Managing Relationships at Scale - A Practical Guide to Social Selling

I was reading this post from Bob Woods yesterday on nurturing and building relationships with first-level connections on LinkedIn. One thing Bob touched on -- making a custom list of prospects -- resonated with me, because I do the exact same thing on Twitter with B2B contacts!

The challenge a lot of us face isn't our social skills, our product or industry knowledge, or our ability to close a sale. Considered in a vacuum, you could be a seasoned pro at each stage of the sales process. Rather, the challenge is scaling. If you're a sales development rep with a set number of calls to make, you know the struggle.

Here's the process I've used in the past for managing relationships at scale.

1. Identify - I use Insightpool to help me find the exact people I want to connect with. This helps me look within my existing Twitter following and outside my current following.

2. Create a List - I maintain 4 different private Twitter lists. They each help me quickly know the level of relationship I have with any members of that particular list. Each one builds upon the one before it. In order, they are:

1. Cold - Untouched: People I want to connect with but we haven't spoken or been introduced. 
2. Level 1 Engage: People who I follow and who follow me; we've broken the ice and had a basic level of introduction to each other. 
3. Level 2 Engage: People who I've typically tweeted back and forth with 3-5 times. Maybe they've retweeted a few of my posts, or I theirs. 
4. Level 3 Engage: People who I've built more of a familiar relationship with over the course of a month or so to where there's a good level of trust established.
5. I Read Your Tweets Daily: The first four lists are private; you can't see that you're on one or when I move you between them. This list is a public list, though. It lets you know I take an interest in what you're talking about each and every day, and I keep this list fairly small.

Think of each one of these lists as a little relationship funnel in and of itself. Leads come in at the top and as you develop the relationship, they move through the funnel. At the bottom, they exit and move on to the next. These next 3 steps focus on the activities that will help you move leads through each relationship funnel.

3. Nurturing - My level of engagement with the various people on these lists varies depending on how I see I can bring value to them or how I can improve their life. It also varies based on an unwritten goal of what I want to accomplish. If you're a thought-leader around a particular subject and my goal is to learn from you and bounce around ideas, my interaction will be different than if you're a prospect that I think I can help. I keep the lists open in TweetDeck, side-by-side, all day long, so starting conversations is easy.

4. Networking / Providing Value - I'm a believer in the adage that it's better to give than it is to receive. An example of something I might do to provide immediate value to a new contact is make a connection between them and someone else in my network that they'd also enjoy getting to know. How? By taking a genuine interest in each new contact I make. An example:

In this case, I knew a little about the project Judy was working on because I'd taken the time to read her tweets -- she's on my 'I Read Your Tweets Daily' list -- and discovered that project would be a neat intro point for her and my friend Hugo, an astrophysicist working with big data and social networks. 

After Hugo and Judy were connected, I came back the next day and shared a relevant article I'd found, which helped further the conversation. I've asked for nothing at this point, but provided a.) a new connection for Judy b.) a piece of informative, interesting content she hadn't seen yet c.) a new connection for Hugo. Look at how the conversation progressed.

I'm not actually interested in selling anything to Judy -- but I am interested in getting to know her. What do you think the odds are that she knows someone who could benefit from Insightpool's platform? Probably pretty high. At some point in the future, that could materialize. In the meantime, I've made a cool new friend.

Does the nurturing and networking step take time? Absolutely. Like Bob Woods pointed out in his article, it takes more time than any other part of the process. But it's also what helps you build your network in a meaningful way, at scale, without coming across as a pompous ass only interested in yourself and what you stand to gain. 

5. Know When the Time is Right - After you've moved a prospect through your relationship funnels (lists) -- providing value, making connections, sharing relevant content, and having more casual conversations -- be able to identify when the time is right to make the push for the next step.

As Gerry Moran frequently says: "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it."

If, in the course of nurturing your prospects, you've shown genuine interest in what they do, what pain points and frustrations they have, and you've seen a way your product/service could make a meaningful improvement to their life, then you've demonstrated the WHY behind what you're offering and it makes sense to proceed.

Conclusion -

While this may sound like a tedious, and admittedly manual process, it's worth the time investment upfront for the long-term benefits. If you'd rather have a tool to do the heavy lifting for you, check out Insightpool's Sales Platform. It was built with B2B lead nurturing and social selling in mind, and will further help you grow genuine, meaningful relationships at scale.

If we aren't connected on Twitter already, you can find me here: @mbchp.
Also, feel free to connect here on LinkedIn, as well. All are welcome!