons from “Endless Referrals”

1.      Ten Questions Designed to Encourage the People You Communicate With to Talk About Themselves
2.      Key Benefits of Getting Referrals
3.      The Three Steps of “Attraction Marketing”

Ten Questions Designed to Encourage the People You Communicate With to Talk About Themselves

• • “How did you get your start in the … business?”

• • “What do you enjoy most about your profession?”

• • “What separates you and your company from the competition?”

• • “What advice would you give someone just starting in the … business?”

• • “What one thing would you do with your business if you knew you could not fail?”

• • “What significant changes have taken place in your profession through the years?”

• • “What do you see as the coming trends in the … business?”

• • “Describe the strangest or funniest incident you have experienced in your business.”

• • “What ways have you found to be the most effective for promoting your business?”

• “What one sentence should you use to describe the way you do business?”

Key Benefits of Getting Referrals

• • When you have a reference, it is easier to get an appointment

• • Price is not a that big of a concern.

• • Closing the deal is not as difficult as it usually is.

• • Prospects consider you a “referral-based” salesperson.

• • The prospect knows someone who has used and liked your service or product.

• • People who give you referrals become more confident in their decision to invest with you.

• You can spend less time prospecting.

The Three Steps of “Attraction Marketing”

• • “Advertise (paid or free) in a particular medium.”

• • “Include a telephone number (usually toll-free) or Web address where people can receive free information.”

• “Issue a ‘call to action’ within that information, a number or Web site the respondent can contact to set an appointment or request the product or service you sell.”

Like this summary? We’d Like to invite you to download our free 12 min app, for more amazing summaries and audiobooks.

“Endless Referrals” Quotes

Successful networkers, the ones who receive tons of referrals and feel truly happy about themselves, continually put the other person’s needs ahead of their own.

Our Critical Review

In his book “Endless Referrals” Bob Burg gives a list of workable and easily applicable strategies for attracting prospects and turning them into customers.

Sometimes, he continues explaining his points long after you understood them, but you will not even notice it, being drowned in a sea of useful information.

Emir Zecovic

Emir is the Head of Marketing at 12min. In his spare time, he loves to meditate and play soccer.