How To Recruit For Your Centers Of Influence

By Andrew Z. Brown, Bridgemaker Referral Programs

When I speak at conferences about how to increase the speed at which companies can rapidly generate new revenue, I frequently get asked, “Why should we consider having a strategy for leveraging Centers of Influence (COI)?”

I addressed that question recently, in part, by outlining the pros, cons and risks of rolling out a successful COI program. But, let me answer the question in another way that rings true with software executives across North America. Every ambitious company strives to achieve excellence throughout their entire operations. Of course, the reality is most attention and resource — particularly in growing software companies — is spent on two core areas: 1) constantly improving products to stay ahead of competitors’ offerings and; 2) selling the product faster to capture ‘early adopters’ and lower the average cost of acquiring new customers.

On the plus side, adopting this laser-like focus produces outstanding innovation, scalable products, and a culture that remains nimble. However, it also creates unintended negative consequences. Specifically, it causes a company’s growth and profitability to plateau far below its potential. That’s because, by maintaining a singular focus on building world-class products and highly-automated marketing-sales infrastructures, companies inadvertently neglect cultivating relationships with the people who can truly take them to the next level.

If this sounds all too familiar, you’re in good company. In fact, over the last 15 years, I’ve conferred with hundreds of senior executives from companies such as ADP, Best Buy, Eventbrite, Facebook, ING, Canada Goose, LinkedIn, Softchoice, Envision Design, Transcontinental, and Uzenzele. One theme that surfaced across all these industry leaders was the importance of establishing, nurturing, measuring, and constantly refining positive relationships — well beyond those that drive sales transactions.

So, let me address the issues that are likely coming to your mind now, including:

• Who should you recruit for your COI program?
• How should you recruit members of your COI program?
• Who should recruit members for your COI program, on board members to your COI program, and manage the program once it’s up-and-running?

Who You Should Recruit For Your COI Program

Building your COI program means harnessing the skills and motivations of people who will enthusiastically build the strength and reputation of you, your company, your product, and your brand. The good news is that, unlike traditional channel, re-seller programs, and consumer-based referral programs, COI programs yield immediate- and long-term business results because the focus is on each influencer’s unique ability to help you meet your growth goals.

To do that, means determining the degree to which your chosen ‘influencers’ are credible in the eyes of stakeholders who are important to you (e.g. prospective customers, members of the media, partners, employees, sponsors, etc.). After all, credibility is the key quality determining your chosen influencer’s ability to have a meaningful effect on how others view you/your company.

When you evaluate the credibility of potential influencers for your COI program, do the following:

• Avoid relying heavily on measuring credibility based on measures of ‘popularity’ or social media-savviness (e.g. number of followers on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.).
• Contact members of the stakeholders important to you and confirm the people/sources they use when making important decisions.
• Keep in mind that credibility is often ‘time sensitive’ and ‘context sensitive’ — revolving around a particular challenge or situation. As a result, make sure that you constantly source, on-board and evaluate new members of your COI program to reflect the evolving nature of your business and targeted stakeholders.
• Conduct regular ‘due diligence’ on the credibility of your influencers. After all, if they aren’t effective of shaping perception, you need to decide the degree to which you help them become more effective or ‘cut them loose’ so that you can put energies on those people who can have a strong impact on your targeted stakeholders.

How You Should Recruit Members Of Your COI Program

When recruiting members of your COI program, here are some best practices boiled down to actionable steps:

• The Pitch. Have a clear and concise benefit statement as to why a potential influencer should join your program. There’s no single articulated message that successfully woos all members to a program. Through your actions, you must reinforce the message to potential influencers that you are willing (and able) to accept their insights, respond to their unique needs and be prepared to support their efforts to be more successful at influencing your targeted stakeholders. At the same time, you must convey that you are organized and operate with integrity.
• The Venue. Successfully recruiting members to your COI program requires a commitment to better understanding what is important to them. That means meeting them in-person. While using social media tools helps you develop a cursory understanding of their online activity and interests, doing so is no substitute for meeting your prospective influencers in one-on-one meetings and in social/business setting such as networking activities and industry/profession activities. You want to see them in situations over which they have control (e.g. if/when they host an event, set the agenda, or are speaking to a group) and when they must rely on their interpersonal skills to capture interest and generate conversation.
• The Stages. Choosing influencers to become members of your COI program involves going through the following stages:

• Set the criteria for your members – based on the credibility required to shape the perception of you/your company in the eyes of your targeted stakeholders.
• Draft an initial list of no more than 15 members – recognizing that the list of eligible and willing members will likely drop by 60-70 percent.
• Begin reaching out to potential members to gauge their interest.
• Establish a timetable to validate the degree/type of credibility that potential members have with the type of targeted stakeholders that are important to you.
• Create personalized action plans for each member.
• For each chosen member, conduct a formal on-boarding which includes a review of individual/shared goals, measures of success, upcoming activities, available budget/resources, expected obstacles, and communication protocols.

Who Should Recruit Members For Your COI Program, On Board Members To Your COI Program And Manage It Once It’s Up-And-Running

Recruiting members for your COI Program should ideally be managed by the same person(s) who will be held accountable for the program’s success. That requires a specific combination of skills and experiences (shared with B2B Referral Managers), among them:

• Alliance Management – which allows your Program Manager to develop shared high-level goals and translate them into project deliverables and day-to-day activities for your chosen influencers to execute.
• Change Management – which allows your Program Manager to conduct force-field analysis and establish new measurable processes that keep your chosen influencers inspired and engaged.
• Project Management And Event Management – which prepares your Program Manager to organize the different activities, timetables and required resources that your chosen influencers will be leveraging. At the same time, these skills allow your Program Manager to establish, and report on, reasonable measures of success and keep you and your chosen influencers current on key activities.
• Adult Education – which allows your Program Manager to develop learning sessions and related supporting tools to that improve the effectiveness of your chosen influencers.
• Sponsor Management And/Or Analyst Management – which prepare your Program Manager to anticipate, appease and sway your chosen influencers effectively without any ‘formal’ authority.
• Marketing Communications And Sales Enablement – which allows your Program Manager to oversee and/or develop assets that your chosen influencers will need to move discussions along with your targeted stakeholders.
• Group Facilitation – which allows your Program Manager to address difficult conversations and bring out the best of people in group settings while maintaining a sense of openness, experimentation and fairness.

You can request a structured job description outline for a COI Manager (or B2B Referral Manager) by sending a request to the author of this series (find below).

Watch for the next article in the Centers of Influence series coming June 2019.

About The Author

Andrew Z. Brown is Founder and Chief Innovation officer of Bridgemaker Referral Programs. He is the lead author of the How to Grow Your Business Through Better Relationships series – which includes books on optimizing growth by leveraging referral sources, channel partners and strategic alliances.