Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:
Perfect example from when I was saying, an SDR had set up a demo for us and I had a great conversation with the guy. He was you know a director of worldwide sales for an organization that had 5000 people. So this guy had very limited time. He gave us 30 minutes. We had a great conversation. He said you know what I want you to connect with you know this other guy that would help run this project. And I want to put you in touch with him, a name I had never heard before so I go naturally look him up on LinkedIn and he’s connected to my old boss over at Randstad where I was before SalesLoft. And luckily I’d like to treat everybody and put a 10 on their head. I have a great relationship with my old boss even though that I know I left that organization for a new opportunity. So I reached out to him and said hey how do you know this guy? And he was like he called me immediately. How in the world did you just make the… That’s my best friend from college. Let me reach out to him right now and put you in touch. While that was happening the other guy put me in touch with this gentleman and he replied back. he said I’ll give you 15 minutes. That’s kind of a push off answer right 15 minutes. It’s really hard to even do a little bit of discovery in 15 minutes and especially even create rapport. And while that was happening my old boss had reached out to him. He replied to that email before I could even reply. Fifteen minutes and said Kevin you just turned yourself an hour. That changes the game a little bit. Yeah because of my network and because of the way that I’ve created these relationships and have created positive experiences for people I’ve worked with and worked for I was able to move from 15 minutes to an hour to get this guy’s attention. And he looped in 15 other people along the way on his end that he probably never would have given me the time of day for.
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