To borrow a line from infomercials:
How many times has this happened to you?
You are invited to a meeting with a new account interested in your firm’s services. The person with whom you initially meet is not the decision-maker. This “influencer” wants you to bring them a proposal, so that they can take your recommendations to the person who has decision authority. You properly request a second meeting to include this person; that access is denied. You are told, “they want me to gather the information.” Or, “that isn’t going to be necessary”. Or, “they are too busy”.
Or…. any one of a number of other lame explanations.
You are left with two options
You can go ‘conventional,’ meaning that you do as you are instructed, and deliver your proposal to a person who is not making the decision. Or, you can go ‘nuclear’. You can simply go over the person’s head, and attempt to access the decision-maker yourself.
Which is a better strategy? Well, that depends.
First, let’s look at the easier, conventional approach.
If you do as you are told, your proposal will be placed in the hands of a buyer who never meets you, knows next to nothing about your company’s value proposition, has a different set of issues than your influencer, gets virtually none of their questions answered, and makes a poorly-informed decision based solely on price. Put another way, this exercise has now become a waste of your valuable time, as you have less than a 15% likelihood of a ‘yes’.
Of course, there is one nice benefit – you avoid upsetting anyone. Second, let’s consider the Nuclear Option. If you essentially ignore the request of your influencer and attempt to deal directly with the decision-maker, you will probably offend your initial contact and impede whatever slim chance you initially had of doing business with the account. That’s a big risk to take. Under what circumstances is the risk worth it?
Do you go big or go home?
The following factors tend to favour the Nuclear Option:
- A large, complex sales opportunity. High-cost, complicated decisions require your having access to anyone with a vested interest in the outcome. In such cases, you cannot serve the account properly without this access.
- The level of your initial contact. Some ‘influencers’ have more of it than others. A manager or higher-level influencer has considerably more clout than an administrative assistant. The role of the influencer is therefore critical. A person acting simply as a delivery mechanism for your proposal isn’t going to help you much.
- Your relationship with the influencer. A cooperative partner is a valuable asset; an antagonistic stone-waller is a hindrance to both you and the business that employs them.
- The competitive playing field. Are you the only option being considered, or are you up against other firms bidding for the same opportunity?
- Lastly, and more importantly, what do you have to lose? If the answer is ’nothing’, then the decision to go Nuclear is made for you.
If you decide to go Nuclear, there is a way to minimise collateral damage: begin the process by writing a ‘following up’ letter to the decision-maker after your initial meeting with the influencer. In this correspondence, review the key issues that you discussed with the influencer. Bullet and bold these items. Ask the decision-maker to review the list. Let them know that you will follow up with them on a specific date to discuss these points and answer any questions they have. Lastly, and this is critical: copy the influencer on the letter.
Yes, you may get a phone call from the influencer, and yes, the tone of the person may not be what you would like. However, if your motives are noble – and, by the way, they are – this is usually a sound, and largely safe, strategy.
Will good sense prevail?
What you are banking on – and, in my experience, what you can expect – is for the following sequence to occur:
- The decision-maker reviews your list of key points
- The decision-maker does not agree with the points shared with you by your influencer, or sees that some critical items were left out of the mix
- The decision-maker contacts you to discuss these items.
This sequence is what should have happened to begin with, because it was always in the account’s best interests to involve the other parties. When this happens, everyone wins, including your influencer.
You produce a proposal that reflects everyone’s needs, the account gets a set of recommendations that are customised to multiple concerns, and the influencer is no longer solely accountable for managing the entire decision process. Finally, in those cases – and, rest assured, they will happen – where you ruffle a few feathers, it is worthwhile to remember the old Jesuit saying: “It is better to ask forgiveness than permission.”
