Last week one of the sales team here at Passle closed an important deal.  

I asked him how he sold to the Managing Partner of a fast-growing professional services firm and he said it all started with an event we sponsored.  No surprises there.

However, it was a surprise when he told me that the Managing Partner who bought Passle was not at the event and that we - as a firm - did not know the Managing Partner at the time.  In fact, we were not in any way targetting the Managing Partner or the firm.

The deal came about in the following way

1. My colleague created a post about a presentation at the event given by a speaker with a great network. 
2. The post was created as soon as the event finished. It was shared on social.
3. Importantly my colleague reached out to the speaker, who shared the post to his network on LinkedIn.  

What happened next was really important.  When the Consultant's network reacted to the post my colleague in sales was sure to interact with them.  Not in a salesy 'buy us' shouty way but in a way that showed his interest in the challenges faced by those who interacted with his post.  

By creating the content my colleague in sales had created an opportunity to sell through the network of the Consultant whose presentation he wrote about.

Have a watch of the video below by Adam Gray Co-Founder at Digital Leadership Associates.  Adam provides a fabulous summary of how you can sell through your network rather than to your network - exactly what my colleague did last week.