If you’re still trying to build pipeline by loading up your “spam cannon,” you’re living in the past. In today’s episode, your host Donald Kelly opens up a conversation with Drew Sechrist, the CEO and co-founder of Connect the Dots (a FREE program that helps you leverage your connections – see the Resources below for a tip to skip the waiting list). Sechrist shares the history of how he got his start as a seller at Salesforce, becoming a top seller, and learning the skills that helped him revolutionize his strategy.    How Relationships Helped a Young Rep Become the Top Seller When Sechrist first started selling, he didn’t have a network to tap into. As he started selling to bigger more complex companies, having connections helped him get his foot in the door. The amount of people selling creates a lot of noise in the market, leaving buyers unsure of who to trust. Personal relationships built Salesforce from the beginning. At the time, there was no way to see how to leverage relationships with the click of a button, but now there are options like Connect the Dots, which shows reps who the buyers are and how to connect with them through the network they have.   Taking Sales Beyond LinkedIn 50-90% of your LinkedIn contacts are people you may not know well, so even if you want to make connections this way, you’re going to face the same lack of trust you’re trying to avoid. CTD offers assistance in tracking relationship strength: whether you have a weak, familiar, or strong relationship with your contact. CTD also shows you a consolidated record of each of your contacts so you can evaluate them at a glance.   The Problem With Cold E-mails Cold e-mailing is out for 2023 – it could even hurt your brand. Buyers are inundated with cold e-mails that target and pitch but don’t offer value. Your open rate might be high, but your response rate might not!   “Just think about it: somebody comes up to you on the street that you don’t know and they’re proposing something to you, it’s like ‘Whoa, whoa, I don’t know you. I’ve got places to go.’ But if your friend comes up to you on the street and says, ‘Hey Donald, I think I’ve got something for you,’ you’re going to give that person a minute to hear them out… Your brand suffers a little bit if you make a request of somebody’s time and it’s not considered to be valuable.” – Drew Sechrist   Resources E-mail drew@ctd.ai and let him know you heard about CTD on The Sales Evangelist Podcast, and you will be bumped to the top of the waiting list for FREE access to this program! Connect the Dots   Sponsorship Offers  This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation.   Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.