Nurturing

Once we have established a Connection with key contact people at a potential client, we want to nurture those relationships.

Just like with romantic relationships this works best when — as long as it's a balanced and respectful relationship —we focus on what we put in, rather than what we get out. Remember, we're not trying to sell here, we're trying to find a good match between client needs and our expertise and services. This is the time to share our knowledge and experience in order to demonstrate it, and to show the way we work.

Steps To Take

1. In Contactually, ensure each of the contacts at the potential client is assigned to at least one 'Bucket'.

2. You'll then get regular reminders to help you remember to stay in touch.

3. When contacting, be useful, helpful, informative, and don't just unecessarily contact people

Ideas To Help Nurture Relationships

• Let people know about industry events. Maybe invite them?

• Organise or sponsor events and invite people.

• Meet for a coffee and catchup

• Send useful articles, case studies

• Figure out what problems they may have on their plate and offer useful contacts, resources, information.

If the relationship just isn't clicking, then there may not be a good cultural fit between us and their organisation, or between you and them. That's okay, it's human. Maybe try connecting a different person from our end, or with a different person at their end.

But also, it's okay to move a card back to the research stage, or mark it as lost at this stage if you think there just isn't a good match for us to work together with them.

Sometimes when we have developed good relationships with people, they'll come to us with opportunities to work with them. That's great! Time to move onto the next stage, Assessing a new opportunity.