Can You Build Meaningful Relationships Without Meeting in Person?

Question: Jillian from Lisbon Portugal asks, “I work for a company based in the US, my territory is so big, and ever since COVID I have been virtual, not traveling much. I study sales all the time, and love the podcast, and I am seeing that the most successful people in sales these days seem to be doing it the old fashioned way. They have gone back to in-person connection and focusing on relationships. Are you seeing that? And if so, what advice do you have for me?”

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:00:19]:
Hey, welcome to Sales Logic. It is Saturday morning, 8 AM Eastern. It is actually Labor Day weekend. So I think some people might be relaxing into the weekend, spending time with, with family, getting ready with the kids all back to school. But here we are, focused on sales as we always are.

Mark Hunter [00:00:38]:
Because it’s Labor Day, that means we’re working. And hey, we got a great topic. I know you’ve had a busy week. I’ve had a busy week. Topic this week, Reviving the Lost Art of Relationships. We’ve got a great book and the lightning round. Top 10 Ways to Build a Referral Network from Scratch. So, let’s dive into it.

Mark Hunter [00:00:58]:
Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about reviving the lost art of relationships because again, kind of old school is becoming new school, isn’t it?

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:01:06]:
Yeah, it’s such a good topic for this week’s discussion because I feel like what is really coming back into fashion is doing things the old-fashioned way. You know, Marc, I was speaking at a conference this week and I noticed outside of the general session door, they had They were giving away thank you notes. They were giving away notes that you could take and write a thank you, literally write it out longhand to somebody else at the conference who made a difference for you. And I thought, wow, that is something I had never seen.

Mark Hunter [00:01:39]:
That is, that is truly old school. But see, this whole thing, because AI, because of social media, because of everything, everything’s moving so fast and it’s become very impersonal. And I think what people are craving is they’re craving the relationship. They’re craving how do they do it. And the question always comes up is, you know, does this mean I got to go back to networking events? Do I got to go back to those events where it’s only real estate people and financial planners and so forth attending? I mean, so how do we go about this lost art relationship? What, what are some things you think people should do?

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:02:17]:
Well, number one, I think we really need to define relationship for salespeople because I think, I think far too often we think we have a relationship with somebody, right? But when you really look at it, it’s a very one-sided relationship. And so, Marc, I’d be interested to hear. I’m just going to throw out kind of what I think. But I don’t really think I have a relationship with somebody until that person, it’s mutual. Like they lean on me and I lean on them. Like it’s going back and forth where I am proactive. With them. They don’t have to worry.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:02:50]:
They can trust that if there’s something that, that could be benefited from in my arena, I’m going to reach out and I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna take care, um, of that. And that it— that at times I reach out for no reason at all. Like, it’s— I’m not just connecting with them because I want to sell them something. I mean, there’s truly an interest there, and I’m looking for ways to add value to them and help them that are beyond ways that add value and help me.

Mark Hunter [00:03:16]:
Oh, I think you are spot on there because there’s different phases of relationships. Relationships we have with customers are kind of one-sided. We need the customer more than they need us. Let’s, let’s not kid ourselves. Let’s just be blunt on that. 2, there are relationships where people really truly do something for us. And a measurement that I always have is it’s a valuable relationship if the customer, if the person is sharing with me information that’s probably not known publicly. If they’re willing to do that, then there’s a level of trust, because I think right behind the word relationship comes trust.

Mark Hunter [00:03:52]:
A relationship is much more than a connection, and I think this is where so many people fall down. They have connections. No, relationship— there has to be an element of trust.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:04:03]:
Yeah, I love what Terry is saying here, is we’re seeing a strong demand today in the market for serious, real human-to-human relationships. It’s more important as we see AI doing more for us in business. Now, here’s the irony, and Terry Brock could be the one to tell us all about this, is the fact that with AI, it actually gives us more time to build and create relationships. But Marc, you asked a really important question. And that was, where do you begin? How do you really start to form a relationship? And I think the number one thing is that in any connection, you go into, you need to be thinking to yourself, how can I help the other person before I’m thinking, how does this other person help me?

Mark Hunter [00:04:49]:
I like that. It’s serving the other person first. And again, this is why I think so many sales relationships are turned upside down. Because again, what it is, is you’re, you’re looking for something from the customer. And this plays in well to Andy Greenberg’s comment. A relationship is when the client or prospect is happy to hear from you. In other words, Are you delivering to them value? Are you delivering to them insights? Are you creating referrals for them? Are you helping them? Because again, if you serve first, sell second. And I think that’s a fundamental piece when it comes to relationships.

Mark Hunter [00:05:26]:
But I’ll tell you what, there are some relationships that I think should be ended because all they are is happy talk. And again, is that a valuable relationship if it’s happy talk? No. So again, I think there are people we have in our circles that we need to eliminate. That’s—

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:05:42]:
Yeah, I love what Andy’s saying, though. I mean, could there be anything more simple for this episode? If a client or prospect is happy to hear from you, you probably are well on the way of having a relationship. But Marc, to your point, it’s got to be mutually beneficial. Like, I bet we all have relationships in our pipeline where we do so much for the client. They’re— we’re bending over backwards for them, but they buy very little from us or they do not refer to us. And so, you know, you definitely want to be in a relationship where none of us would stay married if you weren’t willing to give more than you get. But you have to look at that in business and is it profitable? And it’s important for a relationship to be profitable.

Mark Hunter [00:06:26]:
Well, that’s where I think you have to reduce the number of relationships that you have. Yeah, I said reduce it. This is not a game of just collecting. Likes. That’s something you do on Facebook or some other social media, and you can’t take those to the bank. You’ve got to have relationships, and that’s fewer relationships. You can’t have 1,000 relationships. You can have 1,000 connections.

Mark Hunter [00:06:51]:
So what you do is you have to really say, okay, who are the people who I feel that I can help, I can serve, and in turn they can probably help me In conjunction with this, there’s probably referrals, there’s business, there’s opportunities for them to benefit and for me to benefit. That’s a meaningful relationship from a business perspective, and that’s different than a personal relationship. That’s a— and we’re talking about business relationships here. And I think that’s a criteria that you have to get to.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:07:24]:
Yeah. Mark, I’m going to let you read Bryn Tillman’s comment because you two are so aligned on this statement.

Mark Hunter [00:07:30]:
I love what Brynn is saying. I love getting referrals, but we have to proactively give them. My focus for the rest of the year is to make curated introductions to 2 people in my network at least once a week. I love what Brynn is saying there. I’ve had for a long time the whole goal that I give 3 referrals a week, 3 referrals a week. And this has done 2 things. One, It’s really helped develop relationships because there are people who I’ve been able to refer and so forth, have been able to help, that we’ve actually become very strong connected in terms of we really know each other well. 2, the more referrals I give, it’s just amazing.

Mark Hunter [00:08:13]:
It just comes back. It just comes. And again, in this social media AI-driven world, referrals are more valuable than ever.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:08:21]:
Yeah, I would, I would agree with that. Mark, do we have a question this week?

Mark Hunter [00:08:24]:
Whoa, we do have a question. Comes from Jillian in Lisbon, Portugal. She says, I work work for a company based in the US. My territory is so big, and ever since COVID I have been virtual, not traveling much. I study sales all the time and love the podcast, and I’m seeing that the most successful people in sales these days seem to be doing it the old-fashioned way. They’ve gone back to in-person connection and focusing on relationships. Are you seeing that? And if so, what advice do you have for me? Yeah, I, I’m seeing that over and over again. More people are getting on the airplane, more people are getting in the car, They’re going face-to-face.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:09:02]:
Yeah, I think I’m going to push back on that a little bit in the sense that you don’t have to get on a plane to have a relationship. You don’t have to. I have plenty of relationships with people I have never met in person. I can count on one hand the number of times I see Marc Hunter in person in a year. It’s probably 3 times or 4 times a year I actually see him in person. And we have a very strong connection and a very strong relationship. I’ve got a CEO that retired. She was my best referral source before she retired.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:09:33]:
In probably the 10 years we worked together, I probably met her in person 3 times, and we continue a relationship right now. So what I would say to you is, number one, let’s connect in person. I’m coming to Lisbon for a speaking engagement end of September, so we could grab a cup of coffee and meet in person. But the second is, just go back, like Marc said, go to your top 10 clients, those people that you really, you really appreciate that do business with you. Just call them up and check in with them. Just like really go into that with open-ended questions. Don’t worry about sending them a single, you know, a single thing and really just start building connection and relationship.

Mark Hunter [00:10:12]:
I think without a doubt. See, but I do believe that if I can get face-to-face, like you said, you sit down, have a cup of coffee with Jill. There is something about being able to meet in person because I think you are able to expedite a little more. The personal connection. Because again, any relationship, even a business relationship, there is still an element of a personal relationship. I do a lot of work with several CEOs and it’s very interesting, but they routinely say, hey, let’s, let’s meet in person, let’s meet in person. And yeah, because their schedule, it means I tend to got to get on an airplane. I do.

Mark Hunter [00:10:52]:
But that’s okay because again, it’s valuable and it’s warranted. Now, we could do these over the phone, we could do them over Zoom or Teams or whatever, but both of these CEOs— I’m thinking of 2 in particular— they value the ability just to be able to break bread together, um, over lunch, over dinner, and that is meaningful. So I think this— what I’m saying here is I think this puts trade shows back in play. Whoa, what did he just say? Yeah, trade shows. Because again, I have the ability to connect with a lot of people very rapidly in person.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:11:30]:
Yeah, I’m a little bit worried about where we’re going with this conversation because the salespeople hear this and start to say, we got to get on planes again. What Marc is saying with those 2 CEOs he breaks bread with, it’s profitable for him. He would not get on a plane if there wasn’t a lot of business there. I don’t know what your ticket item is, Jill. I don’t know what your profit margin is. You may have the luxury of getting on a plane to, you know, fly to see some of those customers in your big territory if the fat in the margin is there. If the fat in the margin isn’t there, I don’t want you to leave this podcast thinking you can’t build a relationship without meeting in person because you can absolutely positively do that.

Mark Hunter [00:12:11]:
I think that is an excellent point. You’re right. It’s got to be well worth it. And these CEOs, publicly traded, you know, you know, companies, it’s very much well worth my time. Hey, I want to jump back. Terry is jumping in and says, Brynn, very good point. Brynn, I like that you’re, that you’re planning it and making it a point to introduce to people. It is.

Mark Hunter [00:12:35]:
This is the whole thing that, that I think so many ideas that we share here on this podcast, and this is how we develop relationships. We’ve developed relationships with all the people who chime in. every week. And many of them we rarely ever see. But again, we’re picking up on different people’s ideas. And I think that’s a key piece about a relationship. Are you learning something from people that you have relationships with that you can in turn apply in other ways in your business and in your life?

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:13:04]:
Yeah, I love what Brynn is saying here. She chimed in with a great quote. She said it’s from Brian Fonzo. Social media doesn’t take place of a handshake, but it does turn a handshake into a hug, which is such a great point, right? Like, I may meet Brynn in person, But I have the opportunity to continue and develop and enhance the relationship through social media. Or it works the other way around. I get the chance to meet her through, through social media and then enhance it from there. I want to chime in with Andy’s comment because I’ve got something I want to say about it. He said, if you meet a client or a prospect in person and your competition doesn’t, it’s a huge differentiator.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:13:39]:
And I could not agree more. But I’ve got to tell you, for me, when I’m reaching out to prospects, Um, I’m not in the ballpark yet to go meet them in person. I’ve not generated any income from them. I don’t even know if I have an opportunity yet. So what I do is I use a lot of video in my reach out, and I use a lot of video on my reach out because, to Terry Brock’s point, which I’m gonna let Mark weigh in here on a second, using this AI, I can really personalize it, but I can also get across my enthusiasm. for wanting to connect and build a relationship. And it doesn’t sound like a sales email. It sounds more like, hey, I’m interested in getting to know you.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:14:19]:
Here’s my area of expertise. I’d love to connect and learn more. Here’s how we can make that happen. So Andy’s right. I mean, if you get the opportunity to meet somebody in person, all day long beats everything else hands down. But if you don’t, the beauty of today’s technology, it gives you so many ways to do that. And you cannot justify meeting somebody Yeah, it has to be profitable.

Mark Hunter [00:14:47]:
I’m going to share. Years ago, back when Google Alerts— remember when Google Alerts were, you know, were a thing? And there was a company in Canada, up in Toronto, that I wanted to do work with, and I could not get a hold of the CEO. CEO would not take my calls, just would not take my calls. And what happened was I suddenly saw a Google Alert because I monitored them of an acquisition they were making. And I called the CEO and I said, And hey, I’m going to I call you back. had some inside information. I called and I was actually able to leave a message. And 48 hours later, I’m sitting in that CEO’s private dining room having lunch.

Mark Hunter [00:15:23]:
Now, it was well worth it because, again, this was a major corporation and this was probably 15 years ago and it led to a substantial piece of business I was able to get. Was it a gamble? Yeah, it was a gamble. It was a gamble. But the size of the prize warranted getting on an airplane, going up to Toronto, having lunch with the gentleman, and then turning it from there into a nice piece, into a nice piece. So again, AI gives us tremendous number of tools. How you use it has to be based upon what is the margin, what is the growth, what is the lifetime value of the customer opportunity of that relationship that you’re looking to develop.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:16:03]:
Yeah, such a great point. Terry Brock says, we can use AI to build stronger, real human-to-human relationships. It can let us know when something important is happening with people. It can make recommendations on what to do. Then we get to take action as humans. I think Terry is making such a great point here. So, Jill, kind of like, you know, when we go back to these top 10 customers that you’ve got, you want to know how to build connections and relationships. Is that is that you want to really do your research on them and then reach out with people.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:16:33]:
I mean, Bryn will love this. I use LinkedIn all the time. And I can’t tell you how many people I’ve reached out to that we went to the same college, or we’re both like golf fanatics. And I have some kind of way to begin that connection or relationship that is going to, that is going to show that this isn’t just a typical sales call. But I think the most important thing that Marc has said, and I think we really need to go into that. If you want to build relationships with people, you’ve got to serve first. I’ll make this comment and then flip it back over to Marc. But again, I was speaking at this huge conference this week, had about 1,000 in the audience.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:17:10]:
And that’s really a large group for me. And I was walking through the aisles thinking about the energy of this group. And I thought to myself, there’s a speaker that I need to recommend. Now, I don’t know this speaker very well. The speaker certainly has never recommended me a certain thing. But he would be so perfect for this audience. And all I could think about was how much that the audience would love him. So I went up and I told the meeting planner about him.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:17:34]:
And I emailed him and I said, look, I just gave your name to this conference. I don’t know why, but I think you would be perfect. Now, there’s not a bone in my body that expects or thinks I’m ever going to get anything back. It was just about doing what is right in the moment. And Jill, if you want to build relationships, you’ve got to do that.

Mark Hunter [00:17:50]:
But I love that because what you’re doing is you’re putting that client first, and you’re also putting— you’ve got a common connection, you know, you know this person, and you say, I’m going to go ahead and do it. Was there a direct payout for you? No, it was the right thing to do. This is how you develop relationships. Now I got to say, hey, US Open right now is, is going on, and I know you’re a tennis person, so I hope you’re using the US Open as a tool to develop relationships, Mary. But hey, I want to come back and I want to pick up You have to determine in relationships, and this is where I suggest that you draw circles. You draw circles and you say, hey, this circle is going to be people who are very intimate to me, very tight to me, because there’s ongoing business right now. There’s other people who are because they’re subject matter experts. There’s other people who I’m going to develop.

Mark Hunter [00:18:42]:
You’ve got to keep looking at where you place people in various circles and allocate your time accordingly. Because I see too many salespeople, too many people in general, what they can do is they can sit there and spend all day networking. And I hate the word networking. Yeah, it’s necessary, but I hate it because so many times it just winds up being happy talk conversations. When you’re developing relationships, this is a little bit of a a curation process that you’ve got to go through. But understand what’s the goal, what’s the prize, where are you taking this, where you— and that’s going to help you invest your time in a more efficient manner.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:19:22]:
Yeah. Or Brynn says you could just accidentally bump into, uh, somebody in a Newark airport. She got a hug from, uh, Mark Hunter on her way back from, uh, from Disney. Andy Greenberg is saying, I truly believe that AI has negative connotations. Most of the media reports indicate that consumers and people are afraid of it, um, resistant, and might be laggard by it. But I’ve stayed away from it for that reason. I see your point, but I know, um, I know our friend, uh, Terry Brock’s gonna come back. I think it’s a combination, you know, I think it’s a combination of the two.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:19:53]:
I wouldn’t necessarily stay away from it, but use it as an opportunity to really enhance, um, really enhance those connections. I mean, I don’t know about you, Mark, but every single call I do, I am on Claude doing my research on, um, on that client, really getting the information, getting AI’s ideas on, you know, where I should go with the conversation. Now, I don’t rely on it 100%, but it sure is valuable. It’s like another member of my team.

Mark Hunter [00:20:16]:
Yeah. And not only am I doing it on the company, I’m doing it on the person, and I’m also doing it on the industry. What’s happening in the industry? Yes. Hugh Hornsby jumped in. GoGiver AI is a tool to help with that. And again, couple focuses here. It’s focused on serving other people, and that is so key. We got a great conversation going for a long weekend, man.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:20:40]:
All right, what’s our book?

Mark Hunter [00:20:42]:
The book is Keith Ferrazzi. Of course, you got to bring Keith Ferrazzi into the situation. Never Eat Alone. And I’ll tell you what, I have had a chance to meet Keith a couple times. Yeah, you have. He is a genuine individual committed to serving people, and I think that’s what makes him so real and what he says real.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:21:01]:
Do you know, I don’t even know what year this book came out, but I know the year that I read it because it was the first year that I went to the National Speakers Association, which was in 2009. And he actually happened to be speaking from the main stage. And it’s such an important book. And Jill, if you want to know how to build genuine relationships, and genuine is a very important word here, check out Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone. I mean, it’s timeless classic information.

Mark Hunter [00:21:26]:
Yeah, and it’s, it’s going to move you into a new circle and be active in developing relationships. Okay, you ready for the lightning round? Because this is going to hit home because a lot of people are saying, I don’t have a referral network, I don’t have relationships. So the lightning round, top 10 ways to build a referral network from scratch.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:21:44]:
Yeah, number 1 is you need to really, just like you define your ideal client, define your ideal referral partner. Who would really be a good referral partner for you, somebody you could refer to and they could refer and they could refer into you.

Mark Hunter [00:21:58]:
I love it. Don’t think that you have to have a big list. Start with one person.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:22:03]:
And yeah, I’d also say don’t think of the traditional, like when I was in banking, it was always like, well, you need an insurance agent, you need a financial planner. Start with, start with 3 or 4 people that really like you. Again, a referral network can even be a client.

Mark Hunter [00:22:18]:
I love that. That’s where I say build a list of people who you know already. And again, don’t worry about titles. Don’t worry about positions. Build it with the people you know.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:22:27]:
Give before you ask. Number one, before you ever ask for a referral, when you build this list, decide who you’re going to give to first.

Mark Hunter [00:22:34]:
Every week, make it a goal, make it an objective to give X number of referrals without any expectation of anything in return.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:22:42]:
Yeah, make— be ridiculously easy to refer to. Don’t make people fill out a form. Don’t make them do anything complicated. Say, if you just shoot me a text, I’ll follow up with the customer.

Mark Hunter [00:22:55]:
And remember, referrals can come in any number of different ways. It can be you just passing their name along to somebody else. It could be you making a telephone introduction, you making an in-person introduction. Referrals can come in any number of different ways.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:23:10]:
Yeah, if you want to build a referral network, you need to make sure you’ve got a thank you for those. Like, and the other thing I think is really keeping people in the loop. Like, if Marc refers me somebody, I’ve reached out to them, they haven’t responded, I’ve reached out to them, they haven’t responded.

Mark Hunter [00:23:30]:
Don’t ever set a goal as to the number of referrals you expect to get. The only number you’re tracking is the number of referrals you’re giving.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:23:39]:
Yeah. Now, I’m going to push back on that. I do think you need to track the number of referrals that you get because you need to make sure that you’re following up and thanking those people. And I will say that while I don’t, I don’t expect people to refer back to me, if you refer to me, I will refer back to you. So, I do keep track of that. It’s like a, it’s like a thank you, especially the business we’re in.

Mark Hunter [00:23:59]:
Oh, I think without a doubt that is absolutely gold. And I want to add to that, make sure that you keep the person who referred you in the loop. In other words, if it, if it comes to pass, great. Make sure you acknowledge them. If it doesn’t come to pass, still keep them in the loop because again, it’s the way to do it. Hey, you share one more, I’ll share one more. We’ll close it down.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:24:18]:
Yeah, I would say if you want to build a referral network from scratch, start with your existing clients. Somebody in the moment that you have done something fabulous For them, just say, please keep me in mind if you know anybody else who could benefit from my services. I want to work with amazing people like you.

Mark Hunter [00:24:35]:
And hey, be referable. What does that mean? That means you got to have a LinkedIn presence. Brynn, I had to just give you props on that because you are the master of LinkedIn. But you become very easy when you have a social media footprint. Hey, with that, we want to say thank you for listening to Sales Logic this week. If you like what you hear, Subscribe, rate, and review the show on your favorite podcast app. And hey, if you’re having an SKO sales kickoff event, reach out. And I would love to come in, either one of us or two of us.

Mark Hunter [00:25:05]:
Let’s see, uh, Mary, you and I are in Vegas here, what, next month, November or October? I don’t know, somewhere pretty soon doing an event together. So reach out. We want to participate in your sales kickoff events. Anyway, with that, we want to say thank you for listening to Sales Logic. I’m Marc Hunter.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:25:21]:
And I’m Meredith Elliott Powell. Remember, when you sell with confidence and integrity, all of this uncertainty suddenly becomes your competitive advantage.

Mark Hunter [00:25:28]:
And the sale becomes logical.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:25:30]:
All right, hold on. I know it’s been like a big tease, but the backstage pass is coming. It’s taking longer because we’re really getting into the perfection of it, but it is exciting. Stay tuned. Now listen, it is Labor Day weekend. Still make your sales calls. We’ll see you right back here next week for another episode of Sales Logic. Until then.

Meridith Elliott Powell [00:25:47]:
Have a great, safe weekend. Bye-bye.