“Power of Influence” is a thought stream focused exclusively on channel and strategic alliances. With that said, who is your customer? I would submit that most of us would say it’s the buyer or consumer of your core offering (the end user). That is true, but there is another customer that is equally if not more important. It’s your influence base. By example, I’ll refer to these profiles as “Customer A” (buyer) and “Customer B” (influencer). I think most of us understand the Customer A profile, but it’s important that we also understand and identify the Customer B profile in our engagements. In some cases, Customer A will not make a purchasing decision without the endorsement or recommendation of Customer B. If you’ve participated in the Holden sales training, you might recognize Customer B as the “fox” in your engagement. You need to identify the “fox” early on in your engagement. The “fox” may not be the decision maker, but the decision maker may look to the “fox” for validation or guidance.
So who is Customer B? Customer B can be a partner, broker, consultant, project manager, business analyst or a variety of other influence roles that Customer A looks to as a trusted adviser. We need to get practiced at identifying the Customer B profile. This is important not only in advancing an opportunity you’re currently engaged in, but more importantly the Customer B profile can introduce you to new opportunities you otherwise would not be aware of – in other words, Customer B can be a great lead-gen source to build your pipeline.
Once you identify Customer B, you may have to shift your sales and engagement strategy. Customer B isn’t buying the same “product” as Customer A. You’re selling trust and value to Customer B. He needs to trust that you’re not going to introduce anything that will negatively impact his engagement with Customer A. He’s the trusted adviser and very protective of his relationship with Customer A. It’s our job to make Customer B feel comfortable with you individually and the organization you represent. We need to understand what motivates Customer B. In all likelihood it’s not your core offering. Here are some key bullets that are important to Customer B depending on their role:
- Protect trusted adviser status
- Mitigate risk
- Differentiate from competition
- Provides additional value to clients
- Generates additional revenue
- Supports compensation structure (accelerators, commissions, etc.)
- Protects and extends customer engagements
- Accelerates sales cycles
- Diversify product/services portfolio
You’ll notice that none of these bullets have anything to do with your core offering directly. When dealing with Customer B we need to reinforce these business drivers so we can get to the core offering discussion and illustrate how we can deliver value and drive revenue. This will ultimately lead to an endorsement or recommendation to Customer A, but also incent Customer B to refer you into his client base. The force multiplier of getting more Customer A engagements is first selling Customer B with an alternative value story that speak his language (not yours or the company you represent).