You might need a "referrals intern"

Managing the warm, fuzzy, unscalable stuff

Hi all —

I’ve noticed B2B founders struggle with a certain kind of GTM problem: How do we build a repeatable sales motion WITHOUT forgetting that the unscalable stuff (networking, referrals, warm intros) is really effective?

Sound familiar? If you’re building out a cold outbound / cold calling / BOFU ads motion, you’re 100% focused on that. Which means the unscalable stuff - which is hard to systematize, outsource, or, well, scale - falls off.

The unscalable stuff works really freakin’ well, though. Especially when everyone’s trying to only do the scalable stuff, a truly personalized warm introduction cuts through the noise.

So what do you do?

I’m testing out a college intern for this, but you could probably do it with a virtual assistant too.

Responsibilities might include:

• Look at customers’ LinkedIn connections to figure out who we should ask for referrals to

• Look at the founders’ LinkedIn connections and help them figure out who to catch up with

• Look at advisors’ + investors’ LinkedIn connections to ask for referrals

• Keep track of relevant customer events, communities, and meetups & help the founder figure out what’s worth going to / participating in / speaking at

• Find relevant content on LinkedIn / Twitter / YouTube / podcast-land and start meaningful conversations with content creators

• Keep in touch with past sales conversations that weren’t a fit at the time

Etc. etc. etc.

If you find you’re not able to manage the warm, fuzzy, unscalable stuff - consider an intern or VA who just does this kind of stuff!

(PS - if you have a better way to manage all this, LMK!)