Blueprint | 05 How To Develop Relationships Online

B L U E P R I N T HOW TO DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS ONLINE In this session, you’ll learn how to build relationships online through research, to learn who people are and what they care about. HOW TO START A CONVERSATION ONLINE How do you start a conversation? - Get referred in. How do you ask for an introduction? - “Do you know someone who would benefit from a similar service that we provide to you?” How do you start a conversation with someone you’ve never met before, online? - LinkedIn is the most common way. You can direct message someone, but start the message with education. Instead of pitching right away, show what you know about them and what led you to want to connect with them in the first place. When connecting on LinkedIn always add a custom note and don’t be generic. Use the RRR framework to write your message. R. elevance - Make the opening relevant R. eward - Give them a reward that makes them want to talk to you such as an article or insight. R. equest - Don’t request a meeting or their time, but ask “Is there something else that’s a priority to you?” This messaging is very similar to how you would write an email, but keep it shorter on LinkedIn. Starting a conversation in the public domain ● Active touch - Requires a response, such as writing a personal message. Tag them in a post that you think is useful to them - “Dan, check out the thoughts on paragraph 5.” ● Passive touch - Liking someone’s post, or liking the same post as another person. UPHILL SELLING TO STAKEHOLDER MEETING In complex sales, one of the most important meetings to get to is the stakeholder meeting. There are a few steps to how we get there. The fastest way is to start your conversation with a provocative message, which you can put together by doing research. Research can include viewing the company’s 10k statements and seeing what executive goals are for the year. Describe in their words how your solution can solve what they are trying to solve. Once you provoke them, the next stage is building out the decision process. Take into account all stakeholders that may be part of the meeting - Who needs to get involved at which points in time, not just based on hierarchy. After this moment, selling becomes much easier because you have all of the right people aligned on what you’re trying to sell to them. The process to get there is called uphill selling - Trying to build engagement over time with you doing the work to maintain the momentum.

B L U E P R I N T HOW TO DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS ONLINE Once you complete the stakeholder meeting, you’ll have an idea of their decision criteria and it becomes downhill selling. USING ONLINE RESEARCH TO UNDERSTAND YOUR STAKEHOLDERS Before every meeting, it’s very valuable to research who you’re speaking with. Start on LinkedIn. The company description on LinkedIn makes it easier to understand their business than the company’s website. Also, watch their 90-second how-to video on Youtube explaining what their business is. How to figure out more about the people that you’re reaching out to: Initiator - Someone looking for solutions to problems that affect their business Champion - Person who will put their neck on the line to introduce you to the right stakeholders because they care about the initiative and will be with you until the end. Decision-maker - People that have the power to buy There is a browser attachment called CrystalKnows that tells you all about a person’s personality based on public information, on LinkedIn. This information includes things the person has posted, the type of language they use, and how they like to engage, giving you a good idea of the type of person this is. You can also see more advanced traits such as if the person is initiator - meaning the person likes to take risks and find innovative solutions. Look for initiators when finding people to sell to. CrystalKnows even goes as far as to give you advice on how that person likes being reached out to, and what’s the best way to tell them bad news. It’s an impressive tool! HOW TO USE A PROVOCATIVE MESSAGE Executives don’t want to talk to salespeople, they want to talk to experts. Do that by building a provocative message based on the research you’ve done. You can find this out through blog articles, quarterly or yearly announcements, and others. You can do this by searching online, using Google alerts, or software such as Owler. Find out about a new round of funding or other important company news and use it to start a conversation with them. The provocative statement starts off very straightforward. Define why you’re reaching out to them based on the situation and pain you’ve gathered. If you can, reference someone you’ve already spoken to within the company to validate what you’re describing. Once you’ve set the stage, focus on the value prop- in your customer’s context. Mention one thing you think will have the biggest impact, based on your research, and the critical event based on what you think other companies like them might be struggling with.

B L U E P R I N T HOW TO DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS ONLINE At the end of this provocative message, realize you’ve demonstrated value without pitching them. You’ve shown you’re an expert by showing them the research you’ve done, and made it so they want to speak with you. TOP MISTAKES IN BUILDING ONLINE RELATIONSHIPS DON’T Sound like a robot or that you’re following a template/script. DO lead with empathy. Show that you’ve done your research and make it about them. DON’T Use your own critical event, like your quota. DO Build the relationship. Deliver value before asking for anything in return. DON’T try to automate your relationships. DO Put in some effort to start the conversation by messaging, commenting, sharing, and liking on LinkedIn.