Relationship Cultivation is the creation of trust with another individual. As the name indicates, this process takes time and consistency to develop. Relationship Cultivation must be completed before any form of effective lead generation can take place. Without trust, only “fodder” type product evaluations will occur. People buy from people they like and trust, it’s that basic.

Many B2B executives may not be aware of how today’s tech buyers evaluate providers in 2024. Here’s the digital-only review process: 1. Web Presence Review, 2. LinkedIn C-Suite Reviews, 3. Capital Review via Capta or Crunchbase. These reviews lead directly to a draft “short-list” of providers to be formally evaluated. Your offering can be eliminated from consideration that quickly, and you’ll never even know. Executive LinkedIn profiles are your corporate storefront in 2024 and the CEO must have “something to bring to the party”. The executive must cultivate a reputation and perception of innovation, fresh concepts, high energy, and the willingness to share and collaborate with others. Posting and sharing within LinkedIn and across other channels consistently is necessary today to achieve positive credibility. Effectively posting and communicating an ongoing stream of your future vision and UVP to buyers, customers, investors, partners, and employees is considered executive optimization.

Today’s B2B buyers will check out potential providers well before they ever contact them. They also refuse to engage with vendors attempting “cold outreach” tactics. These tactics create a negative perception of any vendor attempting them. So, it is requisite that your executives and sales leaders each have a well-established industry reputation, a deep set of relationships, and a sharing history. If a provider CEO has a direct relationship with a buyer‘s CEO, do you think that his company will not be selected for the engagement? Relationships and credibility create trust and trust is requisite to making sales and growing a company consistently.

No. Linked Concierge is a “relationship generation” tool. Once relationships are cultivated and multiplied, the opportunity for trust and interaction grows substantially. You cannot go from planting a seed to harvesting a crop without cultivation, care and feeding. So the term “lead generation” is a misnomer from this perspective. Linked Concierge grows relationships with prospective clients in an automated, credible and scalable manner. If you want to grow meetings and sales, grow your relationships first.

Linked Concierge generates meetings at a much higher rate than traditional lead generation tactics. Here’s how:

1. Build a credible profile for execs and post regularly
2. Amplify your outreach for connection requestions to hundreds weekly
3. Connect with 50% of contacted execs
4. Share and cultivate a relationship with no expectations monthly
5. Offer industry related assistance via outreach to contacts
6. Incorporate multi-channels to communicate with these relationship contacts
7. Arrange for direct discussions
8. Provide value and assist after initial discussion

Just like you can never have too many friends, you also can’t have too many connections within the B2B arena. Your clients don’t buy every month, or even every year, but when they do, they revert to the relationships they feel best about. Are you waiting to develop these interactions only once things heat up, or are you doing so proactively in preparation for the opportunity? A service mentality needs to be adopted by all B2B execs who aspire to sustainable growth and appreciation and admiration by clients. Client trust will always be more valuable than any feature set.