Sales Badassery

11HOW TO BECOME A PROMINENT SALES BADASSIt Doesn’t Matter Who You Know—What Matters Is Who Knows You

As the old saying goes, “It’s who you know that matters.”

Although it’s true that you will become a composite of the group of people you associate with the most (meaning drop your loser friends and stop loaning them money), it’s only a half-truth, if even that, that who you know matters most.

That was true during the Industrial Age, but not now, not in the Information Age.

Heck, even before the Industrial Age it was true. (Just not after.) Back in the Agrarian Age—the 1800s and prior—when farming and agriculture were the largest and most dominant industries in the world, you had to get connected to sell your goods.

Think about it: There was no Internet, no phones, the mail took weeks if it was sent a long distance, and the only advertising media available were newspaper ads and flyers, along with cold calls. Back then, cold calls actually worked because there were so few of them and people had far more time on their hands to talk to salespeople than today.

Then along came the Industrial Age. Now depending on whom you listen to, you’ll get varying dates on when cold calling died. Jeffrey Gitomer says it hasn’t worked since the 1980s. Dan Kennedy says it stopped working in the 1950s. Either way, even decades ago, busy decision-makers got fed up with having their very busy schedules interrupted with cold callers.

As a result, the big thing became connections. You had to get connected. ...