The Sovereign Seller Email #27: The One Thing 97% of B2B Salespeople Never Do ...

Welcome to Issue #27 of The Sovereign Seller. In today’s business climate “sales” is no longer the differentiator. The “edge” today is in “prospecting.” It’s the art and science of getting the attention of, and appointments with, your most ideal clients.

Sunday

March 7th, 2026

Indianapolis, IN

7:11 AM

Your largest source for high-converting leads is right in front of you.

It’s not a new cold email sequence.

It’s not a better LinkedIn message.

It’s not AI-generated outreach or a smarter ad campaign.

It’s a referral.

And most of us never ask for one - it took me a long time to realize how dumb that is.

Because asking for them feels awkward.

It feels desperate, and transactional.

Like you’re putting your relationships on the line for a long shot.

So most of us default to cold calling and cold emailing while acres of diamonds lie buried in our contacts.

I was one of those people. For years.

The Confession I Put In Writing

In 2021, I was running corporate sponsorship sales for Ball State Athletics.

I was fed up with cold outreach. I felt it was beneath my skill level.

I had read enough books, invested in enough training, and knew I wasn’t using all of the sales arrows in my quiver - for example - I was 4 years into this job and had never asked any of our 80+ sponsors for a referral.

Why not?

Why did it feel less scary to ask strangers to buy vs. someone who was already spending money with me? Someone with a network beyond my own reach?

I learned one of the most thoughtful ways to approach existing clients for referrals was via a personal letter sent through the mail.

And in that letter I admitted this:

“One thing I’ve never been good at is asking for referrals!”

This felt like a better way to me. It wasn't in person, or pushy.

It gave them time and space to decide if they could help or not.

They didn't have to say no to my face. They didn't have to say anything.

Every time I ran that referral mailing campaign, I got 2–3 referrals.

Not leads. Not form fills. Warm introductions from people who already trusted me, handed off to prospects who already had a reason to take my call.

Each new customer could be worth $25,000 to $50,000, so two warm referrals from a single campaign is not a modest result.

Why Referrals Feel Gross

I'm sure you've been a victim of a haphazard attempt to get you to refer someone - badly.

• The hollow “if you know anyone, send them my way” tacked onto the end of a pitch.
• The LinkedIn message from someone you haven’t talked to in three years asking you to make an intro.
• The commission-breath ask before any value has been delivered.

That version is uncomfortable because it should be.

It’s extractive. It’s asking someone to spend their social capital on your behalf without giving them any reason to want to.

The fix isn’t to get comfortable with that version. It’s to ask differently.

The approach I used - and what I now teach to clients - I call the Give First System.

The Give First System

The sequence is everything. Here’s how it works.

• Start with gratitude, not the ask.

Your letter, email, or call should have one stated purpose: to say thank you and reconnect. That’s it. The referral ask comes later ... it's buried, low-pressure, almost incidental. When the stated purpose of your outreach is appreciation, the ask that follows lands completely differently.

• Give something with real value before you ask for anything.

In my Ball State campaign, I included a free copy of my book - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Advertisers - with every letter. A book is not a tchotchke. It’s a positioning artifact. It tells the recipient how you think. It earns credibility before the ask. And it sits on their desk with your name on the spine long after the letter is filed away.

You don’t need to have written a book. A curated book by someone else that reflects your worldview, a useful framework you created, or a piece of content that positions your thinking can all work. The standard is: would this be genuinely useful, and does it say something about how you approach your work?

• Make the ask secondary - and give them an exit.

The referral ask in my letter ran about two sentences. I told my sponsors what kind of partner I was looking for, asked if they knew anyone who fit, and immediately gave them a graceful out: “If you can’t think of anyone - completely understand and no problem - I know you are busy!” That exit is not weakness. It removes the pressure that makes people want to avoid the whole conversation. People are more likely to help when they don’t feel trapped.

• If you offer an incentive, make it prosocial - not transactional.

In my Ball State letter, I offered a $50 donation to the charity of their choice for any introduction made. Not cash in their pocket. A donation in their name. That distinction matters. Cash makes the referral feel like a transaction. A charitable donation in someone’s name makes it feel like a reflection of their values. If you’re going to offer an incentive, err toward the version that makes the referrer feel good about who they are.

The Letter — The Actual One I Sent

Read that letter carefully. It’s not polished corporate communication. It’s personal. It admits a weakness. It thanks before it asks. And the ask itself takes up two sentences in a letter that runs six paragraphs.

That ratio is intentional.

Who This Works For - And Who Should Be On Your List

The Give First System isn’t designed for cold contacts. It’s designed for what I call your Dormant Network - the people who have seen you do good work, who you’ve lost touch with through no particular fault, and who still hold real goodwill toward you.

Think: past clients. Former colleagues. Vendors who worked alongside you on deals. Community contacts from previous roles. The people who would take your call without a second thought - but who haven’t heard from you in a year or two.

Here’s a quick filter to identify who belongs on your Give First list:

• Did this person ever see you deliver real value?
• Does their network overlap with the type of prospects you’re trying to reach?
• Would hearing from you feel welcome, or would it feel like an intrusion?

If the answers are yes, yes, and welcome - they belong on the list.

A Word for Both Sides of This Audience

If you’re an individual salesperson: you don’t need your company’s permission to do this. Your relationships are yours. You built them through years of showing up, delivering, and being trustworthy. The Give First System activates relationship capital that already exists - it doesn’t require a marketing budget, a CRM upgrade, or sign-off from your VP.

If you’re a sales leader or business owner: look at your team’s existing client base and network. Every one of your reps is sitting on a dormant referral network they’ve never been taught to activate. The question is whether you’re building a system around it, or leaving it to chance the way I did for the first decade of my career.

Next week in Sovereign #28: the Give First System works best when the “give” is an artifact of your expertise - something that positions you as an authority before you ever make the ask. I’ll break down exactly what to send, and give you a list of books worth putting in someone’s hands depending on the type of seller you are.

To your success,

Shane