Acquisition Data on Cold Calls vs. Referrals
August 20, 2019
by a searcher from University of Notre Dame in Austin, TX, USA
Anecdotally from searchers, I've heard a lot of instances from businesses acquired from referrals (networking, brokers, et al.), and I know there is a heavy emphasis on cold-calling for lead gen.
Does anyone know if Stanford/IESSE/others know the data around ultimate sources of leads closed for acquisitions?
I haven't seen any data but maybe this is an easy question for others to answer. Thanks!
from California State University, Los Angeles in Sacramento, CA, USA
The data will support or not support your internal stance on whether they work or not. If you thought cold calls worked, you'd do it already. If you thought it didn't you would not..as it sound you do not do it.
If you want my scripts on cold calling...let me know. redacted a sales coach and life long cold caller...I think it of course matter referrals versus cold calling. Referral are better of course. Referrals are not how you can scale or work long hours to increase pipeline count.
thought of another way...for every 100 cold calls and it yields 5 deals. next 100 calls plus 5 current clients to ask for referrals yield you 6 deals. next 100 calls + 10 current clients = 7 deals.
They go hand in hand forever. But one must start with that which is not in your hand now. Time to pick up the phone...for both of us.
email if you want to use my stuff.
Dan
from London Business School in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico
Would also love to see some hard data on this. From talking to former searchers and current investors throughout Mexico while fundraising, it seems that referrals (or warm intros) were much more effective in getting deals done that cold calling. Most people still acknowledge that cold calling is part of the MO for searchers, so I would be very curious to see what the data shows globally and/or regionally.