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How to build a reputation that gets you job referrals | Stephen Oommen | TEDxUNYP

17:07 recording · AUTO · 1 speaker

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Brief overview

Referrals beat cold outreach: character, conviction, clarity, competence and credibility are what make you referable.

  1. Doing more of what you ignore is not a strategyStephen points out that leaders prescribe more cold calls and emails while never answering one themselves.
  2. Principles scale, tactics don'tTwo people can use the same message and talk track and get widely different results — one makes the audience laugh, the other makes them cringe.
  3. Ask for one introduction to test your referabilityAsk who the most influential person someone respects is, then ask to be introduced — a yes means your reputation is strong enough to travel.
Executive Summary AI
  • Stephen says that when he asks executives, entrepreneurs and sales leaders about strategy he hears the same answer — more activity, more cold calls, more emails, scale, scale, scale — defended as a numbers game.
  • When he asks why nobody answers those calls themselves, the answer always comes back to a lack of trust, which has created a tactical gap in access to decision makers, influencers and the people who sign the check.
  • A rep in his organization told him warm referrals add an extra step, complexity and time, and then said the line that changed his trajectory: no one is teaching us how to build a network properly and create a warm referral engine.
  • Over 25 years as an entrepreneur and go-to-market leader he noticed five qualities that show up in people who are consistently referred — character, conviction, clarity, competence and credibility — which build the reputation that makes someone referable.
  • His practical habit is to end conversations by asking who is the most influential person that knows you well whom you highly respect, then ask why they respect them and request an introduction; a yes proves your reputation travels, a no gives you insight into which of the five Cs you lack.
Key Quote
“More activity, more cold calls, more emails, more, more, more, scale, scale, scale.”
— Stephen
Key Quote
“You're telling me that your strategy is to do more of the very thing you don't respond to?”
— Stephen
Key Quote
“Principle scale tactics don't. Principle scale. Tactics don't.”
— Stephen