Crawl - Find Initial Value

Goal: Get your sales team thinking in networks

When getting started with Go-to-Network, you’re not trying to adopt every single strategy and tactic at once. You’re trying to prove the value of a GTN motion to get resources and buy in for a larger strategy shift.

In the crawl stage, you should focus on the quick win - activating the networks you and your business already have, not creating or growing new networks.

Before you start activating though, make sure you’ve mapped out you is in your network that might make intros for you. Make a list of investors, advisors, happy customers, executives, partners, etc and create an action plan for each group.

Consider appointing a single sales rep (or a small team) to lead the charge on experimenting at this phase.Here are 3 ways you can start activating your network without needing new processes, new tools, or new headcount.

To get started, follow these four steps:

1. Map your network. It’s going to be hard to activate your network if you aren’t fully sure who makes up your network. Defining the groups (investors, advisors, partners, etc) and who falls into each one to give your team a pool to start working from.
2. Decide what part of your network to start with. Most teams tend to start with their investors and executives. They’re already bought in and often are used to be asked for intros already, but you can start anywhere.
3. Start asking for intros. Encourage your sellers to ask for intros. Give them the frameworks and messaging so that they feel comfortable asking customers, prospects, etc when the time is right to see if they can open new doors. A ‘not right now’ from a prospect can easily turn into 1 or more new leads if you ask for an intro at the right time.

During the crawl phase, you can also consider implementing some other lightweight activation plays, such as:

Creating an intro board

Being specific with your intro asks is an easy way to get more intros by reducing the workload for your network. An intro board is simply a list of target accounts that you’re trying to break into. It can be a spreadsheet, or you can create a nicer intro board for free with Commsor. Once you have your list, send it to your network to ask if they’re able and willing to make intros to those specific accounts.

Launch a lite referral program

You don’t need a full software to launch your first referral program. Start simple with a 1-pager or a form that your customers can easily fill out if they have someone in mind to refer to you. You can then link to that form from customer emails, on your website, or in your product.

TIP: Make sure to take note of wins and proof points during the crawl phase. These wins will help drive interest and get buy-in for a larger GTN motion.

Once you’ve got some initial wins, meetings and deals sourced from your existing network, then it’s time to start investing in operationalizing and scaling.

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