Top sellers build a network of relationships at their key accounts to minimize risk, drive larger deals, and secure renewals. It’s called multi-threading. Multithreading is the act of building multiple relationships within one account. However, true multi-threading goes beyond just convincing everyone on the buying committee to okay your product. It means proactively seeking out relationships with other influential stakeholders within an account to gain broader support.

Today, I would like to dive deeper into leveraging Relationship Map, the new feature that was released last quarter, to strategically identify your buying committee and additional champions. Relationship mapping is a best practice for successful multi-threading.

First, here are some compelling data points to underscore the importance of relationship mapping:

• In 2021, 86% of reps said they’ve either lost or had a deal delayed because a champion changed roles within the company.

• On average, the buying committee now includes 11+ people. However, most salespeople only have strong relationships with 1-2 contacts.

• Sales Navigator data shows sellers connected to at least four people at an account on LinkedIn are 16% more likely to close that deal.

• Gartner found that sales organizations practicing effective multi-threading outperform competitors by 50%.

With these data points, there’s no doubt that multi-threading proves to work. Read along to learn how to identify, map and build relationship with the buying committee with Relationship Map*:

1. Identify target accounts and prospects to focus your mapping and outreach efforts. Add these to your Sales Navigator prospect list.

2. Conduct research on accounts and contacts using LinkedIn, websites and other sources to understand roles, challenges and relationships.

3. Create a Relationship Map for each target account buying committee using the contacts discovered from your research.

   

   Note”: Relationship Map is a drag-and-drop chart that allows you to build a visual map of the key decision makers at your accounts and it’s available for all Sales Navigator users. 

4. Add relevant contacts to the Map and fill out details like roles and reporting relationships using information from LinkedIn and other sources.

5. Engage with contacts on the Map through LinkedIn outreach, comments and messages to start building relationships.

6. Continuously reference the Map and List views to track progress, plan next steps, and leverage highlights on role changes or new networking opportunities.

   

    

7. Collaborate with colleagues by sharing Maps to ensure alignment across the team and maintain accurate account intelligence over time.