Connect the Dots, Don't Call to Action
A low friction tactic for multi-threading to build trust
It’s no surprise that buyers today are not only well researched, but also less likely to talk to sellers until they’re close to making a decision on what to move forward with.
More slacks and less in person discussions
More emails and less in person team meetings
More information to evaluate and less sales people to talk to
Nate Nasralla put it best:
This is why I’m so bullish on writing being one of the most important skillsets to develop as a seller. Every successful seller needs to be able to effectively communicate a business narrative that justifies a purchase.
In today’s selling environment, there’s a lot of buying conversations happening behind closed doors. And we won’t always be able to get in a room with a budget holder or decision maker to explain the value of your solution. Instead, you have to work with influencers and stakeholders, and communicate value through writing it.
Sometimes though, you can effectively influence by not providing a business narrative at all.
You can simply help stakeholders connect dots.
A few weeks ago we discussed mapping out executive career history to identify signals of familiarity. This is why smart sales organizations are restructuring around AI and relationships.
Today we’re going to talk about how to leverage familiarity and help stakeholders connect the dots - so that you don’t even have to be in the room at all. We’ll cover:
Silent Influencers
Familiarity beats personalization
Connect the dots not cal to action
Silent Influencers
I’m seeing more and more inbounds from prospects who are familiar with us - but we’re not familiar with them.
How?
These prospects aren’t in our CRM.
Sometimes, they weren’t even a buyer of our solution.
But they’ve seen out outputs and results, indirectly, to make decisions that impacted the business (in a positive way).
To give you a sense, I’ve had organizations ranging from F500 to emerging brands, where a CFO or President has recommended their teams (our ICP), speak to our team.
C level executives that have heard of us or had some exposure to us. Even though they aren’t our traditional users or buyers, they have influence.
And although they’re not in our universe, they provide perspective and familiarity, silently influencing decisions about our product.
Familiarity Beats Personalization
Familiarity not only makes it easier to start a conversation, it helps streamline sales cycles:
Out of the gate, you have trust
Prospect’s don’t need to vet (or not vet as much)
Deal cycles accelerate '
The trends I’m seeing and examples I shared above, tell me that familiarity doesn’t necessarily have to be a direct correlation.
You win more often when buyers are familiar with you — even if you’re not in their direct lane.
IMO, silent influencers can be leveraged to your benefit. Be it for initial outreach to begin a dialogue or even bring awareness to other stakeholders of an executive, or other persona, who has had some exposure to our product in the past.
***Worth noting, personalization shouldn’t be disregarded. I’m cognizant that there are instances where you might not be able to leverage familiarity or brand equity. Like with any tactic in sales, they’re tools in a toolbox. Use them when you need them or can.
Connect the Dots, Don’t Call for Action
I’ve been using this tactic in multiple scenarios, for multi-threading or initial outreach. The key here is to ask for nothing, simply bring awareness, and let info speak for itself. Ideally, this sparks internal dialogue.
The psychology here is simple:
It provides a line into power or someone with a sphere of influence
It establishes social proof, and with it, trust
It’s low friction: there’s no lift and it’s not “going around” anyone
Here are some examples:
F500 org: In current RFP cycle, I noticed a recently hired VP of marketing once led insights at one of our ~$500k value customers.
At the current org, it’s a different BU, different use case - but now I have high visibility.
The note I sent wasn’t a pitch, nor was there a CTA.
Congrats on the move to (company), (name). Saw you previously ran (department) at (customer), appreciate all your support there.
Reaching out as I imagine our name might ring a bell. We’re currently working on similar use cases for an RFP part of the (initiative name) at (current org).
Want to be respectful of the process but thought it’d be helpful to connect dots.
Good luck on settling in the new role.
F500 org: In current sales cycle, completed phase 1 of pilot. C level executives recommended their team reach out to us.
I’ve been sending progress updates to those executives intermittently, when I noticed that an executive on the finance team was hired and had reached out to our founder on their own accord at their prior company.
Once again, no pitch or CTA:
Hi (Name),
Reaching out as I noticed (executive) recently joined the team. They’ve previously connected with our founder, (name), during their time at (old company) - a customer of ours.
Given ongoing discussions between our teams, thought it’d be helpful to have someone internal with exposure to (my company).
[blurb/update on specifics of the initiative]
This has netted me responses from stakeholders to begin a dialogue and sometimes even helped give teams a “push” in the right direction. I’ve been adding this to my playbook upfront since if you’re in cycle, or have progressed a deal - you need to use discretion with this tactic.
If you have any questions on this topic or thoughts, shoot me a DM or email to andrew@hackingsales.xyz.
As always, thanks for reading and see you all next week.
-Andrew K
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P.P.S. Want to see how I’m using AI to actually drive pipeline (not just prompts)? Check out Prompts to Revenue