The Art & Science of Building Better Professional Relationships (CRM)

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Exploring the Art & Science of

Building Better Relationships.

Frank Falcone Founder & CEO, Triggerfox Corporation

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Co-Founder & Program Director

Rotman Centre for CRM Excellence

University of Toronto

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Relationships Matter.

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Why?

Relationship Strength is

King

Co-workers

Looking for a new job or promotion? It’s not what you know, or even who you know, but rather how strong your relationships is with

the people who matter.

Prospects

Winning Business: “All things being equal, people will do business with a friend; all things being unequal, people

will still do business with a friend.”

- Mark McCormack

Customers

Keeping Customers:

Not keeping in touch with a customer in a meaningful way is the #1 reason

why they leave.

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$25 Billion is spent every year on CRM software,

by companies trying to help their employees build

strong relationships with their customers.

CRM Software

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When it comes to building real

person-to-person relationships,

traditional CRM software has

failed.

CRM systems were built to house

transactional data, not

relationship insights.

CRM

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The Problem

Starting, building and maintaining strong

relationships is not easy.

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DISCONNECTED

WEAK TIE

STRONG TIE

2. Building a Relationship

3. Maintaining a relationship

Do nothing

Do something bad

The Lifecycle of Relationships

1. Starting a Relationship

Understanding The Problem:

Michael Wu. PhD

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The Dunbar Limit Understanding the Problem:

How many meaningful

relationships can one

person maintain?

Prof. Robin Dunbar found a

relationship between brain

size of primate species and

their group size.

The Dunbar 150: The cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships.

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Does the Dunbar limit still apply in modern society?

Michael Wu. PhD

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Measuring Relationship Strength

Time. Do you put forth the proper amount of time in maintaining your relationships?

Reciprocity. Do you give back to your contacts and are proactively generous?

Intensity. How do you keep in touch and with what frequency?

Trust. Are you being genuine & authentic?

Prof. Mark Granovetter, Ph.D. Sociologist at Stanford University

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Relationships get stronger when you regularly share your

time, knowledge, generosity and network connections.

The “Relationship” Secret

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Learn to identify the right triggers to act on

Other examples include… • Prospect is now at the 40% stage of the sales cycle • Customer just sent out an unhappy tweet about our service • There was a major merger at their company

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Make it: • Meaningful

• Unexpected

• Personalized

How you action a trigger matters!

Knowledge Personal Network Your Time Gifts

Handwritten Cards

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”In a world that is being reshaped

by the relentless advance of

technology, what stands out are

acts of generosity and

connection that remind us what it

means to be human.”

– Bill Taylor, cofounder of Fast Company magazine

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Contact Info

Frank Falcone, Founder & CEO

Triggerfox Corporation

Direct: 416-435-5458

frank@triggerfox.com

@frankcrm