As I am discussing with companies why they don’t build a powerful network of referrals, one of the things that came up was the accountability.

Internally, the accountability is relatively easy to do.  The sales manager set metrics (such as the number of outbound calls) and measures them.  It’s pretty straightforward.

But the sales manager for Company A has no influence over the sales reps for Company B.  Company A can only really give names and accounts to Company B reps.  But do you see how there could be some initial distrust as well as just lack of momentum?

Suppose Sales Manager A gets his reps to start giving Company B reps contacts and access to their accounts.  What happens if they don’t see anything in return?  Where is the accountability?  You could say Sales Manager A contacts B and says, "Hey, we’ve given you a bunch of leads, what about your turn?"  There now becomes some sort of peer pressure to work it but notice that, first, there needs to be time for the sales manager to connect with all his reps and make sure that they have all, in fact, given leads and asked for some in return.  Now Manager A has the data to take to Manager B, who goes to all his reps and asks, what is going on, and needs to wait to see if anything is happening?

Meanwhile…Company A has lost interest…which makes Company B lose interest.

The issues: no "neutral zone", no clear metrics and no enabler for this kind of revenue-focused collaboration.

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