Find Someone To Be Your Advocate

Sales can be difficult, especially if you don't have a warm market, or a built-in social circle to work with. Many companies will encourage you to start off by calling on friends and family. Personally, I think this is a horrible idea. The best way to build a career in sales for the long run is to work off of referrals and new relationships. Why new relationships, you ask? Because they don't have any preconceived ideas about you or your rapport with them.

One of the best finds you'll get in your career is someone who will mention you, go to bat for you and be an overall advocate. As long as this person has some decent standing in the community, having someone to endorse you in public is very satisfying and can be fruitful. Always be grateful and reciprocate whenever possible.

In today's world, we call these people influencers. Social media is full of them but finding them and getting them to work on your behalf is difficult. Until you can find a famous social media influencer to go to bat for you, try to find the ones in your area.

My good friend, Chesty Chastain (Chastain Media), is an advocate for me. He even went out of his way to make a video for my book. I laughed, I cried....

If you're new to the business or just new to your area, go to some networking events (you can find some on Meetup) and start a conversation with some people. Maybe a couple of them will be your influencer or advocate.

For more on how to find those "big fish" influencers on LinkedIn, check out this article by Dhruv Patel.

As usual, look me up on ChrisCastanes.com and please subscribe.

Comments

Changing My Scheduling Calendar For 2025

This blog usually has actionable sales tips and advice to help you succeed in your business. This time, I wanted to take a look at another part of your business, which is scheduling appointments or sales calls or whatever you need to schedule. Having a scheduling calendar that your prospects can make your job so much easier. Instead of calling back and forth to pin a time to meet down, you can let your prospect/client pick their own time. According to FinancesOnline.com, online scheduling can lead to 26% more customers, so sharing your calendar is a real no-brainer. I have a Google calendar that I use to book appointments, but I have also been using Calendly and sharing it on my website and social media. The two calendars are supposed to sync up to avoid double bookings, but recently I discovered an issue. I had blocked out a couple of days on my Google calendar for a business conference, but Calendly was still showing those days as available. After trying to find a way to f...

Introducing the "You're Going To Be Great At This!" Podcast

I was pretty surprised when I saw that my last blog post was several months ago. Time really does fly when you're having fun, or in my case, just having a busy workload. In the last few months I've been on the road for an approximate total of 9 weeks. Needless to say I get less than motivated to work in a hotel room after selling insurance for 8 hours, so blogging isn't on my "to do" list. While driving in my car during these trips I try to make my time productive my listening to podcasts on business and marketing. I'm not sure if someone was trying to tell me something but over the course of a week or so, I heard 4 episodes on how starting a podcast can help boost your business. After mulling this over and considering my options, I decided to take the plunge and start one myself. I've had a YouTube channel for a while which is fine, but I wanted to do something a little different. So I decided to start the "You're Going To Be Great At This!"...

Another Fun Podcast Experience

Over the last few years I have realized that I really enjoy being a guest on podcasts. I've been featured as a guest on about a dozen and they have always been fun. The hosts are as diverse as their podcasts. One host was apparently in the Middle East while others were comedians or local entrepreneurs. Recently I was asked to share my experiences on the Sales Hindsight with Patrick Kagan of the PK Solutions Group. I met Patrick through a group on LinkedIn and he has been a great supporter of my work, even contributing a blurb for my newest book, "Nearly Motivated". He's an internationally renowned author and speaker as well. We had a great talk and I wanted to share it with you. We discuss branding yourself and using humor, among other topics. Patrick is a skilled host and makes the podcast informative AND interesting. Take a listen here and let me know what you think. Ch ris Castane s is a humorous speaker and former comedian who helps sales people succeed thro...

You're Going To Be Great At This!

Search This Blog