3 Tips For Building Relationships with New Contacts

To win new business matters or clients, the math necessitates engaging in many conversations with many people. How many? Here’s an example from a HubSpot study measuring LinkedIn networking connection requests and follow-up messages:

  • Send 20 LinkedIn connection requests/day = 425 people/month

  • 15% will accept your connection request = 64 people/month

  • 21% of the new connections will agree to speak = 13/month

  • 19% of the conversations eventually (after 12 additional touch points on average) convert to business = 2-3/month

Professional service practitioners generally don’t make 2-3 new people connection requests per month which makes it difficult to achieve personal and firm deal/revenue goals. Here is an easy, time-saving process to put into your daily practice to boost your network, opportunity pipeline, and revenue:

  1. Create a daily work calendar entry of 15 minutes. Label it “Business Building” or “Focus Time”. This time will be used for networking activities by sending initial outreach connection requests and to address responses received.

  2. Create a word document titled “My Networking Script” outlining a series of generic messages that you will paste, and later personalize, when engaging with each connection. Here are the generic message templates:

    • LinkedIn Connection Initial Personalized Request, “Dear xxx: I saw your profile and thought we can both benefit by being connected on LinkedIn”.

    • Message #1, response to people who have accepted your connection request or in response to requests that you accept. Start the relationship, “Thanks for connecting here. I look forward to staying in touch.”

    • Messages 2 & 3, point your contact to a hot topic, article or post and invite them to a phone call. You may also invite them to a webinar or share an analysis or white paper. End your message with “I would be happy to answer any questions you may have”.

    • Messages 4 & 5, ask for a phone call. “I like to know my connections on LinkedIn. Could we schedule a 10-15 minute call to discuss (a key point) and see if there is reason for us to speak further. Here is a link to my calendar or blocks of availability over next 1-2 weeks”.

  3. During your scheduled “Business Building” or “Focus Time” revisit each person that you have corresponded with in your LinkedIn message log and send out the next message template. I suggest waiting 2-3 weeks before sending the iterative message.

For each of these messages you are simply developing a relationship and are not in sales mode. Use these interactions to ask for advice or information, offer to make introductions to your connections, or offer important information that could benefit your connection.

If someone does not immediately respond to your 2-5 outreach messages it does not mean that they are not interested in speaking with you. However, if you do not receive a response after the fifth message simply move on.

If you secured a phone call, congratulations! Review the message thread, review their LinkedIn profile, your mutual connections, and of course their company.

BizDevGals helps women in professional services to grow revenue. If you need help leveraging LinkedIn to advance relationships with your networking connections, we can support you. Email us for our Online Brand Review service and coaching.


Nancy Brooks