Can you identify true ROI in your relationship-building?

A significant opportunity closed this quarter. If you trace it back to where it actually started, what would be the most likely story?

• It came through me personally. Most of the big ones do.
• Someone on the team had a relationship.
• Someone outside the company pointed them to us.
• It came out of individual outbound, or a campaign.

Someone offers to introduce you to a person you have wanted to meet. What actually happens next?

• I take it, and I own the follow-through personally, along with everything else on my plate.
• It gets handled by someone, not sure who or what their process is.
• It stalls. The person asks what to say about us, or what they can offer, and we don't really have a clean answer.
• It enters the same follow-up flow as every other contact we capture.

You need to reach a specific executive at a company you have never worked with. What is your first move?

• I go through my own contacts and my own memory.
• I ask around internally. It's hit or miss.
• I think about who outside the company might know them. I send a bunch of messages, but this is hit or miss.
• We find their contact information and reach out directly. Typical sales process.

Think about the people around your company who would help if you asked. Advisors, investors, former colleagues, longtime partners, a board if you have one. When did they last open a door for you?

• Honestly, I am usually the one opening doors for them.
• A few are active, but that depends entirely on which of us they happen to be talking to.
• Rarely, and not because they are unwilling. We just haven't made it easy for them.
• We have never really thought of them as a growth channel.

Your team is heading to a conference or an industry event. How does it get approached?

• I decide who is worth meeting. I usually search through my LinkedIn or contact spreadsheets.
• A few of us go and we meet good people, but the actual success rate with those new contacts is low.
• We go, but we never use the people who could get us into the right rooms while we are there.
• We measure it on meetings booked and contacts captured. Sales or marketing takes our contacts and puts them into a funnel.

Someone senior leaves the company. What happens to the relationships they held?

• Not much changes, because most of the ones that matter were mine.
• We lose them because they lived in that person's inbox and phone.
• Those people stay loyal to that individual, not to us, because we never built a relationship with them at the company level.
• The contact records stay in our systems. Whether the relationship survives is a different question.

If someone asked you today which member of your leadership team can reach a specific target account, how fast could you answer?

• Instantly if the person is in my personal network. For other people's networks, I would be guessing.
• I would have to ask each of them one at a time, and that takes time. It usually doesn't result in a clear path forward.
• I couldn't tell you who they know. Also, they may not be comfortable opening up their personal contacts for the company to sell to them.
• We would run a search in our systems and hope the data is current.

A relationship you genuinely value has gone quiet over the last year. What is the honest reason?

• Time. I meant to follow up, and there were only so many hours.
• Someone else on the team owns it now, and I do not know where it stands.
• We only reach out when we need something, and there wasn't a reason to reach out recently.
• It fell out of the sales / marketing sequence and nobody noticed.

Your company wants to drive growth next quarter. What does it actually believe moves the needle?

• More of my time: more meetings, travel, emails, etc.
• More activity across more teams, though not especially connected to each other. Ex: "hosting events"
• We want our advisors, leadership team, or other people around us to open doors for us.
• More outbound in more places. More spending on automated communication / volume tactics.

Finish this sentence honestly. What our company does with relationships right now is...

• working, but it's almost entirely dependent on me and my network.
• happening in a lot of places at once, but no one has a full picture of it, and no one owns the whole system.
• leaving real value sitting untouched with people who already like us and would help if we asked.
• a numbers game, when it should be more personal.