A relationship map is a working document that shows the people inside an account, how they relate to each other, and where you stand with each one. Done well, it changes how a deal is run. Done poorly, it is a slide that nobody opens after the kickoff.
This post walks through a three tab relationship mapping template, how to actually fill it in for a real account, how to turn it into a visual map in Miro or Lucidchart, and how the same model gets built directly inside Salesforce. The Excel template is free to download.
For the broader playbook on the discipline, read Relationship mapping. This post is about the template.
Why a relationship map matters
A B2B deal is not a buyer and a seller. It is six to ten people on the buyer side, with different goals, different incentives, and different opinions about you.
A relationship map exposes that complexity. It forces the seller to ask three questions for every named contact. What does this person care about. How do they relate to the other stakeholders. How well do we know them.
Without a map, a seller relies on the loudest voice in the room. With a map, a seller can see who is missing from the conversation.
The 3 tab template at a glance
The template has three tabs. They are designed to be filled in order.
Tab 1: Org chart nodes. One row per stakeholder. Captures the basic facts.
Tab 2: Relationships. One row per relationship between two stakeholders. Captures the social fabric of the account.
Tab 3: Our coverage. One row per stakeholder. Captures the seller's relationship with each person.
Together, the three tabs are the input to a visual map. Excel is the source of truth. Miro, Lucidchart, or your CRM is the visualization layer.
Tab 1: Org chart nodes
Each row captures a person.
Name. Full name.
Title. Their formal title.
Function. Sales, finance, IT, security, legal, operations, or whichever cross functional team.
Reports to. The name of their manager. This is what builds the org chart shape.
Role in deal. One of: economic buyer, champion, decision maker, influencer, user, blocker, gatekeeper, neutral.
Power level. High, medium, or low influence over the decision.
Stance. Supporter, neutral, skeptic, or detractor toward your solution.
Source. How you know what you know. LinkedIn, conversation, champion intel, public record.
The bar is high but achievable. If you cannot fill in stance for a stakeholder, you do not know that stakeholder.
A typical mid market deal has eight to twelve rows on this tab. An enterprise deal can have twenty or more.
Tab 2: Relationships
This tab is the difference between a contact list and a relationship map.
Each row is a directed relationship between two stakeholders.
From. Stakeholder A.
To. Stakeholder B.
Relationship type. Reports to, peer, mentor, ally, rival, gatekeeper, blocker.
Strength. Strong, moderate, weak.
Notes. Any context. They worked together at a prior company. They are known to clash on budget. The CFO trusts the CIO over the head of operations.
The patterns that emerge are usually the most important deal intel you can have. The CFO and the CIO disagree on this kind of decision. The head of marketing has more influence than her title suggests because she is close to the CEO. Two of the engineers on the buying committee report to a manager who is not yet in the deal.
This is the tab most sellers skip. It is also the tab that creates the most leverage when you put in the work.
Tab 3: Our coverage
This tab inverts the lens. For each stakeholder, what is your relationship with them.
Stakeholder. Name.
Coverage owner. The seller who owns the relationship. Usually the AE, but can be SE, exec sponsor, customer success, or anyone on the account team.
Relationship strength. Strong, moderate, weak, or none.
Last meaningful interaction. Date and what happened.
Trust level. From their side. Do they trust you to be straight with them.
Risk. What is the risk to the deal if this person disengages or turns negative.
The pattern that emerges is your coverage gap. You have strong coverage of the champion and the user. You have weak coverage of the economic buyer. You have no coverage of the security lead.
That gap is where the deal loses or wins. Not in the demo.
Filling the template in for a real account
Here is the rhythm.
Start with what you have. Pull every named contact from your CRM. Pull anyone who has been on a meeting. Pull anyone the champion has mentioned. Get them all on tab 1.
Get titles and reports to from LinkedIn. Most org structures are visible on LinkedIn, especially in tech and SaaS. Walk up the org chart from each contact you have to identify the gaps.
Add the unknowns. Every account has people you should know about who you have not met yet. The CFO. The CIO chief of staff. The procurement lead. Add them as rows even if you only have a name and title.
Sit with your champion. Walk through the org chart. Ask them: who else is in the room. Who has the most influence. Who do you worry about. The conversation will fill in tab 1, populate tab 2, and surface what tab 3 is missing.
Stress test the stance column. For every contact marked supporter, what is the evidence. A signed proposal is evidence. A friendly demo is not.
Update weekly during active deals. A relationship map is living. The shape of an account changes through a buying cycle.
Turning the data into a visual map
Excel is the source of truth. Visualization is what makes it useful in a meeting.
Two common tools.
Miro. Drag and drop boxes. Connect them with lines. Use color for stance and shape for role. Quick and flexible.
Lucidchart. More structured. Can import the Excel data and auto generate the chart with formatting rules. Better for accounts you will revisit often.
The visual map should fit on one screen. If it does not, you are over including. Show the people who matter. Annotate the relationships that matter. Hide the noise.
A clean visual map can be walked through in five minutes by anyone on the account team. That is the bar.
Building the same map natively in Salesforce
A spreadsheet plus a Miro board has a shelf life. The data goes stale. The Miro link gets buried. Nobody updates either after the deal closes.
Inside Salesforce, the same model becomes durable.
Contact records. Every stakeholder is a Contact. Custom fields for role, power, stance, and trust.
Relationship object. A custom object that holds the relationship between two contacts. Type, strength, and notes.
Coverage tracking. Activities and tasks rolled up to the contact tell you when you last interacted, with whom, and what happened.
Visual map. A native Salesforce relationship map view that renders the same data as a visual chart. The chart is always current because the data is always current.
The key shift is durability. Excel and Miro are great for one off mapping. They are bad at staying current across a long sales cycle, and worse at carrying intel into the post sale relationship.
For a deeper comparison of mapping tools, see Best relationship mapping tools.
Common mistakes when using the template
A few patterns to avoid.
Filling out the template once and never again. The map is only useful if it is current. Update it after every meaningful conversation.
Listing everyone you can find. A 40 person map is a phone book. Limit to people who matter to the deal or the relationship. Quality of map beats quantity of names.
Skipping the relationships tab. The relationships tab is what makes this a map and not a list. If you are tempted to skip it, you do not have enough information yet.
Marking everyone a supporter. If your map shows nine supporters and one neutral, you have a stance calibration problem. Most stakeholders in most deals are neutral or unknown.
Hiding the map from the team. The map belongs to the account team, not just the AE. The SE, the CSM, the exec sponsor, and the SDR all benefit from seeing the same picture.
Download the template
Get the free Excel relationship mapping template with all three tabs, prefilled examples, and a coverage gap summary view.
Download the relationship mapping template
Related reading
Bring this into Salesforce with CRUSH
A spreadsheet relationship map is the first version of the practice. The next version lives in your CRM, where the data stays current and the team works from one picture.
CRUSH builds relationship maps natively in Salesforce. Stakeholders, relationships, stance, and coverage all sit on the account record. The visual map renders directly from the data. No manual sync, no stale Miro board, no lost intel after the deal closes.
