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

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