Attaching your solution to a business problem/initiative

Hayden Middlebrook

What is the best approach to determine who to speak with that holds this information? We sell into construction, and our best initial point of contact isn't usually our champion (lacking influence at big companies).

Lets say I've done a good discovery but they can only provide insights into their problems, not the businesses as a whole. Would you ask for an intro to a higher-up employee, or just go around and see if you can connect with someone, give them context, and try to run a discovery? Please let me know if this makes sense.

Tim Caito

Hayden - No surprise that those dealing with "The Problem" may not be aware of the upstream/downstream business issues it creates. As you might suspect, your first step is discoveDecision. specific questions about upstream/downstream impact.

I've found success asking questions your contact will recognize as important, but will not likely know the answer to. For example... Who besides you/your team will be impacted if this problem is resolved? Walk me through how the current approach is creating problems/inconvenience/delays for others upstream or downstream from you? What groups here are dependent on this issue being addressed? If they had a say in it, are there any additional interests (Decision Criteria) they would want addressed in the solution you go with?

I've found it best to first explore these answers with our contact to determine their awareness of the business impact and their political influence in their organization. Depending on the complexity of the situation you will likely need to speak with others across the prospects business anyway. You're just asking for guidance on the broader impact of the problem, not just seeking other names you can call on over the head of your contact.

Finally, I prefer knowing my contact's level of political juice before I blindly "go around" them. When positioned correctly, these discovery questions may cause your contact to realize that it's in their best interest to introduce you to others in their own company who may have more visibility to the business impact of their decision. So this also becomes a way to test a potential Champion's ability to get you access to the EB.

Joern Wozny

Tim is absolutely right and the easiest way is of course to ask your current contact person specific questions. However, if this person is very operationally located in a specialist department and is not networked at these strategic levels, then you can also use external sources, which is a little more time-consuming but can be worthwhile. But www.perplexity.ai can help to limit the research effort

In general, business goals and company initiatives can often be found in publicly accessible sources, such as annual reports or quarterly investor relations reports, press releases or via third parties (manufacturers, service providers, etc.) that already have business relationships with the customer.
However, if your prospect is not obliged to publish such reports and information and you don't have third party contacts, you can look at the competitors of this company who publish such reports and research what is currently driving them and what the measures are for business and market developments.

With this information, it is often possible to deduce which role in the company could be responsible for this kind of projects. You can then use the LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find the relevant people.

If you know all of this, you can then make an “informed guess” with your contact and usually reach your goal quickly. And you even qualify as an industry expert ;-)

As for contacting people other than your current contact person, I think it is advisable to do this very early on, before a kind of social hierarchy has formed, if you only talk to one person for a very long time.

Ralston McCracken

Hayden,

In addition to the great content already provided by both Tim and Joern, I thought I' d add giving consideration to the political environment within the prospect - how much do we know about it, how complex is the structure, what is the hierarchy, where is the base of power and how does you current contact fit within all of that? The more senior a contact is within an organization, typically the more power and influence they have, but how well are they respected by their peers and those higher up within the organization? Having assessed you current contact against criteria to asses their status and the amount of "clout" they have, you can then form a plan of action. For example, does your contact have the potential to be developed into a true Champion? If so, you'll want to keep them engaged and invest in that individual, as ultimately they could work with you to build a value proposition that jointly you and your Champion could present to the Economic Buyer.

Going around someone can be risky and therefore we should assess that risk before doing anything. We don't want to create enemies unnecessarily, or even worse, cause an upset contact to become a Champion for a competitor. And if you do go around someone, who would you go to next? How do you identify who within the prospect knows about the business as a whole and once identified, how do you engage with them? Instead, why not get the blessing and cooperation of your known contact to understand the political hierarchy and then ask them to not just make introductions, but to go along with you to those meetings.