Use the current contact to find who owns the problem, learn who can act on it, and reach that person through the contact's knowledge. Make the next stakeholder concrete before asking for access. Naming a possible stakeholder reduces the prospect's need to mentally review everyone at the company.1 It gives the contact something specific to confirm, reject, or correct, which makes the handoff easier to discuss.
Before the call
Before the call, choose a route to test and decide what you need to learn from the current contact and what a useful handoff would look like.
Ask: "Who are we meeting with today and who do we want to meet with after this call?".2 Write the answer beside the account notes and use the conversation to test it. When what you hear does not fit the expected route, change the target while you still have the contact's attention.
Find the owner
Start with the problem and assign responsibility. Ask: "Is this person responsible for solving the business pain our solution solves?".3 Find the problem and identify who on the team can solve it.4
A useful answer names a person, team, or route and gives the pain a clear owner. Move on once you can state who owns the problem and how the current contact connects to that person.
Use the current contact as a route
Build rapport with participants who lack authority so you can learn what happens next from them.5 If you are not at the right stakeholder, steer the conversation toward the right people.6
Ask who gets involved as the problem moves, who the current contact would bring in, and what would make an introduction easy. Keep the contact in the conversation as a guide to the account. Their value may be the route they can open when they cannot solve the problem personally.
Name and test the next stakeholder
Choose the next contact based on what they can own. The person worth pursuing owns the problem, feels the workflow pain, or can route you to the owner.7
Validate an unfamiliar name through a known contact by checking the person's current role and relevance to the purchase before relying on them.8 Ask whether that person handles the issue and what context they will need. A plausible name becomes useful when the contact confirms its relevance.
Ask for the route
Once you have a likely owner, turn the referral into a route. A referral is a reply that directs you to a different, correct person.9
When direct contact with the economic buyer is needed, ask: "What is the best way for me to communicate with you if I need to contact you directly?".10 Then agree who will make contact, what context they will carry, and when to follow up. If a champion already knows how to reach the next stakeholder, reinforce that approach.11
Keep the map visible
Keep the route visible after the call so ownership carries between conversations. Contact mapping should define counterpart roles and responsibilities and reduce overlaps and gaps inside the organization.12
Record the owner, the person who can open the route, and the next action. After each real conversation, test the map with three questions: "Who's missing? Who can block this? Who will present the business case internally?".13 Update the map when people give you new information and remove routes that no longer match what the account tells you.
What not to do
Create a way to return a misrouted referral and capture feedback.14 When the current contact cannot solve the problem, ask who can solve it.15 Keep the customer problem with the person who owns it and hold that person accountable.16