B
Evidence Grade B
Graded
accuracy verified by the review judge
Safe to Cite
Current
100
100 -- referral effectiveness vs cold calls for CEO-to-CEO referrals (2026)
According to Anthony Parinello's research, a single CEO-to-CEO referral outperforms 100 cold calls.
Attribution:
View source
Lighthouse Research Team
Last verified:
·
How we verify data →
Source verified
Evidence graded
Value
100
Unit
Count
Data Vintage
2026
Entity
Evidence Quality
B
Strong, reliable evidence
Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.
Single source - not yet corroborated
Score breakdown
Extraction
50
Source Trust
60
Citation Chain
20
Independence
30
Methodology
45
Freshness
95
Source
Anthony Parinello (Selling to VITO)
Primary
Tier C
https://yourmachine.co/blog/six-stage-sales-system-expertise-firms ↗
Source Article
The Deal Is Decided Early: A Six-Stage Sales System for Expertise Firms | Your Machine
The Deal Is Decided Early: A Six-Stage Sales System for Expertise Firms
Five of the most rigorously researched sales methodologies ever published each cover one stretch of a complex services deal — and go quiet on the rest. Chain VITO, Challenger, SPIN, Gap Selling, and the JOLT Effect into a relay,…
Original Research
Anthony Parinello (Selling to VITO)
· Original study ↗
Methodology
Parinello's Selling to VITO research, as cited
Methodology documented
Segmentation
Industrymarketing
Cite this stat
Plain Text
CEO-to-CEO referrals: 100 referral effectiveness vs cold calls. Source: Anthony Parinello (Selling to VITO) (2026). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/ceo-referral-vs-100-cold-calls
HTML Embed
<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ceo-referral-vs-100-cold-calls" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>100</strong> -- referral effectiveness vs cold calls for CEO-to-CEO referrals<br><small>Source: Anthony Parinello (Selling to VITO) (2026) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ceo-referral-vs-100-cold-calls" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>
Share
Use this data in your work
Copy the citation, embed the widget, or explore thousands more verified marketing statistics -- all free.