Mapping who you know at a target account

You know more people at your target accounts than you think. You just haven't looked. Mapping who you know takes an hour per account, and it changes which accounts you work first.

Cold outreach is the fallback. A warm intro is the first move. But you can't ask for an intro you don't know exists.

Start with the committee, not the company

Don't map "the account." Map the three people who'd decide on your work. The economic buyer, the champion and the technical lead.

Write their names down first. If you don't know them yet, find them. The org chart on LinkedIn is rough but good enough. Job posts tell you who the hiring manager is. Filings name the executives.

Now you've got three targets. Everything after this is about finding a path to each one.

Your own first-degree network

Check your own connections first. Look for anyone who works at the account today, anyone who worked there in the last few years and anyone who's connected to one of your three people.

Former employees are often the best path. They know the people, they know the politics and they don't have a stake in protecting their current boss. A quick call with someone who left two years ago can tell you more than a month of research.

Current employees outside your three targets are useful too. A finance analyst won't buy your service, but they can tell you who really owns the problem.

Your team's network

Then do the same thing for everyone at your firm. Partners, delivery leads, engineers, recruiters. Services firms are full of people who've worked everywhere.

This step gets skipped most often, and it's the richest. Your delivery lead might have worked for the target CIO ten years ago. Your newest hire might have come from the account itself. Nobody asked.

Make it a habit. When a new account goes on the list, share the names of the three committee members with the whole team and ask one question. Who knows any of these people?

Clients, alumni and partners

Your current and past clients are the next layer. Plenty of executives know each other through boards, industry groups and past jobs. A happy client who sits on a panel with your target CFO is a warm path.

Your firm's alumni count too. People who left on good terms often still want to help.

So do partners. Software vendors, other services firms you team with and investors all have relationships. A platform account manager who covers your target account knows exactly who owns the budget.

Rank the paths

Once you've got a list, rank each path on two things. How well does the connector know you, and how well do they know the buyer?

A close former colleague who worked directly for the target CIO is the best path there is. A loose LinkedIn connection who once met the buyer at a conference is the weakest. Most paths fall somewhere in between.

Pick the strongest path to each of your three people. One strong path beats five weak ones. Asking the weak ones first just burns favors.

What to do with the map

Say you're targeting a regional healthcare network. You find that your delivery lead worked with their CTO at a prior job, that a past client sits on a nonprofit board with their CFO and that a former employee of theirs is now a contractor on your bench.

That's three paths to three seats. Start with the delivery lead and the CTO. Ask your delivery lead to forward a short note. The note should be short, specific and easy to pass along, with the reason for reaching out spelled out in plain words.

If the intro happens, great. If it doesn't within a week or two, then you go direct, and you can still mention the shared connection.

Keep the map alive

People change jobs. Your network grows. A map you built in the spring is stale by fall.

Revisit it when a new signal shows up at the account. A new leader, a funding round, an RFP. Each one is a reason to check again who you know, since the person you need might have changed.

The method puts warm before cold for a reason. A cold note from a stranger competes with a hundred others. A forwarded note from someone the buyer trusts competes with nothing. Map first, then ask, then reach.