On July 7, I had the opportunity to work with Merchants Bonding Company as a sales consultant, and it was a timely reminder that not every sales environment rewards speed, volume, or aggressive outreach. Merchants specializes in underwriting surety bonds, typically for construction and commercial projects, and their Mid-Atlantic team, headquartered in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, operates in a relationship-driven world.
For this team, success depends on building trust with agents who can recommend Merchants as the underwriter for the right deal. Those agent relationships are not a nice-to-have; they are essential to the lifeblood of the business. Without them, opportunities do not flow.
That reality creates a very different sales motion than what I have often seen through my work at Superhuman Prospecting. Many of our clients are used to high-volume outreach, calling a minimum of 100 contacts a month and, in some cases, reaching thousands. In those environments, my skill set has been built around creating value early, often before a relationship is fully established.
What made this engagement so interesting is that the Merchants team sits on the opposite end of the spectrum. This is account-based, relationship-first prospecting in a market with very limited volume.
Every prospect matters.
When you are working with a territory that may only have 20 truly cold potential agents and another 30 where some level of contact or relationship already exists, the margin for error is small. If you come in too strong, too transactional, or too eager to push the sale, you are not just burning through one name on a list. You are potentially damaging one of a very small number of opportunities in your market.
That is why I told the team that this kind of selling requires a different balance. In many situations, I might recommend an approach that is 80% resonance, messaging, and tactical sales execution, with 20% focus on relationship-building. Here, I would flip it. In this environment, 80% of the effort should go toward helping people know who you are, understand how you think, and feel that you are someone worth knowing. The remaining 20% can be reserved for the sales conversation itself.
This is exactly where The H2H Method comes in.
At its core, The H2H Method is about building business relationships human to human, not script to script. It recognizes that when accounts are also part of your community, people can immediately tell the difference between someone trying to force a pitch and someone genuinely trying to create value. That is why one of the most important ideas I shared with the Merchants team was this: slow the process, speed the trust.
That phrase is not separate from The H2H Method; it is an expression of it. When the market is small and the relationships matter deeply, trust must come before traction. Sales only happens sustainably after the relationship is earned.
I am very confident this group will grow their agent relationships this year, especially because their offering is both relevant and needed. Just as importantly, I have enjoyed getting back into the consulting saddle.
Ten years ago, being a sales consultant was the dream. Back then, I may have had a knack for sales, but it was still just a knack. What changes you is depth of experience. Working across industries and helping more than 1,600 businesses in 50 different industry combinations has taught me far more about how humans connect to products and services than any single role ever could.
It feels good to be back out there helping salespeople succeed while hating the process a little less.
If this approach resonates with you, visit theh2hmethod.com to learn more about The H2H Method and how to build stronger, more human sales relationships that actually last.
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