Long time, no see
This weekend, I was at a family party in Nottingham.
There were people there I hadn’t seen for years. In some cases, many years. Yet within about 30 seconds, we were chatting, laughing and telling the same old stories as though we’d seen each other last Tuesday.
We spend an enormous amount of time in sales and BD trying to create new relationships. New prospects. New targets. New connections on LinkedIn. New people to awkwardly introduce ourselves to at conferences.
Meanwhile, most of us are sitting on years, sometimes decades, of perfectly good relationships that have simply gone dormant. Dormant is very different from dead.
This week’s Three Things is all about digging out some of those forgotten relationships. Enjoy.
#1. You’re not starting from zero
Think about someone you worked closely with five or ten years ago. You probably haven’t forgotten whether they were brilliant, reliable, funny, difficult, generous or a complete pain in the backside.
And they probably haven’t forgotten you either.
When you meet someone new, you have to build credibility and trust from scratch. With an old relationship, much of that groundwork has already been done. You might be starting again, but you’re not starting from zero.
We’ve previously talked in Three Things about nurturing your network and keeping in touch with former clients. This is slightly different. I’m talking about going much further back and deliberately excavating relationships you may have completely forgotten about.
Try this: Spend 15 minutes looking backwards. Old firms. Old clients. Previous jobs. Matters from years ago. Former colleagues. Your LinkedIn connections.
Find five people you haven’t spoken to for years. Not necessarily the five with the biggest job titles. Look for the people who make you think:
“Bloody hell. I haven’t spoken to them for ages. I wonder what they’re up to?”
There’s your list.
#2. Don’t manufacture an excuse
This is where most people tend to make things unnecessarily complicated. We decide we need a commercially credible reason to get back in touch.
So instead of simply saying hello, we produce something like:
“I noticed your organisation has recently announced its strategic review and thought it might be useful to reconnect…”
Behave yourself. You haven’t spoken to Dave since 2019. Dave knows you haven’t suddenly developed a passionate interest in his strategic review.
At the party this weekend, nobody walked up to a cousin they hadn’t seen for eight years and opened with a value proposition. They just said hello.
Try this: Send one of your five people a message:
“You popped into my head the other day and I realised we haven’t spoken for about five years. How the hell are you?”
That’s it.
No credentials. No brochure. No carefully disguised request for a meeting. And importantly, no ask. The objective of the first conversation is simply to restart the relationship.
#3. Don’t lose them again
Of course, there’s a reason relationships go dormant. People change jobs. We change jobs. Children arrive. Work gets ridiculous. Someone says, “We absolutely must get a drink soon”, and suddenly 2019 was apparently yesterday.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with losing touch. The daft bit is reconnecting with someone, having a brilliant conversation, saying “we really shouldn’t leave it this long again”…
…and then leaving it that long again.
We’ve talked before about categorising relationships and giving dormant contacts the occasional ping rather than trying to maintain everyone at the same intensity. That principle applies perfectly here.
Try this: When you reconnect, create one tiny reason to stay connected.
Send them something useful. Make an introduction. Put a six-month reminder in your diary. Invite them to something. Occasionally comment on something they post.
Be careful not to over engineer it. We’re trying to maintain a human relationship, not sell them broadband.
Chat to Tina by voice, when you’re between meetings, on the commute to/from work, or heading into something you’d rather avoid.
Final thought
Sales and BD understandably encourages us to look forward. Who should we meet? Which organisations should we target? Where’s the next opportunity coming from?
Every now and again, it’s worth looking backwards too.
Because your next best relationship might not be someone you haven’t met yet.
It might be someone you haven’t spoken to for five years.
We’re building a team of voice enabled AI assistants to support you with BD activities and allow you to spend more time being human. Interested? We’d love to chat.
