Throughout your professional career, you’ve likely heard the expression, “It’s all about who you know”. High school guidance counselors, college professors, and career coaches advise tapping into social and professional connections to take your career to the next level, and with good reason.
It is estimated that 60-80% of all job connections are made thanks to networking.
At The Endurance Group, we believe that tapping into personal, social and professional connections goes well beyond the job search.
When using the concept of social capital, our consultants lean on the power of our clients’ relationships to organically unearth new sales opportunities for their businesses.
What do you mean by social capital?
Social capital is the value of a firm’s connectivity to the marketplace, through its employee’s social and professional connections. Think about it. Each employee who joins your organization brings with them a large network of friends, family, and business connections, regardless of their title or seniority.
The sum of each employee’s social and professional networks is your firm’s total social capital.
Why is social capital and your connections important to the sales process?
If it isn’t already obvious, understanding social capital is a game-changer for your sales outreach. Armed with information on your employee’s connections to the marketplace, your sales team can authentically reach out to prospects who have a pre-existing relationship with an employee at your firm.
For example, let’s say your sales team is targeting Apple.
Your account executives have tried all manner of outreach to seemingly the correct contacts at Apple. However, they cannot get an initial meeting. By understanding your firm’s social capital, it is discovered that your firm’s HR assistant is related to Apple’s Chief Product Officer (they are cousins).
Using this knowledge, your sales team can involve the HR assistant in outreach to the CPO. Securing an initial meeting. Moving the firm one step closer to a new deal.
How can you harness the power of social capital and connections?
At this point, you’re probably wondering, how can I get a complete picture of my firm’s social capital?
If you are familiar with The Endurance Group, you know that we strive to implement the most effective business development programs and uncover innovative opportunities for our clients.
That is why we are pleased to present a new service from The Endurance Group, known as Commonality. Our new service is designed to make sense of your firm’s social capital and design comprehensive sales and marketing strategies based on this information.
Here’s how it works:
⦁ Begin with a Social Capital Inventory (SCI). Commonality will evaluate your company’s employees to determine all of your potential connections.
⦁ Through a customized Commonality Report, your team will receive detailed information about employees’ school alumni, location, prior work experience, and volunteer experience with ranked connections. Your team will know which employees are most valuable for sales and marketing campaigns.
⦁ To get the most out of your results, consult with The Endurance Group’s dedicated sales and marketing teams to create an improved sales process to target your high-ranking prospects.
Sales and marketing best practices continue to evolve. You should consider the power of relationships and social capital. Creating a sales process around commonalities and existing relationships will strengthen your existing strategies.
After all, at the end of the day, it’s all about who you know.
Are you ready to give Commonality a try?