{"id":2658,"date":"2026-10-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/addbusiness.be\/?p=2658"},"modified":"2026-08-27T10:52:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T10:52:05","slug":"upstream-prospecting-1-2-3-method-new-contacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/addbusiness.be\/en\/2026\/10\/05\/upstream-prospecting-1-2-3-method-new-contacts\/","title":{"rendered":"Where do you fish: upstream or downstream?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”4\/6″][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”281463″]Ahti Levaho, a sales leader at Eltel Finland, once asked me a question I could never quite shake: ‘Marc, where are you fishing? Upstream or downstream?’. In an earlier piece I wrote that the client now comes to the table already knowing, on equal footing, and that as a result value now emerges only in the conversation. That immediately raises a harder question. If the conversation is so decisive, how do you even get to it with a new contact? The answer is not: send more. It is: choose more carefully where and how you cast the line.<\/p>\n

Downstream is crowded, and usually too late<\/h2>\n

Downstream is where most salespeople stand. That is where tenders are published, where leads come in and where campaigns wait for results. The water is wide and calm, and everyone is standing in it. You fight on price, on speed, at the last minute. And here it connects to the previous blog. As early as 2012, Adamson, Dixon and Toman showed that B2B buyers work through most of their buying process before they ever speak to a salesperson (Adamson, Dixon and Toman 2012); Gartner later calculated that a buyer spends barely seventeen percent of the journey with suppliers (Gartner 2019). By the time that buyer has written out the request, the information asymmetry has already vanished entirely and the shortlist has already been drawn up in their head. In ninety-five percent of the deals that were won, the winner was on that list on day one (6sense 2025). Downstream you no longer have a conversation. You have a comparison. And in a comparison you are, as I wrote before, just another data point.<\/p>\n

Upstream is where the conversation is still possible<\/h2>\n

Upstream it is different. There the plans are still in motion, there the right people are still thinking things through, and there is room for a real conversation, long before there is a tender. That is not romance, it is strategy. Narver, Slater and MacLachlan (2004) showed that a proactive market orientation, in which you help shape latent needs before the client articulates them, predicts new success better than merely reacting to what the market already asks for. Upstream is exactly that: you are there while the need is still forming, not once it has already been written out. So do not fish harder. Choose better where you cast the line.<\/p>\n

Calling more is not a strategy<\/h2>\n

The reflex with a thin pipeline is volume. More emails, more calls, more campaigns. It feels productive: opening a list of two hundred names and hitting send has the texture of work. But mostly it multiplies noise, and noise is precisely what the client runs into everywhere already. The upstream approach rests on three convictions that run directly counter to this.<\/p>\n

Scarcity creates attention. <\/b>Someone who senses they were deliberately chosen, rather than selected in bulk, responds differently. It is the scarcity principle that Cialdini (1984) described, applied to your first contact. The physical world lies fallow. <\/b>Now that inboxes have become pure noise, a handwritten letter stands out: neuroscientific research shows that physical mail is processed with less cognitive effort and remembered better than email (Canada Post 2015). Personalization is the highest lever. <\/b>Tailoring your message to how someone really thinks and decides is the most valuable thing you can do before you send anything.<\/p>\n

A bit of network science helps with the selection. Granovetter (1973) showed that it is not your strongest but your weak ties that open new doors. Burt (1992) refined this: the real value lies in bridging ‘structural holes’, the gaps between groups that do not yet know each other, because that is exactly where you find non-redundant information and new opportunities. The ideal prospect therefore sits in the sweet spot: roughly five to fifteen shared connections. Too few and you are invisible; too many and you no longer bring any new information. A warm introduction through a shared connection is always the strongest upstream move.<\/p>\n

The 1-2-3 method: five choices per week, three steps<\/h2>\n

In practice this translates into a single rhythm: five deliberate choices per week, three steps, and the patience to let a conversation ripen. It starts with selection, before the first letter. Five people per week, chosen on three criteria: do they fit who you really help, do they sit in the sweet spot of shared connections, and do you have real context about their situation? And read how someone thinks before you write a single word.<\/p>\n

Step 1: the physical package. <\/b>A postcard, a personal handwritten letter, and a QR code to a dedicated landing page. The letter says three things: why you are contacting this particular person, what you recognize in their situation, and which hand you are extending. The landing page is not a sales page but a verification screen: ‘Who is this person, and is this worth my time?’. The headline I use says it all: you are not looking for more clients, you are looking for the right ones.<\/p>\n

Step 2: the connection. <\/b>You do not push, the recipient chooses: a LinkedIn connection, a phone call, or a coffee right away. That is not a detail. It is exactly the equal footing from the previous blog, put into practice. The client is at the wheel, you offer.<\/p>\n

Step 3: the cockpit conversation. <\/b>Short, five to fifteen minutes, no pitch. The other person already has context, so you ask sharp questions instead of explaining. Rackham (1988) showed long ago that success in complex sales is tied to the quality of your questions, not the force of your arguments: does this fit now, is this the right moment, what is really going on? Exactly the conversation the previous blog was about.<\/p>\n

You are not looking for more clients. You are looking for the right ones.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Why this works on equal footing<\/h2>\n

Every part of this approach respects the new reality. You choose deliberately, because you only have something to say to those you truly understand in their context, their job-to-be-done (Christensen and Raynor 2003): that is the conversation beyond the expertise. You let the client verify for themselves through the landing page, because they want to be at the wheel. You let them choose the channel, without pressure. And your conversation is sensemaking (Adamson 2022), not a sales pitch, because value does not arise in what you tell but in the interaction itself (Vargo and Lusch 2004). That is how you approach new contacts in a world where the client already knows everything: not with volume, not with information, but by earning one real conversation, at the right moment.<\/p>\n

In practice: <\/b>do not open a list of two hundred this week. Choose five. For each one, write down a single reason why you are contacting that specific person, a reason that fits no one else. Send one thing by post. And then wait for them to choose. Upstream does not start with sending more. It starts with choosing better.<\/p>\n

References<\/b><\/p>\n

    \n
  • 6sense. 2025. B2B Buyer Experience Report<\/i>. San Francisco: 6sense.<\/li>\n
  • Adamson, Brent. 2022. \u201cSensemaking for Sales.\u201d Harvard Business Review<\/i> 100 (1): 48\u201357.<\/li>\n
  • Adamson, Brent, Matthew Dixon, and Nicholas Toman. 2012. \u201cThe End of Solution Sales.\u201d Harvard Business Review<\/i> 90 (7\u20138): 60\u201368.<\/li>\n
  • Burt, Ronald S. 1992. Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition<\/i>. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.<\/li>\n
  • Canada Post. 2015. A Bias for Action: The Neuroscience Behind the Response-Driving Power of Direct Mail<\/i>. Ottawa: Canada Post.<\/li>\n
  • Christensen, Clayton M., and Michael E. Raynor. 2003. The Innovator\u2019s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth<\/i>. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.<\/li>\n
  • Cialdini, Robert B. 1984. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion<\/i>. New York: William Morrow.<\/li>\n
  • Gartner. 2019. The B2B Buying Journey<\/i>. Stamford, CT: Gartner.<\/li>\n
  • Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. \u201cThe Strength of Weak Ties.\u201d American Journal of Sociology<\/i> 78 (6): 1360\u20131380.<\/li>\n
  • Narver, John C., Stanley F. Slater, and Douglas L. MacLachlan. 2004. \u201cResponsive and Proactive Market Orientation and New-Product Success.\u201d Journal of Product Innovation Management<\/i> 21 (5): 334\u2013347.<\/li>\n
  • Rackham, Neil. 1988. SPIN Selling<\/i>. New York: McGraw-Hill.<\/li>\n
  • Vargo, Stephen L., and Robert F. Lusch. 2004. \u201cEvolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing.\u201d Journal of Marketing<\/i> 68 (1): 1\u201317.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Series \u00b7 Value in the conversation \u00b7 Add Business<\/i>[\/vc_column_text][uncode_block id=”887″ inside_column=”yes”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How to approach new contacts when the client already stands on equal footing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-2658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-navigation-points","tag-value-in-the-conversation"],"yoast_head":"\nWhere do you fish: upstream or downstream? - Add Business<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why calling more is not a strategy, and how the 1-2-3 method lets you approach new contacts upstream: selectively, physically and on equal footing, long before there is a tender.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/addbusiness.be\/en\/2026\/10\/05\/upstream-prospecting-1-2-3-method-new-contacts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Where do you fish: upstream or downstream? 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