We started Point of Reference in 2003 in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of  Colorado (yep, that’s why all the mountain pictures). The founders,  career salespeople, thought there must be a better way to handle the  part of the sales cycle we dreaded most—the customer reference request.  “Could I speak to some of your references,” set in motion hunting  expeditions that often didn’t produce the ideal result: quickly finding  the most relevant customer advocates available for each buyer, each and every time.Since that time, we’ve added functionality to support all customer advocate  needs, for peer reviews, event speakers, quotes for social and corporate websites, PR, case studies & videos, demand gen campaigns…wherever  the voice and insights of customer advocates can tip the scales in our  customers’ favor.Finding customer advocates is an important need, but there’s a lot involved in building that searchable database of  pre-qualified, reliable customer advocates. There’s recruiting,  qualifying, and maintaining customer advocate information. Advocate uses must be managed, tracked to revenue influenced and advocates rewarded.  Trying to accomplish all these motions using spreadsheets is a fools  errand.