Posted on: November 26, 2018

Relationship capital plays a major role in business success. Effective sales executives, marketers, and entrepreneurs, all understand that warm introductions and referrals are necessary to their business success.  Without a healthy flow of business introductions, companies will have a hard time raising capital, securing strategic and enterprise clients, and attracting leading partners.

Tapping into the power of business network makes a lot of sense, but it requires deep insights.  Insights that we usually don’t have, and knowledge that we can’t obtain systematically.  When you plan to reach out to a prospect, can you quickly tell whether one of your clients, colleagues or partners is highly connected to that prospect?   One thing is certain, even if you happen to successfully search for this information, you won’t be able to manually repeat this process for every business opportunity, lead, or target account.

Referral-AI provides real-time insights to your relationship network. By analyzing how your allies (e.g., executive team, colleagues, partners, customers, personal contacts) are connected to your prospects, Referral-AI identifies, prioritizes and delivers trusted referral paths.  Imagine getting a short list of close-allies that can connect you to prospects whenever you need it. Imagine using referrals to prep influencers before attending a meeting.  Imagine dropping the right names to secure a meeting.

There are many ways to leverage deep network insights, but to truly improve business results, you need to understand what motivates your allies.  Your allies will most likely consider your referral requests, but they must be truly motivated to act upon it.  Fortunately, there are many types of allies that will benefit from your success, and gladly comply with referral requests. Let’s look at your allies and what they stand to gain.

Your executive team and investors are perfectly aligned with your sales goals.  They may not agree to connect you to every single deal, but when a strategic partnership or large deal is on the line, they will most certainly vouch for you.

Your colleagues understand that growth and prosperity comes from team work. If they can open the path to a great business deal, they will enhance their sphere of influence, and value to the organization. If your colleagues happen to be in sales, team-selling compensation plans will drive further collaboration based on mutual interests.

Partnerships are built on mutual benefits and shared revenues.  When you can identify partners with trusted connections to new target accounts, you can become the growth engine behind your partner’s success.

Customers with long term approach can significantly gain from your success.  They’ll enjoy a product or service that keeps improving and evolving. They will benefit from scale and improvements to your business operations. Customers can also benefit from better renewal terms or better service plans.

Your network also includes colleagues from prior positions, and business associates that will gladly connect you to key individuals. There’s no need for tangible rewards, just your sincere gratitude.

Leverage Referral-AI to get a strong pulse on your network and relationship strength. Gain deep understanding of who is in your allies’ network and what each network member can offer.  Remember that when you focus your efforts on motivated allies, you will realize the biggest gains, drive prosperity to your network, and trigger a domino effect.