Advocates
Advocates receive the most benefit from any proposed goals. They are responsible for making sure your products achieve their goals. Advocates become your internal salesperson because they have the most at stake. They become your coach—a coach who wants you to win. They sell the benefits of their goals—and your products—within their organization without you being there. They know what it takes to get the FDM to say yes. Often, the advocate’s recommendation is all it takes to get orders. The FDM’s approval is merely a rubber stamp.
Sometimes, an advocate will tell you that he or she doesn’t need you to make a presentation. The advocate wants to handle it on his or her own. This situation often occurs because the advocate is not sure what you will say in front of his or her boss. Ask your advocate if there are any topics he or she doesn’t want you to bring out at a meeting with the boss or others. You will continue to build trust as a confidant with this approach.
You also need to point out to the advocate that if you aren’t at the meeting, any unanswered questions/concerns can take on a life of their own and jeopardize the goals he or she wants to achieve if these questions are not addressed promptly. Offer to make your presentation and then leave so the advocate and his or her boss can discuss any concerns without you there. However, agree to wait outside (and out of earshot) until they summon you when they have completed their internal discussions. Answer all concerns at that moment or set up a return meeting if you need to review these concerns with your sales team.
Everyone wins with this approach. You present (after all, no one can make a presentation better than you—or they should be working for your company as a salesperson), the customer gets to discuss matters in private, and you address any concerns immediately, so the advocates and your goals are not at risk.
Their role becomes critical to your success if you cannot meet with the FDM. Now, you need the advocate to sell your formal proposals to them. If you format your proposals properly, they will guide advocates in their selling efforts. By highlighting goals, measurable benefits, SOEs, and unique strengths in your proposals, advocates sell measurable value the same way you do.
Note Ask your initial contacts to draw an organizational chart to help identify their role in the company. Ask them to draw their direct subordinate and supervisor boxes. Ask them also to draw any dotted line boxes (staff positions). Find out how these positions (people) interact with them with respect to purchasing decisions and the amount of sway (political influence) they have.
The Final Decision Makers
The saying, “The buck stops here,” definitely applies to FDMs. They release or allocate money to achieve any proposed goals. They also give the final approvals on the measurable specifics of the four prerequisites. If they choose to delegate their responsibilities, they decide who becomes the anointed FDM. Sometimes, they skip the advocate and appoint the gatekeeper as the FDM. This is yet another reason not to ignore the goals and filters of gatekeepers.
Note Consider these two requirements as the acid test for the FDM: They must be able to (1) release funds and (2) approve the SOEs used to calculate the value derived from achieving specific goals.
Locating the Final Decision Makers
You try to locate FDMs by using your customer knowledge, experience, and educated guesses. You can also locate FDMs by reviewing sales opportunities you lost and won in similar-size organizations and market segments. Ask yourself, “What positions made the final decisions involving those sales?”
Once you review your answers, factor in one more aspect to complete your evaluation. Are you contacting positive, neutral, or negative customers? (See Exhibit 4-2.) Using your answers as reference points, you would:
For positive customers, start at the same contact level.
For neutral customers where you had successes, start at the same level. Begin one level higher where you lost sales.
For negative customers, start one level higher than the position of your positive customers.
Type Of Customers
Past Contact Levels
Revised Contact Levels as Compared to Positive Customers
Positive
Position X
Same level
Neutral
Position Y
Same (successful) or one level higher (unsuccessful)
Negative
Position Z
One level higher
Exhibit 4-2: Customers are positive, negative, or neutral.
Top-Down Often Beats Bottom-Up Selling
Many public figures (Arthur Clarke, Mark Twain, and Henry Kissinger) have commented that debates among academics become vicious because so little is at stake. In the debate over where you begin your sales calls, a lot is at stake. If you start your sales calls with the gatekeeper or the advocates, he or she might block you from the FDM. If you start with the FDM, he or she might redirect you to gatekeepers or advocates who feel you went over their heads. So, where do you start? Again, it depends on whether sales opportunities involve positive, neutral, or negative customers. However, often top-down selling means starting with C-level positions: chief executive officer (CEO), chief operating officer (COO), and chief financial officer (CFO). Make sure you know their goals, industry trends, company market position, and so forth. These chiefs will demand that you do before you meet with them.
How Much Sway?
When dealing with a gatekeeper, advocate, or final decision maker, you want to evaluate his or her influence or sway on the purchasing decision. For comparison purposes, assign sway a 1, 2, or 3 value as follows:
Can’t define measurable benefits gained from achieving his or her goals
Defines measurable benefits of goals and systems of evaluations used to calculate benefits
Defines measurable benefits, SOEs, and releases funding
You should question why you worked up a proposal if your contact doesn’t qualify as at least a 2 in the sway category.
Contacting Neutral or Negative Customers
Start at the highest position that would receive the most financial benefit from your product. That is probably the FDM. The higher up the organizational chart you go on your initial contact, the more receptive these positions are to change. Their perspectives are more concerned with the so-called big picture. They do not think in terms of specific products, but rather measurable results. Results-oriented individuals with broad goals are excellent candidates for you. They reward sales professionals for converting their general goals into measurable value and benefits.
Conversely, the lower you start on the organizational chart, the more resistant individuals are to change. Their goals and responsibilities are narrower. They think more in terms of specific products than broad goals. They equate measurable value with lowest prices or fastest deliveries. Yet, a common sales mistake is to start with negative or neutral customers at the same level (position) you do with your positive customers. While you are more familiar with these positions, they are not your best place to start. Fortunately, competitors fall into the same trap with whom they should contact first. First one out of the trap wins.
Contacting Positive Customers
Continue to work with the decision-making roles that make sales happen. If the person is not the FDM, use the one up, one down strategy. Encourage your contacts to set up meetings at least once a year with the FDM (“one up”). Make sure that if your contact leaves, the FDM knows how you provide value for the company and will pass the word on to your contact’s replacement, making it easier for you to maintain the company as a positive customer.
In addition, meet with your contacts’ subordinates (“one down”). If your contact leaves, a subordinate might be promoted to fill the vacancy. It benefits you for the person to know the goals you achieved for his or her company. Past goals that produced measurable value are your best assurances that companies, not just contacts, remain positive ones.
Note Most salespeople who have a history of sales successes dealing with gatekeepers or advocates rarely meet with the FDM. They do not feel they have any reason to meet other than for public relations. Again, this presents you with excellent sales opportunities to dislodge competitors. Nothing beats the surprised look on competitors’ faces when they find out they lost sales to you—and they did not even know you or their contacts’ bosses existed.
Contacting Gatekeepers or Advocates at the FDM’s Request
Often, FDMs require you to obtain the approval of advocates or gatekeepers before they enter the purchasing process. You use the FDM’s interest to help raise the interest level of advocates or gatekeepers when you meet them. When contacting advocates or gatekeepers, even at the FDM’s request, keep your focus on their goals and filters first. You earn the support of gatekeepers and advocates when you help them to achieve their goals. They might not be the same as the FDM’s goals, but they must be met. Otherwise, you will not make it back to the FDM. A good sign of their support is when gatekeepers or advocates encourage you to meet with the FDM after your meetings.