Founder & MD at Tenacious Sales (Operating internationally as Tenacious AI Marketing Global)
Answered 2 months ago
We once secured a sizeable client purely because of consistent LinkedIn content. There wasn't a big pitch. No aggressive outreach. We'd been publishing regularly, sharing insights, frameworks, and honest views about where marketing was heading. Quietly, that content was doing the nurturing for us. When the prospect's previous agency underperformed, we were already top of mind. They reached out to us randomly to us but not to them and asked how we could help them. That was the win, not just the client, but the shortened sales cycle and higher trust going in. The advice I'd give is this, treat LinkedIn content as a long term nurture funnel for your personal network. Don't post just to impress strangers. Post to educate and stay relevant to the people already connected to you. When the timing aligns and they have a need, you won't have to convince them. The groundwork will already be done.
Early on at Green Planet Cleaning Services, I landed our first major commercial client entirely through a personal connection that I had been nurturing for over a year without any expectation of business from it. A friend from my local business networking group managed properties for a boutique real estate firm in Marin County. We would grab coffee every few weeks, and I never once pitched my services during those conversations. I just genuinely enjoyed learning about his challenges in property management and sharing what I was learning about running a service business. One day he called me and said one of his managed properties, a high-end vacation rental, needed a reliable eco-friendly cleaning service because the previous company had been using harsh chemicals that were damaging the hardwood floors. He immediately thought of me because he already knew our approach and trusted our quality. That single introduction turned into a contract covering three properties, and the property owner later referred us to two other homeowners in his circle. What started as a casual friendship generated over twenty thousand dollars in annual recurring revenue, all with zero marketing spend. My one piece of advice for nurturing these relationships is to stop treating networking as a transaction. The moment people sense you are calculating what they can do for you, the relationship loses its authenticity. Instead, focus on being genuinely useful to people in your network without keeping score. I made a habit of sending articles, making introductions for other people, and checking in on how their businesses were doing without any agenda attached. When an opportunity eventually came up where my service was the perfect fit, I was already top of mind and had a foundation of trust that no amount of advertising could replicate. The best marketing wins come from relationships you built before you needed them. Marcos De Andrade, Founder and Owner, Green Planet Cleaning Services
I was sitting in a coffee shop in 2019 when a college buddy texted me about his wife's struggling DTC furniture brand. They were hemorrhaging money on a 3PL that kept damaging their shipments. I connected them with a regional fulfillment partner I'd worked with during my morgue-warehouse days, someone who specialized in oversized items and actually gave a damn about packaging. Within three months, their damage claims dropped from 12% to under 2%, and they started posting those stats on social media. That single testimonial became their entire marketing angle for the next year: "We care about your order as much as you do." They grew 300% that year, and I didn't charge them a dime for the intro. Here's what I learned about founder networks that nobody talks about: the real value isn't in asking for favors, it's in becoming the person who solves problems before they're asked. When I was scaling my fulfillment company to 10 million in revenue, I spent probably 20% of my time just connecting people. Brand founder needs a freight forwarder? I know three. 3PL operator looking for warehouse automation? Let me intro you to someone who just implemented it. I never kept score. The mistake most founders make is treating their network like a vending machine. They show up when they need something, punch in their request, expect results. That's not a relationship, that's transactional garbage. I make it a point to check in with key people quarterly, even when I don't need anything. Sometimes it's just forwarding an article I think they'd find useful. Sometimes it's a two-minute voice memo about a trend I'm seeing. The compounding effect is wild. When we launched Fulfill.com, I didn't have to cold-pitch a single 3PL for our marketplace. I had relationships with hundreds of operators who trusted me because I'd spent years being useful first. That's not networking strategy, that's just not being a selfish founder. Give more than you take, and marketing becomes a lot easier.
Back when I was still building my investor network in St. Louis, I grabbed lunch with a real estate photographer I'd hired a few times, and during our conversation he mentioned a homeowner on his block was quietly considering selling due to mounting repairs but hadn't listed yet. I reached out with zero pressure, just offered to walk the property and share what options made sense for their timeline, and we closed that deal within two weeks--that photographer has since become one of my most reliable sources for off-market leads because he saw me put the homeowner's peace of mind first. My advice: invest time in the people who are already in the trenches with you--contractors, photographers, inspectors--by genuinely caring about their business challenges and celebrating their wins, because those are the folks who will think of you the moment an opportunity surfaces.
One of my best marketing wins came from the University of Houston/Wolff Center network--an alumnus who runs a local real estate meetup in Denver invited me to do a quick "how to price a cash offer without games" talk, and that single room turned into multiple inbound seller calls and a clean off-market deal because people had already heard me explain the process transparently. My advice: don't only reach out when you need something--send a periodic, no-ask check-in with something genuinely useful (a contractor intro, a quick market note, or a title/probate resource) and always follow through fast when someone asks for help.
The clearest example I have is when a former colleague shared GPUPerHour.com in their company Slack after I mentioned I had launched it. I did not ask them to promote it. I just told them what I was building in a casual conversation, and they did it on their own because they immediately saw the use case. That one share went into a channel of about 200 engineers and researchers who were actively spinning up GPU instances for ML workloads. Within a week I had a noticeable spike in traffic from what looked like a corporate network, and a few of those visitors came back repeatedly. Some eventually found me through other channels and mentioned they had heard about the site internally. I could not have paid for that kind of reach because that audience is not reachable through ads. They are too technical and too skeptical. But they trusted the person who shared it, and that trust transferred. The advice I would give is to tell people what you are building before you have something polished to share. I told my network while the tool was still rough. The people who care about the problem you are solving will spread it because it is useful to them, not because you asked them to. That authenticity is what makes it actually work. Nurture relationships by being genuinely useful to people, not by treating them as a distribution channel.
We chose to expand our foot care line onto TikTok Shop recently. The reason was to reach a new demographic, but our initial ads tanked. We didn't know how to fix it. I shared our awful numbers in a private group I host for e-commerce founders. A guy selling automotive accessories handed me his exact playbook for seeding micro-affiliates. We tried his method. It slashed our acquisition cost by 40% in weeks. I've found that the best growth tactics usually come from outside your specific bubble. If I'd only talked to other health brands, we'd still be stuck. What worked for us is engaging with founders in totally unrelated industries. And honestly, not just swapping pleasantries. We shared our ugliest metrics. It was the moment we admitted we were failing that someone handed us the exact strategy we needed.
When I was coaching freshman football at my old high school, one of the parents mentioned at practice that his uncle was struggling to keep up with repairs on a property after a health scare--I didn't pitch him anything, just offered honest advice on his options. Three weeks later, that parent introduced us, and we ended up buying the home in a way that relieved a ton of stress for his family, which led to word-of-mouth referrals within their church that brought in two more deals that quarter. My advice: show up consistently in spaces where you're just being yourself--coaching, mission work, community events--because people do business with those they've seen care about something bigger than a transaction.
One clear marketing win came from leaning on my founder network right after we had a meaningful product milestone. I shared a tight press release draft with a couple of trusted operators and editors I'd built real relationships with over time, and one introduction turned into coverage that snowballed into additional inbound. That same week, the story got picked up in places like Entrepreneur and Forbes, and the credibility lift made every sales conversation easier because prospects felt like they were choosing a known brand, not taking a risk. The advice is to nurture relationships long before you need them, and do it like a professional. Stay in touch with value, make clean introductions, share useful intel, and keep your asks precise and easy to say yes to. People help founders who show up consistently, respect time, and return favors without keeping score.
I started a global branding and digital marketing firm 24 years ago in Cambridge, MA and most of my business comes from networking. In the first few years of my business before things had really taken off I did not know how much is too much for follow up — being persistent vs a stalker. I had pitched a CEO about a month before I ran into her at a networking event for a group of women business owners we were both members of and where she was the keynote speaker and her topic was about being a woman leader in a traditionally male-dominated business. I had followed up after sending my proposal several times via e-mail and voice mail but the CEO never returned any of my messages or even acknowledged receipt of the proposal requested. I thought I was being pleasantly persistent but I was nervous to see her at the event because I thought she might think I was stalking her. You can imagine my shock when she announced at this event as part of her speech that she believes it is important to put your money where your mouth is and for women CEOs to support other respected & well-run women's businesses and that is why she has hired my firm to handle all her company's marketing & PR! Everyone congratulated me after, it was a better endorsement than the New York Times because she was very well known and had the reputation of being very tough with high standards so I got a LOT of business from people in the room that night because they thought if I was able to impress her I must be very good. To think I almost did not even show up maybe seeing me there is what prompted her to pull the trigger and hire us? I sold more business in the month that followed than l ever had since starting my company so we really began to scale quickly at that point and got a lot of referrals as a result! It was a big day in our history for sure. Wasn't it Woody Allen who said 80% of success is just showing up. It is a strategy that has worked for me and has been fun way to build my marketing business.
Hi, My personal network led to a major marketing win when a former colleague introduced me to a top-tier industry podcast host, resulting in a 25% spike in organic traffic and our highest-converting lead month to date. Because the endorsement came from a trusted mutual connection, the "social proof" bypassed months of traditional cold outreach and established immediate authority with a skeptical B2B audience. My best advice for nurturing these relationships is to prioritize "low-friction value" by sharing relevant industry insights or making introductions without expecting an immediate return. I maintain a "Give-to-Ask" ratio of at least 5:1, ensuring that when I do reach out for a partnership or referral, the relationship is already rooted in mutual growth rather than a transactional favor. At SellerMax, I focus on building strategic ecosystems where data transparency and personal trust intersect to drive scalable business results. Happy to provide more detail if helpful. Vitaliy Content Team, SellerMax
Early on at Nerdigital, my personal network paid off when I contributed to a digital marketing trends piece for a well-known publication and took the extra step of reaching out to the editor with thoughtful content ideas and a plan to co-promote the final article. That collaboration turned into an ongoing relationship that led to additional features, podcast invitations, and introductions to other voices in the industry. The marketing win was not just the single placement, but the compounding visibility that came from staying helpful and easy to work with. My advice is to nurture relationships by leading with value first, without treating every interaction like a pitch. If you consistently show up with useful insights and follow through on what you offer, people remember and they come back to you.
Founders often underestimate the ROI of a strong network. Early in Get Me Links, a personal connection to an editor opened a door for a client campaign that would have otherwise stalled. I treat networking as co-creating value, not collecting contacts. I nurture relationships by sharing wins, learning from failures, and giving first without expectation. That approach turns acquaintances into allies. One campaign illustrates the power: 30 backlinks generated a 5,600 percent traffic increase in five months. Several placements came directly through relationships I had invested in over time, proving that trust trumps cold outreach. "Relationships are compounding assets. If you invest in them authentically, they will pay off in ways spreadsheets cannot predict." Happy to share practical ways founders can maintain connections that translate into tangible marketing wins.
I once struck up a conversation with an estate planning attorney at a manufactured home park where we were renovating units, and instead of pitching him, I just asked what roadblocks his clients hit when inheriting property--six months later, he sent me a family dealing with a mobile home estate they couldn't afford to maintain, and that lead turned into a smooth transaction plus three more from his referral circle. My advice is to show up where your ideal partners already work and ask curious, non-salesy questions about their client pain points--real relationships grow when you're focused on understanding their world, not promoting yours.
I once sat down with a local wholesaler who was struggling to find a buyer for a unique property in Madison County that most investors wouldn't touch. Because we had a long-standing rapport built on honesty, I was able to give him a transparent offer that solved his bottleneck while securing us a project that turned into a great case study for our marketing. My advice is to leave every interaction with a 'net-positive' feel, meaning you help them solve a small problem even if there's no immediate deal, because people remember how you leave them feeling more than the details of the conversation.
(1) Early on, my network helped us land a credible third-party voice without a big spend. A former colleague introduced me to a women's health clinician-educator who was already creating evidence-based content. Instead of pushing product, our team shared our manufacturing and QC approach and asked for feedback on our educational framing. That relationship led to a co-created webinar and Q&A that performed well based on our internal tracking: higher email capture and a noticeably better conversion rate than our typical paid social traffic, largely because the audience trusted the educator and the content was specific and non-sensational. (2) Treat relationships like a long-term research loop, not a one-off ask: be useful first, be precise about what you need, and close the loop afterward. I've found the fastest trust-builder is following up with outcomes and learnings ("here's what resonated, here's what we changed"), and giving credit publicly to the people who helped. Over time, that consistency turns a network into a reliable channel for honest feedback and high-trust marketing moments.
A student from one of my real estate investment classes brought me a complex probate deal they couldn't close alone, and instead of just taking it, we partnered together to get it done. That single act of collaboration not only solved a tough situation for the sellers but also solidified my reputation as a genuine mentor, leading to more joint ventures than any marketing campaign ever could. My advice is to always look for opportunities to partner rather than just transact, as helping someone else succeed is the most powerful way to build your own pipeline.
My Airbnb properties near Augusta National took off largely because a local restaurateur I'd gotten to know through my years in the industry started personally recommending my places to out-of-town guests he hosted -- that word-of-mouth filled my calendar during Masters week faster than any listing optimization ever did. The advice I'd give is simple: stay genuinely curious about what the people in your network are building, because when you care about their success, they naturally become invested in yours.
One marketing win came from my network of fractional CXOs, because I could bring in a specialist fast to sharpen the offer and the positioning before we spent money on traffic. It turned a vague campaign into a clear message, and enquiries lifted because the buyer knew what they were getting. My advice is to nurture the network when you do not need it. Share useful context, make clean introductions, and follow through, because trust is the asset that makes the "one quick call" possible.
One clear example is when we used the trust built through our plumbing work and our membership in Master Plumbers ACT as a marketing lever when launching J&J Renovations. That network of professional contacts and satisfied homeowners allowed us to present a consistent message about quality workmanship and transparent pricing. My single piece of advice for nurturing those relationships is simple: show up when you say you will and communicate clearly. Reliability, clear pricing up front, and finishing work to a high standard turn everyday service calls into ongoing referrals and lasting business relationships.