(or a group of people) with power needs to see the vision and opportunity of how a solution can help his or her organization defeat the competition, enter new markets, regain and/or capture customer share, produce significant shareholder value, or provide a competitive advantage to the company.
Gary, a sales rep reporting to Jerry Ellis, one of our principals, was selling planning solutions systems to a large health care organization.Relationships Alone Are Not Enough, EitherTogether, they had gained access to the companys vice president of finance, Bruce, who reported directly to the CEO.
While meeting with Bruce, they asked him why he was planning to replace the current use of Excel in his organization with a new budgeting and planning solution. Bruce responded with a long list of reasons why the current use of Excel required was overly time-consuming and caused his team to work long hours, including weekends, to meet the continually changing requests of senior management.
After listening to Bruces explanation of the frustration the current approach caused his team, Jerry said, I know senior management is concerned about your teams quality of life, but the tool you are using now gives them the information they are asking for. I doubt they will spend $250k just to make your life easier. How will you justify our solution to them?
Bruce then explained the real strategic justification he would use for the new system: It would allow them to move newly acquired health care facilities into their overall process faster, which would ultimately save them money faster and enable them to more quickly add to the overall bottom line.
This team knew that without linking the purchase to more strategic pains, Bruce would not receive funding approval. Through this questioning, they confirmed that the solution could be linked to the strategic gains of powerful stakeholders and that the project sponsor could articulate linkage between their solution and these strategic gains.
Another flaw we see in some organizations is that they focus on building preference through linking solutions alone or through relationships alone. If you focus on linking solutions alone, you ignore the power of relationships. There are over 50 ways that people build influence with each other.
Stephen Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, refers to this as building emotional bank accounts with each other. Ill trust you for two reasons: (1)because youre an expert, youre reliable, you can solve my problems, you have the company and the functionality behind you, and I know youll get the job done, or (2)because we went to school together, you know my family, youre my friend, you know my business, youve worked with us before, and I know youll work night and day to get things done for me.
But what if its a tie? If its a tie, Im going with my friend. Whenever the product or solution is a tie, relationships are the differentiator.
But when its a high-risk situation and Im betting my job or the company on it, I cant go to the committee or my management and say, I prefer this company because the salesperson is my friend. I have to provide a business case for why I prefer you over another company.
Frankly, were just not that lonely.
About a year ago I spoke with a trade association, and the head of procurement for a major electronics retail organization was there. He said something to the effect of, People call on us all of time saying that they want to be partners and build a relationship with us. Yes, we do have partnerships. We have about 3 strategic alliances and 12 preferred vendors. But everybody else is a commodity to us and we put them out for reverse auctions. People come by and say they want to have a relationship with us. Frankly, were just not that lonely.
While there are some lonely buyers out there, they still have to build business value for having selected your company. In relationships alone, you can linger, but you cant last. On solutions alone, you may get outsold while you have a superior product if you dont have strong enough relationships.
Our principal, Joe Terry, was working a big deal once where the divisional vice president had the power of a gorilla in an algebraic democracy. His vote counted the sum of all votes plus one.Joe had a good relationship with the vice president, based on previous experience, and assumed that he had a preference for our firm.
But in the executive presentation, the vote came down to five for Joe and one against him. After some research, Joe discovered that the vice president was also personal friends with the competitive salesperson and played golf with him every week.
Turns out, the vice president, who we thought was our ally, was the one vote for the competition.
Joe knew that he had the superior solution, so he went to the vice president and said, I know you have a difficult decision to make because you are also friends with my competitor.
After talking with Joe, the vice president agreed that Joes solution would achieve his strategic objectives and that it would be very risky for him to try to achieve those same objectives with the competitors solution.
Joe suggested that the vice president abstain from the vote and allow the other five people on the committee to make the choice. This way, he could tell his friend, Joes competitor, that he had been outvoted.
This proved to be a way for the vice president to save face with his friend and to reach his business objectives by going with the better solution.
Joe won the deal, and the vice president became one of the biggest supporters that drove the initiative throughout the company.
The key to this strategy was to recognize that personal preference was only good if he could also solve the problem. Had Joe not had a relationship with the vice president, he probably could not have had this type of discussion with him. And if he had not had a superior product, relationship would have not been enough to win the deal.