Relationship Mapping Definition
Relationship mapping is the act of creating a way to visualize the social connections within a company to see how they affect sales deals. In other words, it brings a static org chart to life by highlighting relationships.
Setting Goals
Before you start building your first relationship map, clearly outline what you are trying to accomplish. For example, will this help guide your account plan strategy or simply help you organize a company’s structure?
Relationship Mapping Tools
Don’t spend hours manually creating a relationship map that will be time-consuming to manage. There is no shortage of tools on the market that helps automate the process. They provide a canvas on which you can map distinct groups and the level of complexity and map robustness is up to the creator. This makes it easy to see digestible parts of an org chart or a full company map to see key stakeholder’s:
- reporting level
- influence
- internal relationships
- if they are a blocker or supporter
Relationship mapping tools enable sales to untangle complicated internal relationships. Contacts can quickly by repositioned on the visual map while employee connections are easily adjusted to reflect relationship changes. This helps sales eliminate admin work from their daily tasks so they can stay focused on selling.
Salesforce Relationship Mapping
If your company uses Salesforce CRM, the key is to choose a relationship mapping tool that plugs directly into Salesforce. Better still, choose a native Salesforce app from the AppExchange so the interface is seamless, your data remains protected, and you can leverage your existing Contact and Account information.
Why Sales Needs It
Because your sales team is already working in Salesforce on a regular basis, or should be, implementing a native Relationship Mapping tool can also boost overall CRM adoption.
Also, as mentioned above, not only does your data remain protected within Salesforce, it’s accessible to everyone in your org. So with a native tool, data is always up to date and immediately visible to other sales reps who need to see the information in a particular relationship map.