The importance of relationship mapping in B2B sales

Business-to-business (B2B) sales are complex. When salespeople don’t fully understand the relationships between their business and their prospects, it’s all too easy for potential customers to go from, “tell me more” to, “unsubscribe”.

Relationship mapping gives B2B sales teams the information they need to close more sales in record time. But what is a relationship map, and why is it so impactful? In this article, we’re breaking down why you need relationship mapping, how to create a relationship map, and the tools you can use to automate the process.

What is relationship mapping?

Relationship mapping consists of creating visual maps of the relationships between two groups of people. In B2B sales, a relationship map shows connections between your organization and an existing or prospective customer’s business. The map allows you to see the key players within organizations so you can quickly identify the members of your team who can facilitate warm introductions and understand which key accounts may be at risk due to a lack of engagement. 

Relationship mapping can be a complex task without the right tools, but having a visual representation of customer relationships can help your sales team become more effective and efficient. 

Why relationship mapping is essential for deal teams

The buying—and selling—process is more complex than it seems. New research by Raconteur shows that it takes an average of 11.4 key decision makers to make a purchase decision. That means that for every B2B sale your team is working on, there will be around 11 team members from your customer’s organization involved in the decision to buy from you.

With so many relationships and connections, keeping data organized meaningfully can be a challenge. An org chart helps, but it leaves out one key element that can make or break your sales process—relationship data. 

A relationship map gives you a visual representation of a business, similar to an org chart. But it also shows you the connections between the key stakeholders at any given company and team members in your organization. With a relationship map your sales team can clearly understand which individuals are influencing buying decisions and how you can best reach those people. A relationship map also gives you insight into where you may have connection gaps so you can create a relationship management and development plan. 

Additionally, relationship mapping can bring historical relevance to your data, so you can see how relationships have grown and changed over time. 

The benefits of relationship mapping

The power of relationship mapping lies in the immense value that can be revealed from your connections and relationship data.

Here are three benefits of relationship mapping.

1. Understand key customer accounts 

Relationship mapping helps sales teams better understand their key customer accounts. When you can see how your organization interacts with your customers—historically as well as right now—you can better serve them. You’ll know at a glance their business needs, who makes buying decisions, and when you last spoke with them, as well as finer details like whether you should call or email a specific individual for the best results.

You’re more likely to build positive relationships when you know who and how to approach a business. For example, if you reach out to the wrong contact person at a company, you may try to sell to someone who has no power to make decisions. 

With a relationship map, you can see who makes buying decisions at the company, how your business has interacted with them, and who at your company can provide a warm introduction.  

2. Increase customer retention and loyalty

Building trusting relationships with your customers helps to foster a sense of confidence in your company and creates a culture of loyalty. Relationship maps are a great tool to help you effectively build relationships. When you pair your customer support with relationship intelligence, you’ll see an increase in retention and loyalty because people want to do business with people they trust.

3. Close more deals quickly

Finally, relationship mapping helps you close deals faster. Relationship maps give you a clear path to move through your sales process. By knowing who to reach out to and how to best reach out to them, you can speed up your sales cycle by 25%. 

How to create a relationship map

If you’re starting the account planning process or want to understand the relationships within your key accounts better, grab a pen and paper and get ready to brainstorm. 

These four steps will help you manually create a relationship map for your business.

1. Make a plan 

Before undertaking any new sales activity, you should devise a plan. For relationship mapping, your plan should include the steps below, but it should also define which customer accounts you’ll be mapping and a goal for each map. Maybe your sales team can use the relationship to upsell a customer on a new service, or perhaps the goal is simply to update your records and data for opportunities to reach out in the future. 

2. Identify stakeholders 

Once you have your plan in place, you can work on mapping your relationships. For each company, identify the key stakeholders and any other employees with whom your team has connections. 

Lay out the names like an organizational chart so you can see the levels within the company and understand who reports to whom. This will ensure you’re always aware of the dynamics at play when reaching out to an individual.

3. Define relationships between stakeholders 

It’s time to lean into the relationship intelligence side of relationship mapping. Remember, it’s more than just a standard organizational chart—the connections between individuals are what inform your relationship map. 

Spend time getting relationship information from your team members. You need to understand every relevant individual at your company and how they connect to the individuals at your customer’s company. You may need to sit down with your team members to get this information, but once you have it, you can draw lines connecting your organizational chart to theirs. This reveals who knows who at your customer’s company. 

Assign each person at your company a color so you can see a visual representation of how the two companies are connected.

4. Rate the strength of the relationships

Now that you’ve mapped how the two organizations are connected, dig deeper to understand the strength of each relationship. During your initial conversations with your team members, try to get an understanding of each relationship. Consider asking the following questions: 

• Is this person a key decision-maker in the organization?
• When was the last time you spoke with this person? 
• How often do you speak to them? 
• Is there anything of note about this relationship? 
• Would you consider this a positive (they’re a champion or supporter of your business), negative (they’re a detractor), or a neutral relationship? 

Once you have the answers to all these questions, you’ll have a better understanding of the relationships within each customer and prospect organization. 

With the available information, create a rating system to give each relationship a score. Some sales teams use a 1-10 scale, or you can use color coding to rate the relationships. The 1-10 scale is helpful when you have more information to qualify your decisions, whereas the color-coded scale is better when there is less information to analyze. 

For example:

• Red/0-4 = Weak
• Orange/5-7 = Good
• Green/8-10 = Excellent

This will help you understand which relationships are the strongest and which may need more attention.

Creating a manual relationship map is research-intensive and time-consuming, but sales teams can’t deny the benefits—and the results. Relationship mapping tools can help you get the most out of your data without the heavy lifting. 

The best relationship mapping tools

While there is nothing wrong with creating a relationship map by hand, you can get the same information while saving time with a relationship mapping tool. Using the power of automation and artificial intelligence (AI), relationship mapping can help to deliver value data and insights, improve CRM adoption, and streamline the sales process without hours of manual research and data entry. 

These tools can help you integrate relationship mapping into your sales process. 

Affinity for Salesforce

Automation and AI come together to create powerful relationship maps packed with value and insights when you use Affinity for Salesforce. Get a complete view of every relationship across your company with key insights to help you move deals forward and close them quickly. 

Affinity for Salesforce allows you to understand your entire company’s network of connections, the strength of those shared relationships, and gives you the added benefit of historical context.  

With Affinity for Salesforce, your historical engagement data is used to create a historical relationship map. You’ll instantly gain a deeper understanding of existing relationships within your customer accounts. 

Automated activity capture into Salesforce means you can rest assured that your team will continue to collect and record the data you need to keep relationship mapping accurate and up-to-date. Affinity for Salesforce automates record creation and data enrichment, giving each seller back 200+ hours a year that would usually be spent on manual data entry.

ClickUp

While not a standalone relationship mapping tool, ClickUp has the tools to create relationship maps using the data you input into their CRM.

Using ClickUp Mind Maps, you can identify the different relationships between your company contacts. You can conduct your relationship mapping in real time to outline connections, map out workflows, and assign tasks to team members. Your team can also share relationship maps across your organization.

Prolifiq 

Prolifiq offers a robust relationship mapping tool that syncs with your Salesforce data. Using Prolifiq, you can identify key stakeholders and document their roles and influence over the sales cycle. Track stakeholder engagement throughout the sales cycle to understand how invested individuals are during the sales process. 

Prolifiq also assigns relationship scores to each relationship so you can understand how many supporters, champions, and detractors you have at an organization. 

Drive deals with relationship intelligence

Relationship mapping software creates a solid foundation for sales strategies, all while saving your company time and money. To get the most out of your relationship maps, ensure they’re backed by relationship intelligence.

Affinity for Salesforce gives you the data to drive higher-quality deals with automatic relationship insights. Get an in-depth walkthrough to see how Affinity for Salesforce can help you close deals 25% faster.

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Relationship mapping FAQs 

What is the difference between relationship mapping and relationship intelligence?

The difference between relationship mapping and relationship intelligence is that relationship mapping is the process of mapping your organization’s network of relationships. Relationship intelligence reveals the complex connections between companies and people and the quality of those relationships. Relationship mapping takes relationship intelligence and visualizes how two companies are connected while also understanding the strength of each relationship. 

What is the difference between relationship mapping and an organizational chart?

The difference between a relationship map and an organizational chart is that relationship maps consider the relationships between two companies. Relationship mapping takes two organizational charts and finds how they connect while adding context to those connections. An organizational chart shows the internal structure of one business by detailing the organization’s roles, ranks, and responsibilities.

Who can benefit from relationship mapping?

Business-to-business (B2B) sales teams can benefit from relationship mapping. They can use the information they gain from relationship maps to conduct warm introductions, build positive relationships with their customers, and speed up the sales process. 

What role does automation play in relationship mapping?

In modern relationship mapping, automation plays a significant role. While you can still create relationship maps manually, using a third-party automated integration gives you the power to access relationship intelligence you may not have known existed. With Affinity for Salesforce, you can integrate your historical communications data into your CRM to create rich, accurate relationship maps.