Who are you cultivating?

by Jason Ogden | Sep 26, 2023

Cultivation. 

We use the term cultivation to talk about staying in front of your prospects with the right frequency and the right message. Cultivation usually takes place when you are working an active deal, and the benefits include increased performance, increased pipeline velocity and ultimately increased conversions.

We’ve recently published a couple of posts on this topic. 

Cultivation is an important part of the sales and marketing function and not just as it relates to live opportunities. Typically it’s thought about as a question of what, how and when but I’d like for you to consider it a who question. 

Besides active deals, who else is important to cultivate in the marketplace? 

Partners: First, consider your partnership network. This is typically a source of indirect sales (referrals to your business or someone selling your product or service) and is very personal in nature. One thing you can do to improve the cultivation of your partner network is to set automated reminders within your CRM to reach out and make meaningful connections with your business partners.

Event Connections: A second group that often gets overlooked is the people that you meet at events. These can be from a list of attendees you may be able to get or the contact information you collect at the event. It’s important to cultivate those relationships after the day of the event. One way to begin that outreach is to build a short two to three-part post-event cultivation email sequence to keep yourself top of mind and reinforce the relationship that you started at the event. 

Professional Network: The third, and arguably most important group of people you should be cultivating, is your professional network. The simplest and easiest way to cultivate this group is to simply make sure you’re connected with them on LinkedIn. Then as a regular content creator and commenter, you’ll show up in their feeds, thus staying top of mind with proper frequency.

As you head into annual planning season consider not just what, how and when you cultivate the marketplace but also who you cultivate.