I’ve just written the title of this blog and realised that it could be taken in a number of different ways! To avoid confusion, it refers to selling a product or service to the most senior person that you can in an organisation and never determining what the impact might be lower in the organisation.
Imagine you are the CEO of CapGemini, Wipro or other similar global IT service company. I suspect that you could arrange fairly easily to have a call with the CIO of a major multi-national such as Johnson & Johnson or Shell. Senior people like to talk to senior people and I’m sure that it would be an interesting conversation.
Imagine that during the call you propose that the multi-national outsources all of their IT requirements to your service provider. You can do it cheaper, provide a wider range of skills, only require one interface etc. It sounds very appealing. However, large service providers tend to lack domain knowledge. So, in vertical markets, while they can provide generic services, some specialist services are required from specialist companies. Of course, while the CIO will know of their company’s basic requirements, they will not necessarily know of their specific requirements.
A similar example comes from the implementation of CRM systems. These customer relationship management systems are sold on the basis that they can provide an oversight of an entire business. Again, they are sold to the people at the top of the organisation, for whom, that oversight is very important.
However, for these systems to be worthwhile, data has to be entered and this usually falls on the shoulders of people lower in the organisation. They need to enter customer information but seldom use that information as they already know all about them. The information is entered for the benefit of senior management but requires time from those lower in the organisation.
In both scenarios, a system, process or service is sold to the person at the top without consideration for the people below who are most impacted. I would contend that this is not a great sale. It may appear to solve senior management problems and save them money in the short term, but it fails to work in the longer term.
It may well be possible that these solutions will work for a company but they must involve the people who are directly impacted by the changes. Only if they buy into the change will it be successful. This is why it is so important for any sale to involve both ends of the value chain, the top and the bottom.
By involving both ends, you can understand both perspectives of the problem. Even if the solution is mandated, it is important to understand the implications so that sufficient effort can be made to ensure that any problems can be managed before the solution goes live.
It can be straight forward for a senior buyer to be seduced by an all encompassing solution and they may not bother to fully consider the implications. It is therefore critical that the sale person ensures that all parties involved are considered and their needs met by any change.
Failure to do so may win you a deal today but it is unlikely to win you much repeat business.